Economic feasibility of PV installations for multifamily houses in Moscow.

While it is evident that photovoltaic installations are becoming more and more widespread globally, demand for them in the Russian market remains low. Considering recent changes in the legal framework, which are beneficial for households with renewable energy, it is crucial to evaluate photovoltaic installation's economic feasibility for the Russian context, which is evaluated in this article. First, the authors created an hourly electricity consumption profile for a typical Russian multifamily house. Then a PV installation was designed and scaled to reach annual net-zero balance and net-zero balance in July for different ways of installing PV modules. After that, a monthly energy balance, considering underproduction and overproduction of electrical energy, was calculated. Finally the costs of PV electricity were calculated including purchased equipment, costs for installation as well as cost for buying electricity not covered by the PV modules and sold electricity during hours of overproduction. The economical evaluation was performed assuming a 30 year lifetime for the PV installation. It is concluded in this paper that PV installations can be profitable in the Russian market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]