Uninterrupted Electricity Supply using Off-Grid Solar PV Systems for Remote Areas

Due to the intermittent electricity production, the battery takes an important role in the off-grid PV systems by storing excess electricity production. The stored electricity is then used when the PV system generates less electricity than what is demanded. However, the current price and lifetime of the battery make the electricity cost of the off-grid PV system expensive. Therefore, the capacity of components must be designed to fulfill the demand at the lowest electricity cost. In this study, two strategies in the design of off-grid PV systems to fulfill the same demand are compared. The first strategy is to employ the PV module with proper capacity, which means the annual energy production equals the annual energy demand, but it needs a huge capacity battery to store the accumulation of the excess energy. The second strategy is to use the large capacity of the PV module, which considers the lowest energy production day, but it requires the small capacity of the battery. The results show that the electricity cost of the second strategy is only 29.0 % of the first strategy. However, it dumps 50.1 % of the annual produced electricity.