Design and implementation of a photovoltaic system used for street lights

Abstract

With differing estimates of the remaining non-renewable energy reserves around the world, but it is clear that the era of fossil fuel use will be expired. Growing international trends towards the substitution of petroleum energy sources with renewable and alternative energy sources is better for the environment. The solar energy is one of the most promising renewable energy. Different types of lamps are utilized for lighting as, Halogen Sodium (400W) and Mercury vapor (250W). Recently, there is a move toward replacing these lamps by the Compact Fluoresce Lamp (CFL) (less than 100 W). The technological advances made in the photovoltaic industry have led to a vast exploration of self-sustaining systems. As the consumer demand for electricity rises from increasing population and development of existing technologies, new practices in system designs are required to relieve the impact on the electrical grid. So, this paper will present design and implementation a stand-alone photovoltaic lighting system. This system based on solar energy. This system is to get electricity from solar energy. This system will be used to highway and car parking lighting. Maximum power point tracking (MPPT) is consided in this paper in photovoltaic (PV) systems because they increase the efficiency of the solar photovoltaic system by increasing the power output. Design and implementation the control circuit for a stand-alone photovoltaic lighting system will be given. The sizing of the PV system was done by using the HOMER program. The experimental results verify the feasibility of this design.