What Are the Effects of Internal Power Supply and Self-Consumption?

An almost total self-consumption of the PV energy makes the operator more independent of the feed-in tariff which now barely covers costs, and it increases the effective value of each generated kilowatt hour. An almost complete internal power supply makes the operator more independent of rising electricity prices and reduces the average cost of each kilowatt hour used.

Internal power supply and self-consumption also relieve the burden on the utility grid since the energy produced on site is also consumed directly on site. For this reason, the importance of technical solutions for optimization of internal power supply and self-consumption is growing constantly.

Normally, self-consumption of PV energy takes place naturally. Whenever a load is switched on while the sun is shining, the PV energy generated at that time is consumed directly.

This means that the energy generated by the PV system naturally flows first to the active loads within the household grid – only the surplus flows into the utility grid. For this reason, a primary function of energy management is to intelligently coordinate the operation of loads with the availability of PV energy, with regard to both quantity and time.