Design, implementation and testing of theft and maintenance monitoring of batteries of stand-alone SPV systems

This paper presents design, implementation and testing of Theft and maintenance monitoring of batteries of Stand-alone SPV Systems. Solar Photovoltaic stand alone power sources are popularly used for outdoor lighting, viz, garden lighting, street lighting etc. Batteries are invariably used to store the solar energy during its availability. Solar power energy sources and the batteries are often located in open fields and remote areas. Two problems are associated with said applications. Firstly, the batteries are more vulnerable to theft. Secondly, the monitoring of dry run or discharge of batteries and maintenance becomes difficult and expensive. To address these problems, a Theft & Maintenance monitoring system is designed and implemented. The implemented system consists of an accelerometer to detect displacement of the battery from its place and temperature sensor to measure the temperature. Microcontrollers and GSM system are used to raise an alarm, display the status of the batteries, send alert messages, and call authorized persons. The developed system is implemented and tested for nine batteries located in the Basaveshwar Engineering College (Autonomous) Energy Park.