Cut-Off solar charge controller as an alternative towards system efficiency optimization

The need for electrical energy continues to increase along with population growth and community activities that cannot be separated from the use of electrical energy. To reduce dependence on the use of fossil fuels, the use of solar energy with solar panels equipped with batteries as electrical energy storage is the best alternative solution as a renewable energy source. In practice, if nonlinear solar panels are connected directly to the battery, the battery will be damaged quickly and will not last long. To overcome this, a controller which is called Solar Charge Controller (SCC) was designed so that it can regulate the voltage and current according to the condition of the battery charging phase. The voltage and current signals are regulated using the pulse width modulation (PWM) method. The design includes a 20 Wp solar panel as a power source, a buck converter is used as a voltage reducer, and electrical energy is stored in a 12 V battery with a capacity of 3 Ah and there are sensors to measure voltage and current. Experimental results show that the solar charge controller is able to work well when charging the battery for each phase, namely bulk, absorption, and float. The device is capable of reaching a bulk voltage of 14.5 V, with an average current of about 4.92 A.

An effective solar charge controller's design is essential to maximizing the energy that photovoltaic (PV) systems can capture. This paper describes the design and implementation of an Arduino microcontroller-based Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) charge controller. The purpose of this design is to improve solar energy systems' efficiency and dependability, especially in large-scale or high-current applications. The LM7815 regulator is used by the charge controller to control voltage, and high-power transistors (2SC5200) are used to boost current in order to provide a high load capacity. In order to guarantee optimal efficiency, MPPT controllers dynamically modify the solar panels' operating point to optimize the energy gathering process. The Arduino-based controller is open-source and inexpensive; it can be used in off-grid solar power systems. The technology can manage a maximum current of 60A and charge a battery bank effectively. The research analyzed the circuit design, control algorithms, and experimental findings, and real-world testing is used to assess the system's performance. The result was very impressive; the system proved to be efficient, reliable, and cost-effective, making it a viable solution for off-grid and high-power solar applications. Keywords: MPPT, Arduino, charge controller, solar energy, photovoltaic systems, renewable energy, battery charging, Solar Power, Current Boosting

Comparative study on charge controller techniques for solar PV system

Solar photovoltaic (PV) microgrids have gained popularity in recent years as a way to improve the stability of intermittent renewable energy generation in systems, both off-grid and on-grid, and to meet the needs of emergency settings during natural catastrophes. Over the last several decades, researchers have been interested in improving the efficiency of photovoltaic (PV) systems. Solar-battery charge controllers based on various algorithms are continuously and intensively employed to improve energy transfer efficiency and reduce charging time. This paper presents state-of-the-art solar photovoltaic (PV) integrated battery energy storage systems (BESS). An overview of and motivations for PV-battery systems is initially introduced, followed by the survey methodology and its contributions. In addition, this study classifies residential solar PV systems and battery charge controllers with their corresponding references in the review structure, which also provides details on battery charger topologies. Subsequently, an analytical review of the PV-Battery charge controller and the failure probability of such systems is discussed to determine the system components that mostly fail and their importance in the system. Finally, recommendation amendments to the existing charge controller that potentially contribute to increasing the system efficiency, reducing the failure probabilities, and reducing the cost are presented as future design concepts for the entire system.

This paper describes the design of a solar charge controller with microcontroller based soft switching buck converter. Zero current switching technique is used for buck converter design. Atmega 16 microcontroller is used for generating the necessary PWM switching signal. The output voltage of the solar panel is reduced to 15 V and it is applied to a charge controller circuit. The overcharge protection and under charge alarm is available in the charge controller circuit. The settings of these protection circuits are adjustable through potentiometers. Win AVR software is used as a compiler for the generation of necessary hex file.12V, 45 Ah lead acid battery is used for charging purpose.

Solar power is a great alternative to existing power sources. Global warming will lead to a lack of power sources soon. With the rapid increase of electrical power in the atmosphere, it is necessary to take strong steps to manage it. Solar power is affected by the weather. The development of solar charge controllers is therefore necessary. The solar charge controller connects the load between the photovoltaic panel and the battery. During the day, the PV panel supplies the load as well as charges the battery, and during the night, the battery supplies the load. By using the solar charge controller, the PV panel will operate at MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracking), and the battery will be protected from damage (undercharging and overcharging) by checking its state of charge. Variable and constant DC supplies can be supported by the charge controller. DC nano grids, solar-powered electric vehicles, and thermoelectric modules for heating and cooling can benefit from this technology.

Solar Charge Controller (SCC) PWM available on the market generally must be installed by connecting the SCC to the battery using the shortest possible power cable. This is intended to reduce the problem of the battery voltage measured at the SCC and the voltage measured at the battery poles having different values ​​when charging the battery. The difference in voltage values ​​can cause errors in indicating the battery voltage in the SCC so that battery charging is not fully optimal, especially when the battery is close to full. The application of separate SCCs to portable PV panels and portable power stations requires the use of long power cables between the SCC and the battery in portable power stations. Therefore, an SCC design is needed that can overcome this problem. In this study, the SCC Full Power Point Tracking (FPPT) design is proposed. One way to accurately indicate the battery voltage in the SCC is to disconnect the DC current from the PV panel to the battery in a very short time accompanied by measuring the battery voltage, this disconnection and measurement are carried out periodically. The results of the voltage measurement are used to determine whether the battery is fully charged or not. The SCC FPPT made here can provide power up to 98.3% even though the battery is detected as almost full by using a 60 cm long cable with a cross-sectional area of ​​1.5mm2 from the SCC to the battery

Solar Panel-Based Electric Scooter (E-Scooter) is an electric vehicle in the form of a scooter that uses solar panels as a source of electrical energy for charging batteries and a BLDC motor as a wheel drive. With the development of the E-Scooter, it is necessary to know how to charge the battery. The purpose of this research is to determine the type of Solar Charge Controller (SCC) that can maximize battery charging on the E-Scooter. The research method is to compare SCC MPPT and SCC PWM. The research was conducted by monitoring the output current and voltage of the solar charger controller generated by the solar panels every 10 minutes. After that the recorded data will be stored in the monitoring device's storage memory for further processing. The results of the data that have been obtained on the e-scooter using the SCC MPPT type are capable of producing a power of 9.05 W with a current value of 0.33 A and a voltage of 27.47 V. Meanwhile, the PWM type SCC is capable of producing 8.22 W of power with a current value of 0.30 A and a voltage of 27.42 V. So that the MPPT type SCC is more economical than PWM for charging when the e-scooter is not moving. For the running conditions of the MPPT type SCC e-scooter is capable of producing 7.36 W of power with a current value of 0.27 A and a voltage of 27.26 V. Meanwhile, the PWM type SCC is capable of producing a current of 6.81 W with a value of 0.25 A and a voltage 27.24 V. So that the MPPT type SCC is more efficient than PWM for charging when the e-scooter is running.

A Photovoltaic (PV) power monitoring is important in PV systems for proper generation and transmission. With the need to monitor certain parameters like voltage, current and power in order to ascertain the power output of a solar system. In this project design, a GSM solar power monitoring system is designed in order to monitor the voltage, current and output power of a solar system and also transmit the monitored parameters in real time to a remote location via the SMS feature of the GSM technology. An 8 bit 18F452 PIC microcontroller is used as the control unit which controls the Pulse width Modulation (PWM) solar charge controller, IRF3205 MOSFETs as the switching transistors in the charge controller charging a 30AH 12v battery via a 30watts polycrystalline solar panel. Universal asynchronous synchronous receiver and transmitter (USART) is used as protocol for transmission between a Sim 900 GSM module and the microcontroller while the attention (AT) command is used as the communication protocol in sending measured power parameters from the microcontroller to the GSM module which in turn sends the measured parameters as SMS message to a remote location. ACS 712 hall effect current sensor for measuring current and a voltage divider network for measuring the PV cell voltage. The circuit board is printed on a Printed circuit board (PCB) using the traditional transfer method. C programming language is used in writing program codes embedded on the controller. This project design have been able to show that by employing the use of a wireless real time data monitoring (GSM technology), PV systems can be properly monitored remotely for consumption, operation, analysis and isolation in cases of fault detection.

<p>Attempting to reduce the existing electricity consumption bill, as well as the stability and non-outage grid recharge with the lowest possible cost and suitable quality, is one of the most important goals for those interested in energy around the world. This paper study the circumstances surrounding the Egyptian society to find the best solutions to a achieved this goals, and it was found that solar energy is one of the best alternatives available for energy. Firstly will be study the electricity consumption bill, slice prices and a program was made to calculate the consumption invoice moreover another program for quick estimation to the proposed solar system.The proposed system provides a smart integration between the solar system and grid, where the supply sustainability and the optimal cost are considered. This configuration allows the two sources separately or simultaneously supply the loads depending on photovoltaic extracted energy. Operational analysis of the proposed system will discussed in this paper. The proposed system consists of solar cells, charge controller, batteries and inverter plugged to automatic transfer switches (ATS) using Programmable Logic Control (PLC). The system grantee a safe and reliable load feeding independently on the grid status. The system durability is the most depicted feature through the modelling and experimentally results. A typical case studies for about four years of non-outages photovoltaic-grid hybrid supply (the implemented system) will be presented and discussed.</p>

Charger station is one of the facilities needed by smartphone users, especially in public places such as tourist sites. Because there are still many battery charging places that use PLN electricity, so it is less effective when it is far from the reach of PLN electricity. Based on these problems, this research tries to provide a solution, namely developing a charger station at tourist sites through the use of solar panels and coin acceptors as a payment system for the charger facility, so that visitors can charge their smartphones easily and at a very affordable cost. The research method used is the R&D research method, while the development model is the ADDIE model. In building this charger station, several main components are needed, such as 20WP solar panels, 12V.12A batteries, 10A PWM Solar Charge Controller (SCC), 220W inverter, coin acceptor, arduino, push button, 16x2 LCD, and relay. The test results show that the battery charging process depends on the condition of sunlight intensity. When charging the battery from the solar panel, several times the voltage on the SCC fluctuates when it reaches 14.3V. However, when it has not reached 14.3V or when the inverter is active, the voltage on the SCC stabilizes. Then when the solar panel is no longer charging the battery or is removed from the SCC, then allowed to stand for a while, the voltage on the SCC will decrease by itself, after several checks, the voltage will drop by about 0.2V or 0.3V. While the results of testing coins that have been calibrated by the coin acceptor show a success rate of 80% for the Rp500 coin (silver) and for the Rp1000 coin shows 96.7% success after 30 tests. Overall, this system can run according to the design made, although there are still some shortcomings such as limited battery capacity, the size of the solar panel power that is still minimal and the selection of the type of SCC that has not been maximized.Keywords: Charger station, Microcontroller, Solar panels

This paper presents the model and performance of a portable solar power generation system designed specifically for the electricity needs of fishermen. The objective of this study is to evaluate the performance of the portable solar generator under various environmental conditions. The outline of this paper includes the design process, fabrication, and testing conducted under three different weather conditions. The main components of the system consist of photovoltaic (PV) modules, enclosures, batteries, solar charge controllers, inverters, and other supporting components. The three weather conditions examined during testing are uncertain bright rain, clear bright conditions, and heavy rain. The assessment focuses on environmental parameters, power output, and the efficiency of the portable solar generator. The results indicate that weather conditions significantly impact environmental factors such as solar radiation and ambient temperature, which are essential for effective natural cooling of module. The maximum output power of this solar panel generator system is 60,05 watts, with an efficiency of 13%. This system is designed to meet the operational needs of fishermen, with a portable design that facilitates their activities.

Recently, there has been a lot of interest on the energy efficiency and environmental impact of wireless networks. Given that the base stations are the network elements that use most of this energy, much research has dealt with ways to reduce the energy used by the base stations by turning them off during periods of low load. In addition to this, installing a solar harvesting system made up of solar panels, batteries, charge controllers, and inverters is another way to further reduce the network environmental impact, and some research has been dealing with this for individual base stations. In this paper, we show that both techniques are tightly coupled. We propose a mathematical model that captures the synergy between solar installation over a network and the dynamic operation of energy-managed base stations. We study the interactions between the two methods for networks of hundreds of base stations and show that the order in which each method is introduced into the system does make a difference in terms of cost and performance. We also show that installing solar is not always the best solution even when the unit cost of the solar energy is smaller than the grid cost. We conclude that planning the solar installation and energy management of the base stations has to be done jointly.

UK BIPV projects up and running

Renewable energy sources such as solar and wind provide an effective solution for reducing dependency on conventional power generation and increasing the reliability and quality of power systems. Presented in this paper are design and implementation of a laboratory scale solar microgrid cyber-physical system (CPS) with wireless data monitoring as a teaching tool in the engineering technology curriculum. In the system, the solar panel, battery, charge controller, and loads form the physical layer, while the sensors, communication networks, supervisory control and data acquisition systems (SCADA) and control systems form the cyber layer. The physical layer was seamlessly integrated with the cyber layer consisting of control and communication. The objective was to create a robust CPS platform and to use the system to promote interest in and knowledge of renewable energy among university students. Experimental results showed that the maximum power point tracking (MPPT) charge controller provided the loads with power from the solar panel and used additional power to charge the rechargeable battery. Through the system, students learned and mastered key concepts and knowledge of multi-disciplinary areas including data sampling and acquisition, analog to digital conversion, solar power, battery charging, control, embedded systems and software programing. It is a valuable teaching resource for students to study renewable energy in CPS.