Real-Time Monitoring of a Solar Charge Controller for Stand-Alone Photovoltaic Systems

Abstract

Solar charge controllers are devices that handle battery charging from solar cells and control the flow current to batteries and loads. The technology to implement such controllers mostly involves microcontrollers. However, the design of integrated advanced monitoring and control mechanisms is required so that users can enhance the energy consumption performance. This work aims to develop a standalone solar charge controller that allows real-time monitoring of the battery status and is included with an automatic circuit breaker for increasing the battery lifetime. The implementation is completed in four phases which involves the design and development of the hardware, software as well as prototype for testing. The results have shown that a solar charge controller with real-time online monitoring of the battery status can be implemented successfully through Things Net platform.