Development of bidirectional net meter in grid connected solar PV system for domestic consumers

Abstract

Solar energy is inexhaustible, available abundant in nature and free from pollution. The solar photovoltaic (PV) systems are a perfect solution for urban residential areas since the system is noiseless. The main problem with solar energy is its intermittency. In order to have reliable power, storage batteries are required in case of off-grid system thus it increases the overall cost of a system. In case of grid connected solar PV system the demand can be satisfied by using solar energy and the energy drawn from grid without using batteries. In this system, if the solar PV panel produce surplus power, then that has to be supplied to the grid and the exported surplus power must be accounted. The energy meter has to account for imported power from the grid to consumer system and the exported power from the consumer system to grid. In this paper bidirectional net meter in grid connected solar PV system for domestic consumers is proposed that keeps track of the difference between the electricity imported from grid and the surplus energy or exported electricity to grid. The proposed bidirectional net meter consists of voltage and current measurement circuit which measures the instantaneous voltage and current respectively. It consists of arduino uno which acts as the processing unit and LCD display to display the net energy at regular intervals. Experimental results show the accuracy in calculating the net energy of the system.