Maximizing efficiency of solar-powered systems by load matching

Author

Dexin Li ; Chou, Pai H.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng. & Comput. Sci., California Univ., Irvine, CA, USA

fYear

2004

Firstpage

162

Lastpage

167

Abstract

Solar power is an important source of renewable energy for many low-power systems. Matching the power consumption level with the supply level can make a great difference in the efficiency of power utilization. This paper proposes a source-tracking power management strategy that maximizes the panel´s total energy output under a given solar profile by load matching. The power efficiency was validated by extensive measurement. Compared to a conventional solar powered system, our load matching strategy improves the power utilization by 132% for a portable system performing image processing and wireless communication tasks.

Keywords

load (electric); low-power electronics; mobile handsets; mobile radio; power supply circuits; solar cells; efficiency maximization; image processing tasks; load matching; low-power systems; panel total energy output; power consumption level; power efficiency measurement; power supply level; power utilization; power utilization efficiency; renewable energy; solar profile; solar-powered systems; source-tracking power management strategy; wireless communication tasks; Batteries; Costs; Crystalline materials; Embedded system; Energy management; Power system management; Power system modeling; Solar energy; Solar power generation; Space technology;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Low Power Electronics and Design, 2004. ISLPED '04. Proceedings of the 2004 International Symposium on

Print_ISBN

1-58113-929-2

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/LPE.2004.1349328

Filename

1349328