Design of an off-grid PV system for the rural community

A requirement in rural local communities, remote from the conventional electric power grids is for off-grid power for portable and emergency access. This power is to be obtained from renewable energy considering the current energy scenario. Studies have been made in this field. The performance of a hybrid solar and battery system for grid support is studied in one of the papers. An off-grid electrical system for a village with less than 50 homes in rural Guatemala is discussed in another paper. These systems are used to power multiple homes, use complex and expensive hardware. A portable off-grid system to power a single rural home is designed. This project makes use of solar energy for powering small loads like LED (Light emitting diode) lamp, and mobiles. The system consists of a 5W PV (Photo Voltaic) solar cell which is placed in adequate sunlight. The PV panel is connected to a switching type charge controller. The switching type charge controller consists of a switching regulator and a battery charging section using microcontroller. The charge controller is connected to a rechargeable 6 Volt, 7 Ah (Ampere Hour) lead acid battery. The battery is then connected to an LED lamp using a dimmer circuit and a mobile charging point. The simulation is carried out using Power Sim and the results are in close agreement. Future scope is to use a higher rating PV panel and battery powering more applications for a longer time, a luminosity sensor and an A.C. charging point.