Performance prediction of photovoltaic hybrid power systems

The objective of this paper is to present a numerical approach for evaluating the performance of PV-hybrid power systems. A method is developed to predict the performance of all components integrated into a PV-hybrid system. The system under investigation is a hybrid power system, in which the integrated components are PV array, a battery bank for backing up the system and a diesel generator set for supporting the battery bank. State of charge (SOC) of batteries is used as a measure for the performance of the system. The running time of the diesel generator is determined by the SOC of the batteries. In this method it is shown that the usage of PV electricity is maximized, the size of the components is optimized and the amount of fuel used for the diesel generator is minimized.