Adaptation of an Insulated Centralized Photovoltaic Outdoor Lighting Installation with Electronic Control System to Improve Service Guarantee in Tropical Latitudes

Abstract

Sustainability and energy prices make the energy production from renewable sources necessary and photovoltaic energy is ideal on an urban scale and on isolated facilities. However, when the demand for energy is at night, as in lighting installation, the use of accumulative systems is necessary. The use of batteries can account for more than 70% of the budget of these systems and have a critical impact in the project. This problem increases when the installation’s location moves away from the equator, as the variation between the duration of days and nights increases. This implies that the system must be oversized to almost triple its generation and storage capacity to guarantee operation. This paper proposes the use of a robust and affordable electronic centralized management system that can regulate the consumption based on the energy available in the batteries. To test this system, a real case of outdoor lighting nanogrid has been used. The facility has been powered by a grouped photovoltaic battery system dimensioned for the average year solar conditions with and without consumption management. When used without regulation, in winter or cloudy days, there have been repetitive crashes of the system. On the other hand, with the use of the electronic control proposed, the shutdowns have been avoided, regulating the lighting level when necessary. Thus, more efficient and economically affordable systems can be designed which can help to spread the installation of isolated photovoltaic lighting.