1.

Introduction:
A Solar Home System (SHS) uses a photovoltaic (PV) module to provide power for lights and
small appliances. The system also needs a rechargeable battery, so that power is still available at night
and on cloudy days.
Solar-home-systems bring huge benefits to homes in developing countries which aren’t connected to
the mains electricity grid. They replace smoky, unsafe kerosene lamps with brighter light, allowing
work, study and social activities after dark. They also power radios and cell phone chargers, enabling
families to be in contact with the wider world. The smallest systems are solar lanterns, which can be
moved around the home or carried outdoors.

2. Objectives:
In the rural areas of developing countries, around 75% of the population or two billion people
live without electricity. The same population has a growing desire for basic services such as lighting,
water, health care, and education. This places heavy pressure on local governments to keep pace with
the demand for electricity. However, the installation and maintenance of grid electricity in these often
small and geographically remote, isolated populations is often near impossible. People not served by
centralized power grid mostly rely on solid fuels and fossil fuels like kerosene a nd diesel for most of
their energy needs.

3. Equipments:
A Solar Home System (SHS) is typically a small standalone solar electrical system combines with
a) Solar Panel (PV)
b) Inverter
c) Charge Controller
d) Rechargeable Battery
e) Load
Also need some equipment for measuring proper data these are.
f) Hydrometer
g) Multi-meter

Fig 1: Layout of a solar-home-system

3.1 Solar Panel:
Solar panels or more technically photovoltaic (PV) panels are a solar home electric system’s
enabling component. Panels are made of wafers or cells of semiconductor material that use sunlight
(photons) and the photovoltaic effect to generate direct current (DC) e lectricity. There are three main
types of solar cells: mono-crystalline silicon, poly-crystalline silicon, and thin film materials. The
different cell technologies represent different energy conversion efficiencies and manufacturing
approaches in trying to reduce the cost of photovoltaic generated electricity. The photovoltaic

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technology is constantly evolving in the direction of better conversion efficiency and lower cost. Each
solar cell can generate a predetermined voltage and current under manufacturing and physical
constraints. A solar panel is made up numerous series and parallel combinations of identical individual
cells to generate the desired power output (current and voltage). Panels are assigned a power rating in
watts based on the maximum power they can produce under ideal sun and temperature conditions. The
rated power output is used to help determine how many panels are needed to meet the electrical load
demands. Multiple panels combined together are called solar arrays. In a typical SHS household one
solar panel of less than 120w is usually utilized. There is a linear relationship between solar panel cost
and output power. The solar panel can approach 50% of the total initial equipment cost of a SHS.

3.2 Inverter:
DC-to-AC converters are known as inverter. The function of an inverter is to change a DC input
voltage to a symmetrical AC output voltage of desired magnitude and frequency. The output voltage
can be fixed or variable at a fixed or variable frequency.
A variable output voltage can be obtained by varying the input DC voltage and maintaining the gain of
the inverter constant. On the other hand, if the DC input voltage is fixed and it is not controllable, a
variable output voltage can be obtained by varying the gain of the inverter, which is normally
accomplished by pulse-width-modulation (PWM) control within the inverter.

3.3 Charge Controller:

The primary function of the charge controller is to maintain battery health by preventing battery
overcharge by the solar panels and full discharge by the electrica l loads. Either condition will lead to
severely reduced battery lifespan. Charge controllers come in all sizes, and protection and monitoring
features. The selection depends on the size of installed solar panel(s) and the complexity of loads and
future expansion possibility. Different charging and maintenance algorithms are employed depending
on the state and the type of the battery. There are many electrical protection features in a suitably
designed charge controller that are beneficial in SHS type of applications. Protection features such as
reverse polarity, short circuiting, over-current, low-voltage-disconnect, and tropicalization of circuit
board makes the system relatively fool-proof in the SHS settings.

3.4 Battery:
Almost all solar electrical applications use a lead-acid type of battery chemistry to store energy.
This is because of the battery’s storage capacity to cost ratio, their wide availability, technical
simplicity, and support infrastructure. A lead-acid battery is an electrochemical device that stores
chemical energy and releases it as electrical energy upon demand. When a battery is connected to an
external load, such as a light, chemical energy is converted to electrical energy and direct current flows
through the circuit.

Discharging:

Charging:

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3.5 Loads:
Loads are electrical appliances that draw power from the battery, either directly or indirectly.
Typical home electrical appliances are AC powered. To be able to use AC powered appliances in 7 a
SHS, a DC-AC power inverter will be required. The inverter itself acts as a load because of parasitic
power draw (stand-by power consumption) and conversion efficiency losses. In this case all the AC
appliances connect to the inverter, which get its power from the battery. In many SHS projects, an
inverter is not included due to cost and system abuse concerns. In those cases increasingly available
DC electrical appliances such as CFL and LED lights, small radios, portable dvd players and small DC
powered TVs are connected directly into the 12v DC SHS circuit. It is very cost effective and efficient to
deploy DC-only SHS due to the typical low power requirements of DC appliances and it also simplifies
the system design.

3.6 Hydrometer:
A hydrometer is an instrument used to measure the specific gravity (or relative density)
of liquids; that is, the ratio of the density of the liquid to the density of water.
In low-density liquids such as kerosene, gasoline, and alcohol, the hydrometer will sink deeper, and in
high-density liquids such as brine, milk, andacids it will not sink so far. In fact, it is usual to have two
separate instruments, one for heavy liquids, on which the mark 1.000 for water is near the top of the
stem, and one for light liquids, on which the mark 1.000 is near the bottom. In many industries a set of
hydrometers is used — covering specific gravity ranges of 1.0–0.95, 0.95–0.9 etc. — to provide more
precise measurements.

3.7 Multi-meter:
A multimeter also known as a VOM (Volt-Ohm meter), is an electronic measuring instrument that
combines several measurement functions in one unit. A typical multimeter would includ e basic features
such as the ability to measure voltage, current, andresistance. Analog multimeters use
a microammeter whose pointer moves over a scale calibrated for all the different measure ments that
can be made. Digital multimeters (DMM, DVOM) display the measured value in numerals, and may also
display a bar of a length proportional to the quantity being measured. Digital multimeters are now far
more common than analog ones, but analog multimeters are still preferable in some cases, for example
when monitoring a rapidly varying value.

3.8 Balance of system components:

All other SHS systems components not included in the above main categories are termed
balance of system (BOS) components. T hey include panel installation posts, mounts, hardware, wires,
switches, circuit breakers, fuses, installation tools, future maintenance items, etc. These ancillary parts
serve crucial function to the proper implementation and operation of the system, thus their quality is as
important as the other main components of SHS. Other than the panel installation posts, the BOS
components will have to be imported in developing countries. For a typical SHS project the cost of BOS
components can sometimes be underest imated by project planners due to unfamiliarity of local pricing.

4. Scale Preparation Theory:

4.1 Solar Resource:

Solar resource is the amount of sun light available to the solar panels to generate electricity.
Commonly used technical terms for solar resource are the irradiance and insolation. Solar 8 irradiance
is the amount of solar power striking a given area. It is a measure of the intensity of the sunshine and
is given in units of watts (or kilowatts) per square meter (w/m2). At the outer edge of earth’s
atmosphere the solar irradiance measures at a constant 1,360w/m2. On a clear sunny day at noon on
earth’s surface on the equator, the solar irradiance measures about 1,000w/m2. The decrease in solar

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irradiance on the earth’s surface is due to atmospheric absorption. On rainy days with thick cloud cover,
the atmosphere can absorb almost all of the solar energy.

4.2 Solar panel sizing:

Assuming the solar resource data is available, the first step in the design is to determine the
electrical load that the system has to support. This load estimate is one of the key factors in the design
and cost of the stand- alone solar system. Usually a list of all the loads, their rated wattage, the
expected daily number of hours of operation etc, will be tabulated and summed up in several key
design parameters such as peak current, total daily watt -hrs, total daily amp hrs. We usually use only
the total daily watt-hrs to determine the size of the solar panel. The basic formula is:
Size of panel (Watts) = Total Daily Load (Watt-hr)/Daily peak Sun hours (hrs)

To understand why this formula will arrive at an undersized design, one has to look at the solar panel
performance specification shown in Figure

This is a typical current -voltage curve of a 12v solar panel. Each point along the curve represent a
wattage output of the panel because power (watt) = current (amp) × voltage (volt). There are 5 points
of interest on the curve which are typically part of the technical specification of a solar panel. They are
labeled Isc: short circuit current, Imp: max power current, Voc: open circuit voltage, Vmp: max power
voltage, and max power point wattage: Wp = Vmp × Imp.

4.3 Battery sizing:

Battery sizing is a tradeoff between cost and system power availability. Battery is s ized to
provide daily load demand and storage of energy in case of non-sunny days, in which the battery has to
provide all the power to the load demand. Usually the number of days of storage required depends on
the application, the desired usage availability, and local weather. In residential applications in sunny,
dry climate, 2-3 days of energy storage will usually suffice. In cloudy weather, 3-5 days will be more
appropriate. There is no exact right answer to the number of days of storage needed. But in general the
recommendation is to put in as much storage as one can reasonably afford.
Batteries are rated in terms of amp hours of storage capacity, under specific conditions. Batteries
undergo electro-chemical reactions during charge and discharge so the physical environmental
conditions and the charge-discharge rate all have an effect on available battery capacity.Most deep
cycle batteries are normally rated in number of hours it takes to discharge a fully charged battery to
10.5 volts in 20 hours at 25° C, denoted as "C/20". Discharge rates of 100 hours (C/100), 10 hours
(C/10), 8 hours (C/8) or 6 hours (C/6) are also common ratings. For example, a 100 Amp-Hr C/20
rated battery means that the battery can provide 5 amps of current (C/20 = 100/20 = 5) for 20 hours.

Battery Capacity = (Load in Wh * Days in autonomy) /Maximum percentage usable

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5. Measurement and data:

PV module Description:
Model: LC50REB
Number of Cells: 32 cells in each module
Nominal Weight: 6Kg

Charge Controller Description:

Model: II1210F 12V/10A

Experimental Data:
Maximum System voltage = 600V
Nominal Maximum output = 55W
Nominal Open Circuit Voltage V OC = 19.3V
Nominal Short Circuit Current I SC = 3.63A
Nominal Maximum output Voltage = 16.5V
Nominal Maximum Output Current = 3.34A

At 10:10 AM we collect Short Circuit Current I SC and Open Circuit Voltage V OC in different Tilted
positions.

Tilted Angle: 0°
Open Circuit Voltage V OC = 17.51V
Short Circuit Current I SC = 2.94A
Tilted Angle: 15°
Open Circuit Voltage V OC = 17.44V
Short Circuit Current I SC = 3.11A
Tilted Angle: 30°
Open Circuit Voltage V OC = 17.48V
Short Circuit Current I SC = 3.18A
Tilted Angle: 60°
Open Circuit Voltage V OC = 17.43V
Short Circuit Current I SC = 3.13A
Tilted Angle: 75°
Open Circuit Voltage V OC = 17.28V
Short Circuit Current I SC = 2.64A
Tilted Angle: 90°
Open Circuit Voltage V OC = 16.83V
Short Circuit Current I SC = 1.64A
Tilted Angle: 180°
Open Circuit Voltage V OC = 11.34V
Short Circuit Current I SC = 0.02A

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Battery Specific Gravity:
Before connection we got bellow specific gravity by Hydrometer and Battery Voltage.
Cell-1: 1220, Cell-2: 1220, Cell-3: 1220, Cell-4: 1200, Cell-5: 1200, Cell-6: 1210.
Battery Voltage: 12.3V

After Connection:
Panel Voltage = 13.08V
Battery Voltage = 12.60V
Load Voltage = 12.54V

8. Reference:
http://www.ashden.org/solar
http://www.gshakti.org/index.php?option=com_content&view =article&id=58&Itemid=62
http://www.mtu.edu/peacecorps/programs/civil/pdfs/jack-chow-thesis-final.pdf

Prepared By:
Md. Faisal Hossain
Founder of Career@Engineering
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