Design Methodology of Off-Grid PV Solar Powered Systems for Rural Areas in Ecuador

Renewable technologies are a modern, clean form of energy with a very low environmental impact. They can become a viable option for energy generation, especially in rural areas of Ecuador, where the scarce access to electricity service limits the development possibilities of these areas. Solar energy is the resource used by off grid photovoltaic generation systems, which are used exclusively in rural areas because the installation of the electrical grid is costly or technically complex. In the Matlab/Simulink environment, off grid photovoltaic systems have been designed, which are composed of an array of photovoltaic modules, charge controllers, storage systems and single-phase inverters that together will allow knowing the behavior of electric power generation through solar photovoltaic energy. In addition, a maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithm was developed to obtain the peak power of the photovoltaic array and a discrete integral proportional control was incorporated for the charging and discharging of the batteries. Finally, a sizing tool was designed and developed through Excel Macros and Visual Basic, which facilitated the input of the different parameters and the obtaining of the results for the implementation of the photovoltaic systems.