Lead-Acid Battery Charge Process in Photovoltaic Applications

Abstract

This paper will describe some of the problems that arise when attempting to charge secondary storage batteries, of the lead-acid type, from an energy source such as a photovoltaic array. A description of the means generally used to charge a lead-acid. battery in a standard photovoltaic system is given, and a proposed series regulator "smart" type system which may be used to improve battery charging efficiency in photovoltaics is described. The paper will conclude with an experiment which compares the battery charging efficiency of the two systems.