Method for Calculating the Capacity of Solar Power Plants and its Implementation in LabVIEW Environment

Abstract

The paper presents the method for calculating the capacity of an autonomous solar power plant and its components. This method allows considering a load variation during the day as well as specifying the required capacity of the battery and excluding an unjustified overestimation of the power plant component capacities along with the increase in efficiency of the autonomous solar power plant. Formula for determining the required battery capacity of an autonomous solar power plant could be easily generalized for any number of changes in the load schedule steps. Virtual instruments (calculators) for calculating the capacity of an autonomous solar power plant and its components have been developed on the basis of this method in LabVIEW environment. These calculators may have a rather high visibility, ease of use and low memory requirements along with less computing time spent on calculations. The first calculator may allow recalculating capacities of loads on the power plant main supply bus as well as determining the energy consumption of loads per day. The second calculator may be used for determining the required capacity and number of batteries as well as the capacity of the charger, inverters, main supply bus and solar modules along with the solar power plant efficiency.