The feasibility of self-consumption of energy by solar panels in water services in Spain

Abstract

Energy consumption is one of the main components of the financial cost of water services. To a large extent, this comes from the traditional supply through the purchase of energy from private utilities, which is associated with a certain amount of pollution. This justifies a constant pursuit of the development of alternative energy sources with lower environmental impact and, if possible, lower financial cost. Fortunately, in recent years there have been constant improvements in the technology of solar panels, so that their viability no longer depends exclusively on their environmental benefits or public subsidies but is an alternative that can be financially viable in certain cases. Specifically, in some regions with a high shortage of water resources, there is an important development of non-conventional water sources that consume a significant amount of energy, so this work studies the possibility of substituting part of this energy by self-consumption from photovoltaic panels. In general terms, this possibility is viable from a financial point of view when consumption is low, as the yearly savings from self-consumption compensate for the initial investment. However, the low prices at high consumption levels make it difficult to build large solar panel installations financially profitable.