Photovoltaic power system with hybrid storage for energy-independent housing

With the oil crisis announced in recent years, the use of alternative energy is experiencing strong growth, among them; photovoltaic energy is a promising technology in terms of supply security and environmental preservation. However, it has two main disadvantages: the production of energy is not continuous and the voltage across the PV panels heavily depends on the connected load. Through our research, we propose an autonomous photovoltaic system with storage to reduce the constraints mentioned above. On one hand, an auto-adaptive MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracking) algorithm allows photovoltaic panels to operate according to their optimal tension, thus providing maximum power. On the other hand, the storage device has been optimized: supercapacitors are added to lead-acid batteries to obtain a hybrid storage unit. Thus, supercapacitors perform a 'power' function by facing power peaks, and batteries, an 'energy' function. The addition of supercapacitors preserves the batteries by avoiding deep discharge. Finally, an effective overall management allows the system to provide optimal performance. (author)