Reliability Study on a Small-Scale Photovoltaic Refrigeration System

Abstract

The primary concern in designing photovoltaic (PV) array size and battery capacity of the system. The problem encountered in any size a PV system is to find the combination of PV array size and battery capacity to give a chosen reliability. The term “reliability” in the context of a PV system means the  “assurance of energy supply” under stochastically varying weather conditions and it differs from the general meaning of physical reliability related to the functioning and the quality of the components. The computer simulation technique can be used to obtain the reliability of a PV system for a given load profile and meteorological conditions. In this study, an experimentally verified simulation program for a PV refrigeration system is used to investigate the long-term behavior of the PV refrigeration system in terms of reliability. Simulated solar radiation and ambient temperature data were used for the year long simulation to calculate the Loss of load Probability (LOLP) of the system under different PV array size-battery capacity combinations. The reliability-PV array size-batter capacity relationship established by multiple execution of the simulation program provides a useful information base for economic trade-off in the design optimization of PV systems.