Abstract
Increasing climate change-caused natural disasters calls for mobile self-powered backup solutions for rescue and survival. However, existing portable solar systems rely on single storage with high risk of suspension in emergency and prolonged cloudy period. This work presents a portable solar-dual storage system, which enables essential loads to function continuously regardless of weather. The system operates with a supercapacitor to buffer fluctuating solar power in the Direct mode, a battery-supercapacitor integration to enable extended low light load usage in the Off-grid mode, and a developed mode selector controller for overall energy management. Optimum size of the supercapacitor was determined to buffer the load and quickly recharge within the average low light period of 5–12 min. The simulated solar irradiance from 400-1000 W/m2 was utilized to verify automatic selection between two independent modes: direct and off-grid. Furthermore, outdoor behavior of the system has been investigated on a representative sunny, cloudy, and mixed day. Moreover, different combinations of DC and AC loads including an 80 W notebook with a power larger than the solar panel (20 W) have been demonstrated to function steadily for a few hours outdoor. This system’s signatures include manual mode selection possibility by users and automatic switching ability to a direct mode for when the battery is completely discharged or malfunction for continuous operation of the loads. This portable solar-powered system can be used in variety of scenarios and provides clean solar energy to essential electrical appliances for lighting, communication etc., thus increasing the chance of survival during emergency.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
