Design and Implementation of a Solar System

Abstract

This project presents the design and implementation of a solar system. It was designed to meet the growing power demand in Nigeria because of the present low power capacity generated, and inconsistent supply to it citizens. It was designed to consist of solar panels, an inverter with a built-in charge controller, which is the core component of the system and a battery bank. The solar panels convert solar energy from the sun into electricity in DC form, these panels were connected in strings (series)-array (parallel) to maximize the inherent capacity of the inverter. The charger controller which is built into the inverter regulates the charge in the battery bank. The inverter takes up direct current from the battery bank and converts it to an alternating current suitable for use by various electrical appliances. This was achieved through voltage elevation with the help of the boot converter and AC waveform generation using Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) techniques, often employing components such as MOSFETs, step-up transformers, and microcontrollers for control and timing. The battery bank stores the energy from the solar panels. The solar system was tested using MATLAB Simulink, and it met the required output from the MPPT power output and the voltage output of the boost converter which confirmed that it can be implemented in real life.