Photovoltaic System Performance Enhancement Design

Photovoltaic systems, which harness solar energy to produce electricity directly, have been successfully employed worldwide for rendering power, thereby, replacing fossil fuels for the purpose. PV has demonstrated extremely high potential to contribute in the renewable energy mix of the urban environment, among the available micro-generation technologies. However, intermittent and variable nature of solar energy leads to inconsistent performance of PV systems. Integration of PV systems with storage and grid mitigates variability issues and helps maximize self-consumption. Inclusion of the storage in the system design helps in maximizing self-consumption and assists in optimizing grid consumption under time-of-use (TOU) tariffs. This work deals with the optimal design and performance enhancement of grid-connected PV-battery systems. The study further investigates the effect of some very significant but mostly assumed parameters including PV degradation, grid-power interruptions etc. on system design and performance.