Roof top photovoltaic panels for domestic electricity generation

Abstract

The effects of climate change caused by over usage of energy use are being experienced around the globe. Changing weather patterns like prolonged droughts and torrential rains that lead to floods had caused unforeseen effects for the whole world. Singapore’s electricity generation had depended mainly on burning of fossil fuels where the price of fossil fuels had been increasing lately. On the other hand, the price of generating renewable energies had drop due to the advancement in its area of technologies. Therefore, in this study, the viability of photovoltaic (PV) installations in Singapore domestic households was studied. The study includes the current level of PV technologies, the economics of PV market in Singapore and explored the ways to further promote PV in Singapore. In addition, the typical electricity consumption of a domestic household and the solar radiations that Singapore received is surveyed and calculated before using these data to determine the feasibility of PV system in Singapore. The study had shown that Singapore’s location, weather and landscape had made PV system a more possible form of renewable energy as compared to other source of renewable energies. In addition, the price of setting up a PV installations had dropped over the years and thus making it more practical and appealing to install. However, the high upfront cost had deterred people from installing them. Therefore the government and power utility should offer suitable support measures and subsidies together in order to successfully promote PV electricity in Singapore.