Analysis of load shedding strategies for battery management in PV-based rural off-grids

Off-grid solutions based on PV-diesel hybrid systems with battery backup during night are operationally ready to provide communities with electricity services, particularly in rural areas. However, lack of efficient energy management strategies to balance supply and demand results in frequent outages especially during night and increase the diesel fuel consumption, thus leading to a fiasco. This paper analyses how energy from the batteries in the hybrid system can be managed during the night and efficiently distributed among the loads such that the critical loads like hospitals and telecom towers get maximum energy security.