Design And Construction Of A 500W Solar Generator

INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Solar panels produce direct electricity with the help of electrons that are moving from negative to positive direction. Most of the appliances that we use at home work on alternative current. This AC is created by the constant back and forth of the electrons from negative to positive. In AC electricity the voltage can be adjusted according to the use of the appliance. As solar panels only produce Direct current the solar inverter is used to convert the DC to AC.
Mobile solar generator produces square waves or a sine wave which can be used for running lights, televisions, lights, motors etc. However, this mobile solar generator also produce harmonic distortion. Basically solar generator should be a large one so that it supplies enough power to all the necessary appliances, but in this work, a portable generator was designed.
Many people using solar inverters these days which prove that its necessity has been increased in the current years. A Solar generator is similar to a normal electric generator but uses the energy of the Sun, that is, Solar energy. A Solar generator helps in converting the direct current into alternate current with the help of solar power. Direct power is that power which runs in one direction inside the circuit and helps in supplying current when there is no electricity. Direct currents are used for small appliance like mobile e phones, MP3 players, IPod etc. where there is power stored in the form of battery. In case of alternative current it is the power that runs back and forth inside the circuit. The alternate power is generally used for house hold appliances. A Solar generator helps devices that run on DC power to run in AC power so that the user makes use of the AC power. If you are thinking why to use Solar generator instead of the normal electric one then it is because the solar one makes use of the solar energy which is available in abundant from the Sun and is clean and pollution free.
Mobile solar generator is also called as photovoltaic solar generator. This device can help you save lot of money. The small-scale grid one have just two components i.e. the panels and generator while the off grid systems are complicated and consists of batteries which allows users to use appliances during the night when there is no Sunlight available. The solar panel and the batteries that are placed on rooftops attract Sun rays and then convert the Sunlight into electricity. The batteries too grab the extra electricity so that it can then be used to run appliances at night.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
If there is one factor that has perpetually maintained the status of Nigeria as a less developed country, it is its electricity sector. Till date, many households and industrial businesses cannot be guaranteed of 24 hours supply of electricity from the National grid. At this stage of Nigeria’s social and economic development, the country cannot deliver sufficient energy to the citizens despite huge financial resources that have been expended in the sector.
Because of these problems, there is a need to design and construct a portable solar generator we used in most cases by to supply energy that can reduce cost of energy consumed and eliminate noise/environmental pollution that is associated with running of generator.

1.3 AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT
The aim of this project is to design and construct an efficient and economical 500-Watt solar generator that will utilize the appropriate use of office electrical appliances.
The objectives are as follows: –
(i) To provide efficiency, steadiness in the use of power appliances, by ensuring continuous availability of power supply in the cause of main outage during an execution of an important or urgent assignment.
(ii) Reduce load on the National grid that turn to be reduce the overall energy consumption dependency on the main energy supply in the country
(iii) Decrease customer utility bill on energy utilization because of its non-fuel consumption, low price and maintenance cost as compared to the convectional sources of power supplies within International and Local market.
(iv) Again, reduce carbon discharges and subsequently reduce global warming particularly in a period when poor climatic change has become a threat to human survival and life in general to all living creatures hence an ever increasing concern to control it.
(v) To make a movable mobile solar energy generator of 500w power.

1.4 PURPOSE OF THE PROJECT
The purpose of a 500w solar generator is to transform direct current (DC) generated by a PV system into alternating current (AC), which can be sent into portable AC appliances with little power rating. This generator can be used either in concert with battery systems or to directly power certain devices. They also tend to have a few identifying features that are specifically intended to be used with Photo Voltaic arrays, such as maximum power point tracking (MPPT).
Solar generator has been developed to meet the off-grid power needs of environmentally conscious users across a variety of industries, including emergency preparedness/relief, events, entertainment, electric vehicle charging, telecommunications, agriculture and construction.

1.5 APPLICATION OF THE PROJECT
DC power source utilization: mobile solar generator designed to provide 220 VAC from the 12 VDC source provided in solar panel. The unit shown provides up to 1.2 amperes of alternating current, or enough to power 350w appliances.
A mobile solar generator converts the DC electricity from sources such as batteries or fuel cells to AC electricity. The electricity can be at any required voltage; in particular it can operate AC equipment designed for mains operation, or rectified to produce DC at any desired voltage.
Uninterruptible power supplies: An uninterruptible power supply (UPS) uses batteries and a mobile solar generator to supply AC power when main power is not available. When main power is restored, a rectifier supplies DC power to recharge the batteries.
Power grid: Grid-tied solar generator are designed to feed into the electric power distribution system. They transfer synchronously with the line and have as little harmonic content as possible. They also need a means of detecting the presence of utility power for safety reasons, so as not to continue to dangerously feed power to the grid during a power outage. The subsystem which includes sinusoidal and triangular subsystem brief about the comparison of sine wave which is the modulated signal and is compared with carrier signal. When the reference signal is greater than or equal to carrier signal, then the output waveform is above the reference and otherwise it will be below the reference
Solar: A mobile solar generator can be fed into a commercial electrical grid or used by an off-grid electrical network. Mobile solar generator have special functions adapted for use with photovoltaic arrays, including maximum power point tracking and anti-islanding protection.

1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROJECT
Mobile solar generator is useful in making appliances work at residential and industrial levels, such as:
• A solar generator is better optimised for solar power than the regular one. For example, it will prioritise power supply from the solar panels. This means that when the energy from the Sun is adequate like during afternoons, the inverter will draw power entirely from the solar panels to power your portable appliances. This can lead to huge savings on power bills.
• Mobile solar generator will prioritise charging from solar panels, enabling your batteries to charge via the PV panels even when public power supply is on, leading also to savings on your power bills.
• Mobile solar generator has always helped in reducing global warming and greenhouse effect.
• Also use of mobile solar generator helps in saving money that would have used for buying fuel for conventional generator
• Some mobile solar generator will allow you prioritise charging to solar panels or power grid depending the battery level..
• A mobile solar generator helps in converting the Direct current in batteries into alternative current. This helps people who use limited amount of electricity.
• There is this synchronous mobile solar generator that helps small homeowners and power companies as they are large in size.
• Then there is this multifunction mobile solar generator which is the best among all and works efficiently. It converts the DC power to AC very carefully which is perfect for commercial establishments.
• Mobile solar generator the best way and they are better than the normal electric ones. Also their maintenance does not cost much money.
• Mobile solar generator can work when there is no Sunlight but provided their battery is charged fully with the help of Sunlight.

1.7 PROBLEM OF THE PROJECT
• Initially you need to shell out a lot of money for buying a mobile solar generator
• It will work effectively and produce direct current only when the Sunlight is strong.
• The solar panels that are used to attract Sunlight requires lots of space
• The device can work efficiently only if the presence of the Sun is strong.
• Maintenance and replacement may require more effort. In the event of a problem, a technician will need to access the roof to make repairs. Depending on your maintenance plan and warranty, this may cost you money [8].

1.8 LIMITATION OF THE PROJECT
• This device is rated 500w that means any load more than 500w should for no reason applied to this device.
• The intensity of the Sun varies throughout the day. This creates an over-charging problem if the panels are connected to the battery directly, and It should also be able to tell you when you connect the panels wrongly (i.e. positive to negative, etc) and also provide protection against short-circuit. For this reason a charge controller must be used to offer protection from high voltage and current from the panels.
• The mobile solar generator frequency is rated at 50hz
• Iron casing and good heat sink is been used for heat absorption

1.9 ORGANISATION OF THE PROJECT
This work is organized in such a way that every reader of this work will understand how mobile solar generator is been made. Starting from the chapter one to chapter five focused fully on the topic at hand.
Chapter one of this work is on the introduction to mobile solar generator. In this chapter, the background, significance, objective limitation and problem of mobile solar generator were discussed.
Chapter two is on literature review of mobile solar generator. In this chapter, all the literature pertaining to this work was reviewed.
Chapter three is on design methodology. In this chapter all the method involved during the design and construction were discussed.
Chapter four is on testing analysis. All testing that result accurate functionality was analyzed.
Chapter five is on conclusion, recommendation and references.