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Senior Project: Solar Bench 1 Senior Project: Solar Bench Submitted by: Meshari Alharbi, Electrical Engineering Sponsored by University of Evansville Submitted to: DR. Christina Howe Project advisor: Dr. Mohsen Lotfalian Date and Place: March 25, 2017 2 Acknowledgements: I wish to express my gratitude to Dr. Lotfalian for advising my project, and Mr. Jeff Cron for his help with acquiring parts support, guidance and encouragement, without which this project wouldn’t have come forth. I would like also to express my gratitude to the staff of the Electrical Engineering Department for their support during the project. 3 Table of Contents: I. Introduction II. Problem Definition III. Design Approach . Main parts . IV. Safety and Environment V. Standards VI. Expected Result VII. References VIII. Appendix 4 Table of Figures: Figure 1: PV system Demo Figure 2: Arduino Nano layout Figure 3: MP1584EN Buck converter Figure 4: MP1584EN buck converter performance Figure 5: Schematics for the charge controller Figure 6: Final demo of the solar bench Table of tables: Table 1: Solar panels specification Table 2: Charge controller specifications Table 3: Charge controller parts coast 5 Solar Bench I. Introduction: In today’s technology, many products are being redesigned to be more efficient. As more products become more portable, the demand for portable power increases. Due to the limitations of fossil fuels, solar energy is becoming more popular as the renewable energy source that could change the future. The world depended on oil and gas as the main sources of energy, which damage the environment in many aspects. Some Engineers are trying to make energy without effecting the environment (renewable energy), for example oxygen, fresh water, solar, timber, and biomass energy. Solar energy has many benefits for individuals. For example, families can reduce their electricity spending by using solar systems instead of using electrical companies services. Also people can benefit from such methods in public places like public parks and transportation stations etc. On the other hand, countries and governments can benefit from solar energy. For instant contrives can use clean energy to generate electricity for their people cheaper than generating energy from oil and gasses, which means they can relay on such methods for economically energy like solar energy aside with oil and gas. This project will result in a solar powered charger that can provide energy out of the sunlight. The idea of the project is to have a DC current stored in a battery from the solar panel that gets converted to AC current to charge small devises such as phones and laptops. So, solar Cells receive sunlight and then generate DC current and send it to charge controller to keep batteries from overcharging. Inverter converts the DC current to AC current to the outlets. 6 The goal of this project is to create a solar powered charger that can provide energy out of the sunlight. The idea of the project is to have a DC current stored in a battery from the solar panel that gets converted to AC current to charge small devises such as phones and tablets. So, solar Cells receive sunlight and then generate DC current and send it to charge controller to keep batteries from overcharging. Inverter converts the DC current to AC current to the outlets. Figure 1: PV system Demo II. Problem Definition The goal of this project is to design a solar powered charger that can provide energy out of the sunlight. The idea of the project is to design a charge controller to control the DC current stored in a battery from the solar panel that gets converted to AC current to charge small devises such as phones and tablets. So, solar Cells receive sunlight and then generate DC current and send it to charge controller to keep batteries from overcharging. Inverter converts the DC current to AC current to the outlets. 7 There are two methods for solar power production. The first one utilizes photovoltaic (PV) cells to convert sunlight into an electric current, which is called photoelectric effect. A photovoltaic cell takes advantage of this effect by harnessing the electron flow in the form of direct current electricity. The second method of solar production is the concentrated solar power (CSP) method. CSP generation uses mirrors to concentrate sunlight into a specific spot. Unlike the PV method, the goal of the CSP method is to produce heat in order to drive a heat engine. Electricity is produced via a generator connected to the heat engine. This project will be focusing on the use of PV cells. Due to the large amount of energy that we need to provide people with around the world, we need to find more sources of energy. Solar charging can be a solution for many reasons I. Clean energy: Won’t affect the environment because it will not produce any kind of pollution II. Low coast: The coast for making a solar system power supply is cheap in the long term compared with using electricity from the provided companies III. Easy to work with: Solar power supply is easy to work with because it is safe and can used by people easily. IV. This type of method is already being used in public places like parks, schools and some countries. For example in Japan they are making big solar systems (The Yamakura Dam plant is due to begin operation by March 2018). This solar system is divided into four main parts, which can give the consumer 300 watts a day. 8 III. Design Approach: Solar systems in general are divided intro two main ways of connection. The first one is grid-connected photovoltaic power system (on-grid) which the electricity generating solar PV power system that is connected to the utility grid. And the other one is the Standalone photovoltaic system (off-grid) is when your solar photovoltaic system is not connected to the utility grid. For this project, the off-grid method was used, which means my system will not be connected to the utility company. To make an off grid solar system we need to use 4 main parts. Main part 1) Solar Cells: Solar cells are devices that convert light into energy. There are many types of solar panels; I am using Monocrystalline solar panels for this project. Monocrystalline are slightly more expensive, but also slightly more efficient. The mechanical engineering department has an extra Monocrystalline 85 W panel was used for the project. Table 1: Solar panels specification Watts (STC), W 85W Max Power (Vmp) 17.2 V Max Current (Imp) 4.9 A Weight (KG) 11.00 KG Dimensions 1206 X 545 X 35mm 9 2) Battery bank: I have used a 12 volt, 35Ah, last for 2 hours with 2 devices charging at the same time and able to last for at least 30 minutes while supplying a 120 volt AC voltage. The outlet is which going to charge the devises will take the power from the battery or the solar panels depends on the logic situation. The output from the solar panel is dc power. Since the system will generate electricity during specific time, we need to store this energy into the battery to keep charging all the time. First we calculate total Watt-hours per day used by appliances. = 85W Divide the total Watt-hours per day used by 0.85 for battery loss. = 100W Divide the power after loss by 0.6 for depth of discharge. = 166W Divide the answer obtained by the nominal battery voltage (using 12V) = 13.9W 3) Power Inverter: A solar inverter, or converter (PV inverter), converts direct current (DC) output of a photovoltaic (PV) solar panel into a utility alternating current (AC) that can be fed into a commercial electrical grid or used by a local, off-grid electrical system. 1- Converts DC to AC power 2- Offers one 110/120V AC outlet on a swivel 3- Built-in fault for circuit protection 10 . Charge controller For the hardware design, University of Evansville facilities and labs was used to test and build the parts of the project. I’m going to use the 3D printers to make a box, which will contain the charge controller and the inverter inside using AutoCAD Inventory. The charge controller is a regulator that limits the amount of current added or drawn from the batteries. It also protects the battery from overcharging and overvoltage, which can reduce battery performance or lifespan, and may pose a safety risk. We cannot use normal voltage regulators because we need to control current not voltages only. Table 2: Charge controller parts Charge controller Parts required Arduino Nano P-MOSFET IRF9549: act as switch Power diode MBR2045: rectification Buck converter TVS diode P6KE36CA: It is used to protect sensitive components from electrical overstress Transistors 2N3904 Resistors (100k x 2, 20k x 2,10k x 2,1k x 2, 330ohm x 5) Ceramic Capacitors (0.1uF x 2) Electrolytic Capacitors (100uF and 10uF) 11 I. Arduino Nano: to make the current follow the logic to decide how to charge the load, figure 2. Figure 2: Arduino Nano layout II. The buck converter used in this project is shown in Figure 3 is a DC-DC converter, which reduce voltage while stepping up current. The Adjustable buck converter to decrease the circuit voltage from 12V to 5V to work with the microprocessor in order to control the current path, figure 4 shows the performance. Figure 3: MP1584EN buck converter 12 Figure 4: MP1584EN buck converter performance There are three types of charge controllers on and off, PWM and MPPT. Since MPPT is costly and the on and off is not efficient, I used the PWM method, so the charge controller that I’m going to built is PWM Charge controller as well energy meter, Automatic Battery Voltage Selection (6V/12V), PWM charging algorithm with auto charge set point according to the battery voltage.
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