International Journal of Application or Innovation in Engineering & Management (IJAIEM)

Web Site: www.ijaiem.org Email: editor@ijaiem.org Volume 3, Issue 3, March 2014 ISSN 2319 - 4847

Low power photovoltaic system with lead acid battery for 5V regulated voltage electronic circuits
A. El Abbassi1, A. El Amrani2, M. El Amraoui3 and C. Messaoudi4
Laboratory of Physical Instrumentation and Measurements, Dept. of Physics, FST, B.P. 509, Boutalamine, Errachidia, University My Ismail, Morocco. 2 LPSMS, Dept. of Physics, FST, B.P. 509, Boutalamine, Errachidia, University My Ismail, Morocco. 3 LASMAR, Dept. of Physics, FS, Meknes, University My Ismail, Morocco. 4 OTEA, Dept. of Physics, FST, B.P. 509, Boutalamine, Errachidia, University My Ismail, Morocco.
1

ABSTRACT
The present work concern the study of monocrystalline silicon based photovoltaic (PV) module as input unit for alone low power PV system. The PV module is associated with simple controlling circuit for the lead acid battery as storage unit and the voltage regulator 5V DC as output unit of the PV system. Such PV system may be used as a power supplier for some electronics devices; portable phones and small computers, luminous traffic sign and displays, programmable components and microcontrollers, timers, embedded systems (GSM, PIC, FPGA cards). Indeed, the aim of our investigation resides in the conception and realization of reliable low cost portable photovoltaic system. A number of measurements have been performed, and the reliability of the PV system has been investigated. At first, an indoor study of the photovoltaic module has been investigated; the measurements showed that the short circuit current increases linearly with the light radiation, in particular at low light intensities. In addition, in order to regulate a voltage value of 4 to 5V DC when the system is connected to the output load resistance, the resistance value should be higher than 100 . Thus, the input voltage must be at least of 1 to 3V larger than the regulated voltage of 4 to 5V DC.

Keywords: photovoltaic systems, battery, microcontroller, DC regulator, voltage, PV module.

1. INTRODUCTION
A photovoltaic PV module is a device which is able to convert solar energy into electric energy. Many techniques and algorithms [1][3] are used in order to obtain optimal conditions [4], [5]. Because the current-voltage I-V and powervoltage P-V characteristics may change from one module to another, a control should be associated to the module. In this paper a low power photovoltaic systems with lead-acid battery for 5V regulated voltage for low power electronic circuits is proposed. The mainly function of a battery (i.e. lead acid) in photovoltaic systems is to provide power when the generating sourced is unavailable. The most commonly used batteries for PV systems have been lead-acid batteries. Commercial batteries most suited for stand-alone power supplies have been those intended for stationary or float service. These are designed for applications [6] such as serving as emergency power sources in uninterruptible power supplies. In this use, the lead acid battery may be kept fully charged during the day throughout the diode, but immediately takes up load demand when the PV source fails. More recently, this type of batteries has been developed to meet the specific requirements of low power PV systems. Thus, the features based photovoltaic systems are of high reliability and low maintenance costs [7]. Moreover, the battery maintenance is one of the major maintenance requirements of stand-alone photovoltaic system [8]. In addition, such PV systems may concern the portable electronic devices: portable phones, portable computer, panel displays, microprocessors and microcontroller and FPGA cards associated with low voltage (i.e. 5V) [9].

2. EXPERIMENTAL DETAILS
The PV source used for our study concerns two PV modules (model: OY350-HELIOS); each module is based on 20 silicon crystalline cells, which each 10 PV cells is connected between in series and in parallel with the 10 PV cells one (Fig. 1). The surface of the module is 14cmx8cm. A Philips Lampe (PAR 38 EC FLOOD 30, 230V 120W 6A) has been chosen as the simulator light irradiation for the indoor current-voltage PV module measurements. A lux meter and power meter (105lux=103W/m2) has been used for measuring the irradiance. A lead battery (HT640, HUITONG BATTERY CO., LTD) with a nominal voltage of 6V and nominal capacity of 4Ah (i.e. the battery is normally rated 10-h discharge rate) was chosen for our study on battery performances. For the all voltage-current I-V measurements, a digital compact ammeter and voltmeter have been used. Thus, a potentiometer as a rheostat (or variable resistor) has been used for the I-V measurements. A thermometer HD8601P (100 platinum RTD range: -50C to +199C) was used for the temperature measurements. All the tests were carried out at room temperature and in open air.

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Web Site: www.ijaiem.org Email: editor@ijaiem.org Volume 3, Issue 3, March 2014 ISSN 2319 - 4847

Figure 1: PV module shown 10 cells connected between in series and in parallel with the 10 PV cells one. Our original proposed photovoltaic system is based on a photovoltaic module of voltage between 0V and12V (and maximum current of 350mA), a lead acid battery of 6V and 4Ah, a circuit for the battery charging protection and the output regulation voltage (Fig. 2). The battery is charged throughout different diodes; D1, D2 and D3. The output unit of the PV system is supplied via the regulating circuit throw diode D1. When the PV voltage becomes inferior to the battery voltage, the PV module is decoupled to the rest of system and the battery voltage is applied to the regulating circuit throughout D4.
Connected for full input voltage

D1 VI PV 0-12VDC D2 D3 C1 C2 u1 7805 GND C3 C4 VO VDD =5V

R1

D4 Battery 6V 4Ah

Figure 2: Schema of the conceived low power PV system.

3. PHOTO-ELECTRICAL PV MODULE CHARACTERISTICS

The current voltage I- V characteristics of the studied PV module with different light intensities is shown in Fig. 3. We noticed that the current increase with light intensity; it passes from about 8mA at intensity value of 3000lux up to 88mA at 25000lux; as know the current depend mainly on the incident optical power [10]. In addition, the power increases with light intensities (between 62lux and 25000lux) as a result of current increases (Fig. 4). The maximum power is achieved at light intensity of 25000lux, which corresponds to the power value of 350mW. Similar behavior has been reported in others work [11]. Thus, tracking of the maximum power point (MPP) of photovoltaic system is usually an essential part of PV systems. Indeed, PV generation systems have two major problems; the electrical conversion efficiency and the electric power generated by PV module that change continuously with weather conditions [12][16]. The MPP tracking (MPPT) technique is largely used in several researcher works with depth details [17] [20].
100 90 25000Lux 80 70 10000Lux 6500Lux 5000Lux 3000Lux 1000Lux 500Lux 62Lux

Current (mA)

60 50 40 30 20 10 0 0 1 2 3 4

Voltage (mA)

Figure 3: Current versus voltage characteristics for different light intensities.

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400 350 300 25000Lux 10000Lux 6500Lux 5000Lux 3000Lux 1000Lux 200 150 100 50 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 500Lux 62Lux

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Power (mW)

250

Voltage (V)

Figure 4: Power versus voltage characteristics for different light intensities.

4. VARIABLE RESISTANCE EFFECT AT THE BATTERY LEVEL

The main function of the regulator circuit is to charge the battery and protect it from the overcharging as well as the deep discharging that could damage the battery. Our particular regulator circuit is presented in Fig. 5; the input condenser (i.e. capacitor) value of 100F, is generally used in order to avoid the oscillation of the integrated circuit based regulation. The output condenser allows reducing the short possible oscillations. In addition, the integrated circuit based regulation delivers a tension between the output terminal (VO) and the intermediate terminal (GND). The condenser with lower capacity value of 100nF (i.e. C2 and C3) was used generally to stabilize the regulated voltage by attenuating the possible impulse parasites. Indeed, the u1 7805 is used in order to regulate the output voltage at about 5V with filtering out the DC power noise.
Connecting for full input voltage

I input V input

D1 VI u1 7805 GND D2 D3 C1 C2 C3 C4 VO V output

R1

D4

Battery circuit control

Regulator circuit control

Figure 5: PV system circuit with variable resistance at the battery level. 4.1 Regulated voltage measurements versus input voltages and resistances at the battery level A blocking diode is generally inserted between the battery and the photovoltaic module in order to prevent the battery losing charge trough the module at night. As known, the delivered voltage is regulated (i.e. Vreg) for the input voltage (VI) at least is 2 to 3 V larger than the value of Vreg. In order to show this behavior, we represent in fig. 6 the regulated voltage versus the input voltage for different resistance values. We noticed for the different values of resistance and in order to regulate 5V that the input voltage is approximately 8V, which is about 3V larger than the regulated voltage. Below the threshold regulation voltage, a linear regime is observed. Thus, for the input voltage less than 4V, no regulation of the voltage has been observed. For R1 with low value, the threshold input voltage is about 7,85V with input current of about 27,17mA for a radiation of 6500lux. For R3 with higher value, the threshold input voltage is about 8,14V that correspond to an input current of about 8,4mA for a radiation of 1000lux. In this study the relation between the input voltage and the output voltage is given by (Fig. 6):

Vinput Voutput 3V

(1)

We noticed, from this particular value of 8V, that the regulated voltage is obtained independently on the resistances value. The regulated value is about 5V, which is adapted to the indoor and outdoor low power applications [21], [22].

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Regulating voltage (V)

R1 =10 R1 R2 =100 R2

2
R3 =1 k R3

0 0 2 4 6 8 10 12

Input voltage (V)

Figure 6: Output regulated voltage versus input voltages for different resistance values at the battery level. We present the simultaneously influence of the resistance at the battery level as well as the light intensities on the voltage regulation performances, as shown in Fig. 7. For light intensity higher than 5000lux, the output voltage is immediately regulated, which remain independent on the resistance. Moreover, for light intensity lower than 3000lux, the regulated voltage value of 5V is only possible for high resistance value of about 1k; high resistance may correspond to the deterioration of battery in practice [23], [24]. This behavior shows that the regulation is not inevitably influenced by the battery aging.
6 5 4 3 2 1 0 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200

Regulated voltage (V)

1000 lux Srie1 Srie3 3000 lux 5000 lux Srie2 6500 lux Srie4

Battery resistance load ( )

Figure 7: Regulated voltage versus battery resistance load.

4.2 Input voltage and regulated voltage measurements versus light intensities The input voltage of the PV module depends on the resistances value as well as the light intensities. For a high resistance value (i.e. 1k), the input voltage values are achieved quickly compared to 10 or 100 (Fig. 8). For light intensity values less than 5000lux, the regulated voltage is mainly dependant on the resistance values (Fig. 9). Thus, for a resistance value of 1k, the regulated voltage is abruptly achieved than rather for 100 or 10 one. However for light intensities higher than 5000lux, the regulated voltage remains independent on the resistance value.
12 10

Input voltage (V)

8 6 4 2 0 0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 30000

R 1 =10 Srie1

Srie2 R 2 =100
R 3 =1 k Srie3

Light intensity (Lux)

Figure 8: Input voltage versus light intensity for different resistances at battery level.

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6 5 4 3 2 1 0 0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 30000
R1 =10 Srie1 R2 =100 Srie2 R3 =1 k Srie3

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Regulated voltage (V)

Light intensity (Lux)

Figure 9: Input voltage versus light intensity for different resistances at battery level.

5. VARIABLE RESISTANCE EFFECT AT THE OUTPUT LEVEL

In order to explain the influence of output resistance values on the voltage regulation performances, a variable resistance is placed on the output (Fig. 10).
Connecting for full input voltage

I input V input

D1 VI u1 7805 GND D2 D3 C1 C2 C3 C4 VO V output

R1

D4 Battery circuit control

Regulator circuit control

Figure 10: PV system circuit with variable output resistance. 5.1 Regulated voltage measurements versus input voltages and output resistances load As shown previously, the regulated voltage is well obtained for the input voltage exceeded with about 3V (Fig. 11). Thus, as shown in Fig. 12 (i.e. regulated voltage versus output resistances for different light intensities), the regulated voltage of 5v is only possible for high resistance value (i.e. 1k), which remain independently of the light intensities. This behaviour it not similar to that already observed previously; the regulated voltage is more sensitive to the output resistance than the battery level one.
6 5 4 3 2 1 0 2 4 6 8 10 12
R1 =10 R1 R2 =100 R2 R3 =1 k R3

Regulated voltage (V)

Input voltage (V)

Figure 11: Regulated voltage versus input voltage.

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6 5 4 3 Srie1 1000 lux 2 1 0 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 3000 lux Srie2 5000 lux Srie3 6500 lux Srie4

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Regulated voltage (V)

Output resistance load ( )

Figure 12: Regulated voltage versus output resistance load for different light intensities. 5.2 Input voltage and regulated voltage measurements versus light intensity The input voltage is sensitive to the resistances at the output system (Fig. 13). For light intensity higher than 5000lux (i.e. high photogenerated current), the regulated voltage is achieved only for resistance value of 1k. The interesting regulated voltage is related to the output resistance value higher than 1k and light intensity upper to 5000lux. However, for light intensity values lower than 5000lux, the regulated voltage is confirmed mainly dependant on the resistance values (Fig. 14). Thus, for a resistance value of 1k, the regulated voltage is abruptly achieved than rather for 100 or 10 one. We noticed for low output resistance (less than 100) that no regulation was observed for high light intensity values; the low output resistance may induce a relatively short-circuit current, and consequently a low voltage drop.

Figure 13: Input voltage versus light intensity for different resistances load.
6 5 4 3
R 1 =10 Srie1

Regulated voltage (V)

2 1 0 0 5000 10000

R2 =100 Srie2 R3 =1 k Srie3

Light intensity (Lux)

15000

20000

25000

30000

Figure 14: Regulated voltage versus light Intensity for different resistances load.

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Web Site: www.ijaiem.org Email: editor@ijaiem.org Volume 3, Issue 3, March 2014 6. Conclusion
PV module suppliers and major users have developed many low power regulators for power photovoltaic systems. These regulators can be quite sophisticated, taking into account such effects as the solar radiation variation, the battery voltages as well as the output consumption. In this work, a simple controlling circuit has been proposed for the low power PV systems. The procedure design consists of the selecting of required capacity for the battery storage, which can provide a reserve capacity in order to cover an exceptionally long period without sunshine, and seasonal storage. Thus, we have developed an original low power photovoltaic system associated with lead-acid battery for 5V regulated voltage for low power electronic applications. Indeed, various parameters have been investigated and considered in order to obtain a stable regulated voltage at the output level. We noticed that the regulated voltage depends mainly on the input voltage light intensity, the resistance at the battery level, and the resistance at the output level. As these parameters influence generally the global PV system performances, it is difficult to size theoretically the PV system without taking into account the detailed experimental study as well as have investigated powerfully here, which prove that our conceived and tested PV system is meaningful and very promising for low power electronic applications. In addition, the outdoor tests for the proposed PV system have been carried out (that not presented here); we noticed that the output voltage remain regulated and stable of about 5V during the day, which proves the reliability of such system for the voltage supplying requirement between 4V and 5V.

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References
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[19] J. Lopez-Seguel, S. I. Seleme, P. Donoso-Garcia, L. F. Morais, P. Cortizo, M. S. Mendes, Comparison of MPPT approaches in Autonomous Photovoltaic Energy Supply System Using DSP, Industrial Technology (ICIT), 2010 IEEE International Conference, pp. 1149-1154. [20] C. Hua, C. Chen, Comparative Study of Peak Power Tracking Techniques for solar storage System Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exposition, 1998. APEC98. Conference Proccedings 1998. Thirteenth Annual, pp. 679685 vol. 2. [21] A. S. Weddel, V. Merrett, B. M. Al-hashimi, Ultra Low-power Photovoltaic MPPT Technique for Indoor and Outdoor Wireless Sensor Nodes, School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Suthampton, SO17 IBJ, UK. [22] N. Sridhar, D. Freeman, A Study of Dy Sensitized Solar Cells Under Indoor and Low level Outdoor Lighting: Comparison to Organic and inorganic thin Film Solar Cells and Methods to Address Maximum Power Point Tracking, Texas Instruments, 13500N. Central Expressway, MS 3747, Dallas, Tx 75243, USA. [23] S. Schaeck, A.O. Stoermer, F. Kaiser, L. Koehler, J. Albers, H. Kabza Lead-acid batteries in micro-hybrid applications. Part I. Selected key parameters, Journal of Power Sources 196 (2011) 15411554. [24] D. Benchetrite, M. Le Gall, O. Bach, M. Perrin, F. Mattera Optimization of charge parameters for leadacid batteries used in photovoltaic systems, Journal of Power Sources 144 (2005) 346351

AUTHORS
A. El Abbassi received the B.S. degree in applied sciences from College of Ibn Khaldoun -El jadida, Morocco in 1988, the M.S. degree in high frequency and telecommunications from Faculty of Sciences of El Jadida, in 1997, and the Ph.D Transistors MOS: Modeling and characterization from Faculty of Sciences of El Jadida, in 2002. His research interests are the microelectronics and transmission systems. A. El Amrani received the B.S. degree in applied sciences from College of El Mansour Dahbi, Morocco in 1997, the M.S. degree in Circuit, systems, micro and nano technologies for high frequency communications and optics from Faculty of Sciences and Technology of Limoges, France, in 2005, and the Ph.D. in high frequency electronics and optoelectronics from XLIM Research institute of Physics, MINACOM Department, Limoges, France in 2008. His research interests are the photoelectronic devices and optoelectronic systems. M. El Amraoui received the B.S. degree in applied sciences from College of Hassan II Midelt, Morocco in 1993, the M.S. degree in Materials, from Faculty of Sciences Meknes, Moulay Ismail University in 2005, and the Ph.D. in Applied Physics to Materials and Archeomaterials from Faculty of Sciences Meknes, Moulay Ismail University in 2011. His research interests are the Applied Materials and systems.

C. Messaoudi received the Bachelor of sciences degree from College of Omar Ibn Abdelaziz, Oujda, Morocco in 1978, the MS degree 1987 in materials science and the Ph.D in 1991, in Material Physics Laboratory from Faculty of Sciences of Rabat, Morocco. His researchs are focused on optoelectronic devices and systems.

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