Design and Performance Analysis of Solar PV DC Power System for Disaster Relief Centre using PVsyst

Abstract

One of essential elements at disaster relief camps is electricity supply. Categorized under disaster preparedness, it is required to support humanitarian aids, provide security and convenient for the victims involved. The objective of this project is to design a standalone DC power system for a disaster relief camp at Kota Bharu, a capital for Kelantan State located at east coast of Peninsular Malaysia from renewable energy resource which is solar PV. The methodology of the project are configuring DC load demand, sizing PV array and battery bank from solar energy resource and load demand and lastly simulation of the design system by using PVsyst. In general, a relief camp will consist of basic electrical appliances such as lightings, fans and hand-phone chargers while in common area could be equipped with flood lightings, air-conditioning unit and refrigerator to store foods and medicine. The solar PV array, battery bank and DC bus regulator power rating are designed accordingly to the local meteorological data and load profile based on desired operating schedule. The system operates in stand-alone mode in which the power is fully supplied in DC voltage. The energy generated from solar array will be stored in the battery bank while the operation and management of the system is controlled and coordinated by local controller to ensure energy optimization system. The amount of user’s load demand is 8,820Wh per day. Based on solar energy resource, the optimum PV array size is 3.0kWp while the battery bank size is 900Ah at 48V which is designated for 4 days of autonomy. The system could meet up to 99% of load demand throughout the year except for December with 62.3% performance ratio. The loss to the system is contributed by the temperature effect to the PV module ohmic wiring loss, unused energy because of battery full, converter efficiency and battery efficiency.