A solar backup system to provide reliable energy in presence of unplanned power outages

Salehi Borujeni, Masoud, Ofetotse, Eng L. and Nebel, Jean-Christophe (2022) A solar backup system to provide reliable energy in presence of unplanned power outages. Journal of Energy Storage, 47. ISSN 2352-152X

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Abstract

Unreliable power grids in sub-Saharan countries have forced households to seek on-site power generation (self-generation) options. Although diesel generators have the largest share of backup systems, the use of solar systems has been growing over the years. This paper presents a solar backup system including PV panels, a battery and a solar hot water (SHW) to provide both reliable energy and hot water to households. Moreover, two different configurations have been studied to improve the hot water system's performance. Whilst the SHW is limited to preheating the electric hot water in the first configuration, in the second it can individually provide the hot water for short-term uses in cases of lack of energy. The solar backup system is equipped with an intelligent prediction-based controller that can control the power flow and the hot water temperature in the presence of power limitations and unplanned power outages. Evaluation of the proposed system using real datasets shows that in addition to delivering reliable energy and hot water, the total cost of the solar solution over the project life is about 25% lower than the diesel generator's, making it a more viable investment.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Funding Information: This work was supported by Innovate UK [grant number 133910 ] as part of the project SwanaSmartStore. The authors would like to thank Robert Hanna from African Sun Energy (ASE) and Empowered Ltd for the provision of the data collected for the two case studies. The authors will also like to thank the partners from the Centre for Sustainable Technologies (Ulster) and SolaFin2Go project funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/R035954/1) and Innovate UK Energy Catalyst Round 5 (IUK/133219) for their contribution to the paper.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	diesel generators,optimal sizing,power management strategy,prioritised energy resource allocation,solar hot water,renewable energy, sustainability and the environment,energy engineering and power technology,electrical and electronic engineering,sdg 7 - affordable and clean energy ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/2100/2105
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Computing Sciences
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	23 Dec 2021 08:30
Last Modified:	21 Nov 2022 01:38
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/82801
DOI:	10.1016/j.est.2021.103653

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