Design And Construction Of Solar Charge Controller Of 12V/60A

1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Energy plays vital role for development in all sectors. With depletion of fossil fuels used for power generation and increase in demand for power, the gap between supply and demand is becoming more. Renewable energy sources can only provide solution to face this energy crisis. Out of renewable energy options, solar energy is the most potential source for all tropical countries. Sun radiates 180 billion MW of energy over Earth Just one hour of this energy could meet power needs of entire planet for a year. India receives 5000 Trillion KWhrs of energy from SUN per annum. This energy is clean, pollution free and inexhaustible and is available free and in abundance. Basically the components involved in solar system are PV panel, DC-DC Converter, Battery, Inverter.
The PV panel produces electrical voltage/current from solar energy. This solar panel can produce more than the rated voltage to the battery which can be dangerous to the battery due to the high radiation of the sun. In order to tackle the present energy crisis it is necessary to develop an efficient manner in which power has to be extracted from the incoming solar radiation. The use of the newest power control mechanisms called solar charge controller was invented.
Solar Charge controller is basically a voltage and/or current regulator to keep batteries from overcharging.
Solar Charge Controller is fully configurable and developed to meet the highest industry standards to ensure maximal efficiency in retrieving energy from any PV system. When connected to solar panels and batteries, the solar charge controller automatically charges the batteries in an optimal way with all the available solar power. Solar charger controller’s sophisticated three stage charge control system can be configured to optimize charge parameters to precise battery requirements. The unit is fully protected against voltage transients, over temperature, over current, reverse battery and reverse PV connections. An automatic current limit feature allows use of the full capability without worrying about overload from excessive current, voltage or amp-hour based load control.

1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT
Solar panel supplies energy to the battery according to the intensity of light which means it can supply voltage more than the rated voltage of the battery which can cause damage to the battery. Solar charge controller is used to overcome this problem. Solar charge controller is used for correcting and detecting variations in the current-voltage characteristics of solar panel. By using solar charge controller, we can use solar panel with a voltage output greater than the battery system operating voltage. System’s complexity can be reduced by using solar charge controller as it has high efficiency. It can be applied for using with multiple energy sources such as water turbines or wind-power turbines, and so on. The solar panel’s output power is used for controlling DC-DC converter directly.

1.3 AIM AND OBJECTIVE OF THE PROJECT
The main aim of this work is to build a solar charge controlling device of 12v and 60A. At the end of this work the following objective shall be achieved:
i. An MPPT solar charge controller shall be built.
ii. This device will have the capacity to maintain the required voltage magnitude coming from solar panel necessary for the load or control the battery voltage supplied from solar panel.