The influence of battery state of charge on self
consumption indices
Tiganasu Cosmin, Cercel George, Nemes Ciprian
”Gheorghe Asachi” Technical University of Iaşi,
Dimitrie Mangeron 21-23, 700050, Iaşi, Romania
cosmin.tiganasu@tuiasi.ro
Abstract— Photovoltaic systems have become more
accessible financially as well as legislatively, so more and more
residential customers choose to use them in the production of
electricity. One of the most important aspects to consider in
their design and exploitation is the self-consumption indices, it
restores the percentage of energy that is used in its own
consumption directly from the energy produced by the
photovoltaic system. It can be improved by a number of
methods, including storage in battery systems.
Keywords—Self-consumption (SC), photovoltaic (PV),
battery storage.
I. INTRODUCTION
Globally, the installation of photovoltaic systems has
increased significantly in recent years, this being given by the
variety of solutions on the market. China, currently has the
largest market share of equipment used in photovoltaic
systems [1,2].
The most common installed photovoltaic systems are
those connected to the grid, where customers automatically
become prosumers, this means that they can sell the surplus
energy produced by the photovoltaic panels in the local
electricity grid and will be paid by the electricity supplier, so
in their case, the production from the PV system must match
the customer's consumption profile [2,3]. The Romanian
market offers to prosumers a very low price for the energy
injected in the local grid, compared with the price paid for the
energy purchased from the grid, this being established by the
regulation from one year to another, in current year being 0,19
lei for each kWh injected in local grid, respectively 0,7 lei for
each kWh consumed from the grid.
Thus, the only option to offer a real help to these users of
photovoltaic systems is to improve their self-consumption
level, as much as possible, meaning the energy produced by
the photovoltaic panels to be consumed is as high percentage
as possible. The main methods of improving this self-
consumption level are methods of load management, such as
reprogramming of electrical appliances, usually washing
machines dryers and dishwashers etc. in periods of time when
we have energy from the photovoltaic system [6]. Another
method involves storing the energy produced in photovoltaic
mode in another form of energy, thermal or electrical. An
example may be the use of excess energy for heating domestic
hot water.
Another method involves storing energy in batteries and
using it at intervals of time when the photovoltaic system does
not produce enough energy to fit the load of the prosumer. All
these methods, presented above, have as main purpose the
improvement of the level for self-consumption indices, a
concept that is defined in paper [5,6] as being the production
of PV energy that is used in local electrical installation, being
the result of overlapping between production and
consumption curves.
The latest studies related to the level of self-consumption
in the facilities of prosumers, show that the energy produced
in photovoltaic regime is used in a proportion of 13-24% [4,5].
This paper determines the proportion of increase of the
self-consumption level with the installation of some battery
capacities.
II. STORAGE TECHNIQUES
Using energy storage methods we can obtain a much better
self-consumption level. Several storage techniques are known,
which have different characteristics regarding storage
capacity, conversion efficiency, the period of time in which
they can store energy, lifetime, etc..
The surplus of electricity produced by the photovoltaic
system can be stored in the form of hydrogen, using a process
called electrolysis. Once obtained, it is stored in containers at
a very high pressure, which can then be converted back into
electricity. This process has a conversion efficiency according
to current studies [5,7] of about 36%, with which we can
improve the level of self-consumption.
This conversion rate is significantly low compared to
storing energy in battery capacities but, in the long term,
hydrogen can be stored with insignificant energy losses.
Photovoltaic energy can also be converted into thermal
energy either for direct heating or with the help of a heat pump
and stored in a tank. This can be a good alternative solution if
the house has a significant consumption of thermal energy for
heating and domestic hot water preparation. Photovoltaic
electricity can be stored in the form of heat such as water in a
tank to be used when demand is high [8].
The local climate can influence self-consumption,
especially in the case of homes with electric heating, cooling
or ventilation. In cold regions, a heat pump can be used to store
water in a boiler for heating and domestic consumption. The
demand for thermal energy is higher in winter while the
photovoltaic source has its maximum in summer, so the
percentage of self-consumption is reduced. In warm regions,
the energy demand for air conditioning coincides with the
daily and annual profile of the photovoltaic resource. The
storage system should not be analyzed for loading and
unloading losses as this would lead to overestimation of self-
consumption.
Another classification that we can make of energy storage
techniques as mentioned in [11] can be based on mechanical,
electrical, electrochemical, or thermal type. In Table 1 such a
classification is presented:
Table 1 Energy storage type PV system
+ - Storage
Battery
Storage Capacities

Storage energy type

Electrical Electrochemical Thermal Mechanical Inverter = = Inverter with
energy with MPPT ~ ~ charge regulator
storage
capacitor lithium ion hot water compressed
storage air
energy storage Load kWh Meter
supercapacitor hydrogen and fuel ceramic pumped hydro
cell thermal energy storage Local Grid
storage
superconductive nickel-cadmium thermal
magnetic energy fluid
storage storage

Fig. 1. Residential PV storage system with AC coupled

For the mechanical energy storage type we can store the
energy in form of kinetic or potential energy. In electrical
energy storage chapter all types of capacitors are included.
Storage
In the category of storage that uses electrochemical
+ -

PV system
Battery
Storage Capacities

systems, all types of batteries with technologies that use = Charge regulator
materials or chemical reactions are included. The thermal =
energy storage uses surplus electricity in thermal storage
applications. =
~
Inverter
with MPPT

Currently the most common types of storage are

electrochemical ones that use batteries and storage in the form Load kWh Meter
of thermal energy. In the case of residential consumers,
thermal storage is the use of electricity to heat domestic hot Local Grid

water. And in the case of electrical storage we are talking

about gel batteries or Li-ion batteries.
III. BATTERY STORAGE Fig. 2. Residential PV storage system with DC coupled
The most common method of energy storage produced by
Proper sizing of the storage system has an increasing effect
photovoltaic systems for residential customers is storage in
on self-consumption, but also has an influence on battery life,
battery capacities.
which is affected by charging and discharging cycles.
The main advantage of this type of storage with batteries Oversizing the system will reduce battery discharges thus
is the fact that after discharging them, they can be charged leading to an increase in lifetime, however this involves
direct from current source, represented by the photovoltaic additional costs.
system. With the help of batteries, through their charging and
Another solution, to limit sudden battery discharges,
discharging regimes, the conversion of energy from DC to AC
involves automation that limits the level of battery discharge,
current is ensured, with a relatively small loss of energy due
so there is no need to oversize the system.
to thermal effect.
Currently used battery systems are characterized by IV. ANALYSIS AND RESULTS USING MATLAB SIMULATION
several technical parameters, such as lifetime, charging This paper approaches that a solution to increase the level
cycles, discharge capacity, storage capacity, nominal voltage, of self-consumption is to store energy in battery capacities,
etc. according to some studies [5,6,10,11] it has been shown that
the efficiency of increasing the SC index along with storage in
From a constructive point of view, we use technologies
batteries has a growth rate between 13% and 24% for every 1
such as: lead-acid (Pb-Acid) Nickel-Cadmium Ni-Cd, Nickel-
kWh installed.
Metal Hydride (Ni-MH) Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion) Lithium-
Polymer (Li -Poly) [10]. In order to correctly determine the method by which we
can improve the level of self-consumption, the values of
Depending on the way in which the storage system is
monthly self-consumption indicators were calculated based on
connected together with the photovoltaic installation, we have
information on photovoltaic energy production, respectively
two types, presented in Fig. 1 and Fig. 2. In the first figure we
active power consumption and injection in and out of the
have a storage system connected directly to AC, the storage
distribution network, for different points. consumption. Thus,
capacity is connected to the PV system through an inverter
studies were performed on the active power consumption of a
with charge controller, and in the second figure we have a
prosumer, taking into account the energy production from its
system connected to DC, which means that we have a load that
own photovoltaic sources.
connects to the inverter with MPPT that later transforms the
DC current into AC [5,7].
 The nominal capacity of the photovoltaic system is 20
kWp, the system being composed of 74 photovoltaic modules
interconnected in series and parallel. The photovoltaic
modules are based on monocrystalline construction
technology, each module having a power of 275 Wp and an
average efficiency of approximately 16%. The photovoltaic
modules are mounted on the roof of the building, their
orientation being perfectly southern at an angle of inclination
of approximately 35 degrees. The photovoltaic system
supplies a non-household consumer, the object of activity
being a car service.
The analyzed photovoltaic system is interconnected to the
building's use network, the electricity generated being used to
cover its own consumers. The inverter synchronizes the power
of the photovoltaic system with the frequency of the system,
having a maximum efficiency of 97%.
The PV output energy database was obtained by
continuous monitoring of the grid-connected photovoltaic
system, covering about a year and a half, from January 2020
to the present. Complete operating data are averaged every 5
minutes.
Thus, we used a consumer profile, which has a
photovoltaic system, whose production curve is presented in
Fig. 3 and consumption profile shown in Fig. 4
Fig. 3. Photovoltaic production for one year
As can be seen in the Fig. 3 and taking into account the
analysis of energy exchanged with the grid for the whole year,
it was concluded that a large part of photovoltaic energy is
injected into the electricity grid of the distribution operator
and only a small part is consumed locally in the installation.
The low values of the generated photovoltaic powers lead to a
shortage of energy, which must be taken from the electricity
grid.
Fig. 4. Consumption profile for one year
Self-consumption indicates the percentage of PV
production that is used directly in the local electrical
installation to supply its own appliances. Given the increased
amount of photovoltaic energy production, as most of the
energy produced is injected into the electricity grid, which
must be indicative of its own consumption of photovoltaic
energy is quite low for the whole year. The daily, monthly and
annual reference periods were taken into account for the
assessment of the self-consumption indicator.
Considering the fact that most of the energy produced is
injected into the network, in order to improve the self-
consumption index and using the matlab simulation program
having at its disposal the data presented in graphical form in
Fig. 3 and Fig. 4, regarding the production of photovoltaic
energy and the consumption achieved, all this over a period of
one year.
In this paper was performed a simulation which took into
account the energy produced and in which I assumed that the
excess energy is stored in Li-Ion batteries and discharged
when the energy produced by the panels disappears, the
simulation started with a capacity of 1 kW increasing up to 25
kW, of where a saturation of the self-consumption level can
be seen. The result of the simulation is presented in Fig. 5.
Fig. 5. The value of the self-consumption level with storage system
As can be seen from the graph, the level of the self-
consumption index increases exponentially with the power
installed in the battery capacities up to a limit, after which it
tends to remain constant. The value of the self-consumption
index in this case can increase up to 38%, if a storage system
of 25 kWh is installed. Regarding the increase of own
consumption indices, a quantitative analysis was performed in
connection with the effect of increasing the capacity of the
photovoltaic system on self-consumption indicators. By
increasing the capacity of the battery system, an increasing
percentage of the power consumed will be covered by
photovoltaic production, which will lead to an increase in the
self-production index. However, the required power cannot be
covered by its own production of photovoltaic energy, the
energy deficit being taken from the electricity grid.
V. CONCLUSIONS
The installation of storage capacities can improve the level
of self-consumption, which increases exponentially with the
power installed in the storage system, until a saturation
moment when the self-consumption level reaches a constant
value, which no longer justifies additional power in the
storage system.
 As can be seen from the simulation, the storage system
improves the level of self-consumption by up to 38%
compared to 16% that was present without the storage system.
Thus we can say that the premise from which this work started
is true.
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