Design Of A Hybrid Solar/Diesel Ups Supply For Low Power Applications

摘要

Over the years, it has been really difficult for governments in developing nations like Nigeria to provide constant power supply to her citizens. The reasons for lack of constant power supply to the people especially those in the rural areas range from inability of government and utility companies to generate enough power, their failure to connect the people to the national grid, the land topography which sometimes makes it really difficult to access and connect people who live on islands, creeks and other inaccessible terrains to the national grid, cost of extension of the national grid, return on investment on power generation and distribution equipment, technical manpower amongst others. However, it has been discovered that a combination of different power generating systems known as hybrid power systems can be used to solve the problem of provision of uninterruptable power supply especially for the running of critical equipment such as lifesaving instruments in hospitals, offices, small scale businesses and for the supply of distributed power to rural dwellers and islanders.The load list, load profile, power demand, energy profile and components of the hybrid system were designed and specified. The design showed that the effective performance of the solar panel in charging the battery bank depended on the level of insolation available in the area where the solar panel was installed; the Inverter changed the 12 V direct current source from the batterybank to 230 V alternating voltage output. It also performed the automatic system change over functionfrom inversion mode to conversion mode changing the 230 V AC from the diesel generator to 12 V DC for charging the battery bank.The inverter output voltage decreased with increase in the connected load on the inverter. The uninterruptible power supply function of the system is achieved through the automatic change over system in the inverter. The results obtained during the implementation of the design showed that it’s possibleto provide constant electricity for low power applications through hybrid power system thereby solving the problems of irregular or nonexistent power supply.