Battery and charge controller evaluations in small stand-alone PV systems

摘要

We report the results of to separate long-term tests of batteries and charge controllers in small stand-alone PV systems. In these experiments, seven complete systems were tested for two years at each of two locations: Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque and the Florida Solar Energy Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Each system contained a PV array, flooded-lead-acid battery, a charge controller and a resistive load. Performance of the systems was strongly influenced by the difference in solar irradiance at the two sites, with some batteries at Sandia exceeding manufacturer's predictions for cycle life. System performance was strongly correlated with regulation reconnect voltage (R(sup 2) correlation coefficient = 0.95) but only weakly correlated with regulation voltage. We will also discuss details of system performance, battery lifetime and battery water consumption.