Concept
Self-sufficiency
- ID
concept:self-sufficiency- IRI
https://solarlattice.org/kb/concept/self-sufficiency- Status
- active
- Also known as
- autarky, energy autonomy, energy self-sufficiency, internal power supply
- Category
- Storage
- Concept kind
- market
Self-sufficiency means covering as much of a site's own energy demand as possible with its own PV energy, ideally covering all of it. It is measured by the self-sufficiency quota: internal power supply divided by consumption. Monitoring shows this quota for a day, a month, a year or the total period. Internal power supply is the energy the household takes directly from its PV system plus any energy it draws from the battery. Without a battery, internal power supply equals self-consumption. Self-sufficiency trades off against self-consumption. A PV system much larger than the annual demand raises self-sufficiency but lowers the self-consumption quota, and a much smaller system does the reverse. To raise both quotas together, you need battery storage or a load profile that matches the PV production curve, because the array's alignment and the weather largely fix when PV power is available. High self-sufficiency protects the operator against rising electricity prices and lowers the average cost of each kilowatt hour used. It pays off once PV generation costs are lower than the cost of buying power from the grid. Energy managers such as the Sunny Home Manager work toward this goal by switching loads on when PV energy is available.
Claims
related_to
c1 drafted · lead
Self-sufficiency rate
SMA calls the metric the self-sufficiency quota: the ratio of internal power supply to consumption over a day, month, year or the total period.
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review note: review: partial - The passages define the self-sufficiency quota as internal power supply over consumption on a current, yearly or total basis, but never mention daily or monthly periods.
c2 drafted · lead
Self-consumption
Changing the ratio of PV generation to demand raises either the self-sufficiency quota or the self-consumption quota, not both.
c3 drafted · lead
Self-consumption rate
Undersized PV gives a high self-consumption quota and a low self-sufficiency quota. Oversized PV gives the opposite.
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c4 verified · fact
Battery energy storage system
Battery discharging counts toward internal power supply. Storage and load-profile matching are the ways to raise both quotas together.
verified by: review-workflowverified on: 2026-10-24
c5 drafted · lead
Feed-in tariff
Falling feed-in tariffs moved system design away from maximizing generation and toward self-consumption and self-sufficiency.
Referenced by
Data