PLANNING AND SIZING OF PV SYSTEMS.

Objectives
At the end of the unit, people should be able to:

•Determine total energy required by load

•Determine optimum sizing of various components

•Select appropriate PV modules, Battery and Controller

•Survey and compare cost of materials, tools and
equipment required
SOLAR PV SYSTEM SIZING

Sizing of the PV system is the determination of proper

PV components which will be able to sustain (drive)

the total load in a given unit.

The first step in designing a solar PV system is to find

Out the total power consumption of all
loads, that need to be supplied by the PV systems
Sizing of Photovoltaic system.

Sizing of photovoltaic system is the determination of

the right size and type of the photovoltaic
components to run a PV system.

Where in this case, the PV components comprises of

1)Solar panel 2)Solar controller 3) Battery

4) Inverter
Planning and sizing of PV modules.
Many steps are involved during the sizing. Before coming
to the actual task, people must know what to size in a PV
system.
Components to be sized includes:
1) Solar panel 2) Battery 3) Solar Controller
4) Inverter.

Cable sizing should be done too, but this is so at different sta

( solar panel-controller, controller- Battery,Battery-
Inverter)
 SIZING OF PV SYSTEMS.
Steps involved :
Calculate the total watt-hours per day for each
Appliance used.
•This will involve adding the Watt-hours needed
for all appliances together to get the total watt-
hours per day. Toget the watt-hours, power rating
of each appliance is multiplied by the number of
hours.
 Sizing the PV modules
Step two.
In sizing, the total losses in the system should be
Considered. This involves:

• Losses in the system mainly due to cables and

this is assumed to be 10%

•Losses due to incorporation of the inverter,

which is assumed to be 15%.

•Total losses being 25%.

 PV PLANNING AND SIZING

Remember that the electric energy demand may grow.

• For example, in a school, classrooms may be added, or in

a small home system, a television might be added.

• This will increase the load and will often require

additional solar modules or even batteries.

• Visit another system before installing one.

 PV PLANNING AND SIZING

1) Total Daily System Energy Demand.

• The amount of energy required each day to power the loa

( ie.Lamps and appliances).

• Measured in watt-hours

• Calculated by getting total energy that all appliances

and lamps use on an average day.
Inverter Sizing
An inverter is used in the system where AC power output
is needed.
The input rating of the inverter should never be lower than
the total watt of appliances.
The inverter must have the same nominal voltage as your
battery for systems using PWM solar charge controllers.
For stand alone systems, the inverter must be large
enough to handle the total amounts of watts you will be
using at one time.
Should take into consideration of inverter losses.
Consider the total power of all loads when put on the
system
Battery Sizing
Limited by what is in the market and how much one
has to spend.
The battery type recommended for using in solar PV
system is deep cycle battery.

Deep cycle battery is specifically designed to withstand

daily discharge and rapid recharging for years like 5years.

Battery voltage can be used to determine the

system voltage (e,g,12V, 24V)
SIZING FOR SOLAR PANEL,
BATTERY BANK/BATTERIES,
INVETER AND SOLAR CHARGE
CONTROLLER/REGULATOR
REQUIREMENTS

• Site survey/ Load assessment

• solar panel datasheets,
• Battery datasheets,
• inverter datasheets
• solar charge controller/ regulator datasheets
• Balance Of System (BOS)eg cables, conduits,
breakers both DC and DC, etc
LOAD CALULATIONS
Item watts
Load Number Hours Watthours/day
no. total
1 Inside Lights 10 5 6 300
2 Out side Lights 5 5 12 300
3 Phone Charging 4 10 4 160
5 Smart LED TV 55' 1 120 6 720
6 Decoder 1 20 6 120
Total watts/ Wh/day 255 1600
Losses 20% 51 320
Design total 306 1920
INVERTER SIZING
• The capacity/size of the inverter is the total loads in
watts plus a percentage loss of 10% to 25%
depending on the size of the system and the
appliance to be on that solar system.
• Therefore, from the table above, the size of the
inverter should be 306Watts and not less that 306
watts.
SOLAR PANEL SIZING
• From the table above;
• Watt peak (Wp) = (Watthours per day)/Sun Peak
Hours (SPH)
• The sun peak hours range from 5.3hours to 6 hours
standard. This depends on the area/ location of the
site.
SOLAR CHARGE CONTROLLER SIZING
• The size of a solar charge controller / regulator is
designed from the short circuit current of the solar
panel size to be used. It is indicated on the solar
panel datasheet as Isc (short circuit current)

• Solar charge controller = Isc*1.3 (Isc*30%)

• And it also depends on how the solar panels are to

be connected (series, parallel, and string (either
series parallel or parallel series)
BATTERY BANK/ BATTERY SIZING
• The battery voltage to be used has to be considered
• Battery capacity = Watthours per day/(DOD*Battery
Voltage*battery efficiency)
DOD= Depth Of Discharge
Battery efficiency depends on the battery type to be used,
eg, lithium ion phosphate (96%), lead acid batteries (86%)
When designing the battery bank, days of autonomy have
to be specified if need be.
Days of autonomy: These are number of days where no
power generation is possible due to clouds or rain, despite
the fact that you continue to consume energy. If specified,
the battery capacity calculated is multiplied by those days
of autonomy.
 Cable sizing.
Typical acceptable voltage drops in cables are:

Components Voltage Drop ,( % of Vn )

Panel Array → Battery 1%

Battery → Converter 1%

Component 3%

Main Line ( Illumination ) 3%

Main Line ( Equipment ) 5%

PV PLANNING AND SIZING
PV PLANNING AND SIZING
PV PLANNING AND SIZING
Cable sizing.

Once you have known the numbers of panels and the

batteries, and type of regulators and inverters that you
want to use, then you should calculate the length and the
thickness of the cables needed to connect the components
together.

The length depends on the location of the installation. You

should try to minimize the length of the cables between the
regulator, panels and batteries
Cable sizing
The thickness is chosen while basing on the length of the
cable and maximum current it must carry. The goal is to
minimize voltage drops.
In order to calculate the thickness S of the cable it is
necessary to know:
• The maximum current,Im that is going to circulate in
the cable.
Noted that sizing will depend on the amount of current
flowing in each section. That is, module to controller,
Controller to battery, battery to inverter, and inverter to
loads.
PV PLANNING AND SIZING
PV PLANNING AND SIZING
PV PLANNING AND SIZING
PV PLANNING AND SIZING
PV PLANNING AND SIZING