A CONTRIBUTION TO THE SIMULATION AND DESIGN OPTIMIZATION OF PHOTOVOLTAIC SYSTEMS

This paper presents guidelines to the proper selection of solar array and battery sizes for use in PV-powered dispersed systems, located far from public power networks. It will also deal with the choice of the key design parameters of separately excited DC motors used for farm irrigation. The selection procedure is based on the accurate system modelling and the annual simulation using actual meteorological (insolation and temperature) and typical load data pertinent to the state of Kuwait. The procedure determines the useful, dumped and commercial energy components, forced upon by system-load interaction. Two systems are investigated, system (1) is an alternating current (AC) residential load of a given annual demand profile on hourly basis, while system (2) represents an irrigation setup featuring a DC motor and a battery backup. The results showed that a properly-sized battery interface would enhance the performance of the irrigation system, energywise, by more than 12% compared to the directly coupled case. As for the AC load, there exist optimum battery and PV sizes, where the effective energy is maximum.