Techno economics on grid-connected PV powered cold storage: A case study on various PV capacities

Cold storage facilities can help support economic activities in urban or remote areas, agriculture, or marine front fields. The cold storage refrigerator was initially powered by a utility grid only. However, installation in such a remote area would consider photovoltaic (PV) as a significant additional power source. This research aimed at determining how much introducing PV can help the economics aspect on a 10-ton cold storage monthly operational cost. In this research, the economic aspect has been analyzed on the monthly cost and monthly profit. This work was introducing three grid-connected PV at different capacities to the cold storage refrigerator and then calculating how much the monthly cost has been reduced and how much the monthly profit was earned. The result shows that after introducing three PV capacities at 1 kW, 5 kW, and 10 kW into the cold storage, the monthly operational cost was reduced up to 18%, and it will reduce in a greater amount at any bigger capacity. At profit analysis, the bigger PV capacity earned an increased monthly profit but cannot show a direct correlation with the reduction of the monthly cost. It can be concluded that in our current state, introducing 5 kW PV capacity is the best configuration in a 10-ton cold storage system.