DESIGN OF AN AUTONOMOUS PHOTOVOLTAIC SYSTEM FOR POWERING SMALLER EVERYDAY DEVICES
In the following dissertation, we focus on the ever-growing demand for power and electrification and recognize the lack of supplying fast growing demand in developing countries of Africa. We are addressing the problem of non-existing or very unreliable national grid. Rapid growth in the photovoltaic industry is setting new benchmarks in yields, therefore presenting itself as a very suitable and appealing solution for solving the energy supply problem and to replace the conservative energy sources like paraffin and diesel. Because of geographic characteristic of African countries and developing world in general, photovoltaics naturally seem as an appropriate way of energy generation. The proposed solution, to overcome an undeveloped national grid infrastructure and bring clean form of energy to every home, is to design a photovoltaic home system. The practical part of thesis covers the process of designing a photovoltaic home system, from sizing the system to meet desired needs to designing hardware and finally developing firmware. In the core of thesis, we focus on designing battery charging controller and look at ways to maximize the yield from a PV module at any given moment by implementing an MPPT (maximum power point tracking) algorithm. The goal of the thesis is to build the hardware and develop a firmware for a proposed PV system. We would like to demonstrate how such system can power small everyday appliances such as smart phones, tablet computers and domestic lighting. Finally, we evaluate the design, measure the efficiency of designed battery charger and effectiveness of over-all system performance.
|
