A System Design Approach for Unattended Solar Energy Harvesting Supply

Remote devices, such as sensors and communications devices, require continuously available power. In many applications, conventional approaches are too expensive, too large, or unreliable. For short-term needs, primary batteries may be used. However, they do not scale up well for long-term installat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inIEEE transactions on power electronics Vol. 24; no. 4; pp. 952 - 962
Main Authors Kimball, J.W., Kuhn, B.T., Balog, R.S.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York, NY IEEE 01.04.2009
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Subjects
Applied sciences
Availability
Batteries
Battery
Circuits
Control systems
Costs
Devices
Direct energy conversion and energy accumulation
Electric currents
Electrical engineering. Electrical power engineering
Electrical machines
Electrical power engineering
Electrochemical conversion: primary and secondary batteries, fuel cells
Electronic equipment and fabrication. Passive components, printed wiring boards, connectics
Electronics
Energy accumulation
Energy harvesting
energy management
Energy storage
Exact sciences and technology
Fault tolerant systems
Harvesting
long life
Maximum power
photovoltaic
Power system reliability
Process design
Regulation and control
remote power
Simulation
Solar energy
Solar power generation
Systems design
ultracapacitor
unattended operation
Short term
Performance evaluation
Prototype
Alkaline storage battery
long life
Power supply
Fault tolerance
Energy supply
Battery
Flow control
energy management
unattended operation
Silicon solar cells
Measurement sensor
photovoltaic
energy harvesting
System design
Durability
Energy recovery
Secondary cell
Power electronics
Experimental study
ultracapacitor
Lithium battery
Pareto distribution
Maximum power point tracking
remote power
Solar energy
System simulation
Reliability
Energy storage
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Summary:Remote devices, such as sensors and communications devices, require continuously available power. In many applications, conventional approaches are too expensive, too large, or unreliable. For short-term needs, primary batteries may be used. However, they do not scale up well for long-term installations. Instead, energy harvesting methods must be used. Here, a system design approach is introduced that results in a highly reliable, highly available energy harvesting device for remote applications. First, a simulation method that uses climate data and target availability produces Pareto curves for energy storage and generation. This step determines the energy storage requirement in watt-hours and the energy generation requirement in watts. Cost, size, reliability, and longevity requirements are considered to choose particular storage and generation technologies, and then to specify particular components. The overall energy processing system is designed for modularity, fault tolerance, and energy flow control capability. Maximum power point tracking is used to optimize solar panel performance. The result is a highly reliable, highly available power source. Several prototypes have been constructed and tested. Experimental results are shown for one device that uses multicrystalline silicon solar cells and lithium-iron-phosphate batteries to achieve 100% availability. Future designers can use the same approach to design systems for a wide range of power requirements and installation locations.
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ISSN:0885-8993
1941-0107
DOI:10.1109/TPEL.2008.2009056