Experiences with back-up PV system for remote rescue application

In order to disseminate photovoltaic (PV) technologies into remote rescue applications in Taiwan, a feasibility study on grid-tie PV System with battery back-up was done. A 3.2kWp back-up PV system has been installed in a remote police station (22°44\´59.46"N, 120°43\´38.83"E) located in the mountain region of southern Taiwan. In this paper, the design and the operational results of this PV system will be presented. This system was designed with autonomous operation of 5 days. From the actual operation experiences, it is shown that the output of the system can satisfied the demands of the emergent loads in blackout period. The DC daily mean yield was 9.01kWh/day (2.8kWh/day/kWp) during 09/18/2010~4/30/2012, which satisfied the emergent need of 7.48kWh/day. The performance ratio (PR) was 72.8% during 12/01/2010~ 04/30/2012 and the biggest loss was due to the maximum power point (MPP) mismatch, accounted for a 9.45% at the same period. This PV system worked very well during the attack of Typhoon Fanapi and supplied power for the mobile phones, radio communications, office lighting and rescue equipments during the blackout of 10 days.