Hybrid Design: Photovoltaic/Eolic for rural communities

This is an adaptation to a formal Paper published by the Universidad del Nordeste, Corrientes, Argentina.

It starts with this:
Diseño de un sistema híbrido solar-eólico para proveer de energía a una comunidad.
(Design of an hybrid solar-eolic system to provide energy to a community)

Sogari, Noemí

Depto. de Física - Facultad de Cs. Exactas y Naturales y Agrimensura - UNNE.
Av. Libertad 5450 - (3400) Corrientes - Argentina.
Tel./Fax: [phone] int. 134
E-mail: [e-mail]

She is the true autor.

So, I am not the autor of the paper, but I have modified his procedure a little bit, so I could use this kind of method in my course.

It uses 2 sources, wind and solar, so we are going to be working with both at the end.

The method itself is called, or to be true is like I like to callit: Energetic balance.

Since you use a balance, in watts, to acchieve your goal: have energy stored to be used later. Some of the parts of this method are similar to the other I have described in my earlier Instructable (see here: http://www.instructables.com/id/Current-method-for-Photovoltaic-Calculations/)

We will size:
1) The PV Generator (Photovoltaics)
As I said before, this is hybrid, so we use both, solar AND wind. In Argentina we use this scale: cell → Module → PanelThe PANEL is an array of several modules, plugged in series or parallels to achieve the right configuration. In this example we will have everything in 12 V systems, so 32-cells modules are going to be OK.
The MODULE is composed of several cells in series and parallel to achieve the right current and voltage.The CELL is the smaller component. Is made of silicon, with the electric contacts in front and rear to pick up some electrons, running around the silicon when some photons hits them.
2) The charge regulator
This is a critic component, since it keeps your batteries fresh and healthier. A bad chosed charge regulator will end up in an early death of the batteries. Here we could chose two regulators, one for each area, or one hybrid regulator.
3) The battery bank
Deep cycle solar batteries aren't cheap, nor light weight. So choosing the right size of that battery bank, suitable for your budget and energy needs is going to be criticall.
4) The wind generator
The machine here will be fixed, but with some searches you could adapt this to our own machine.


Well, lets start, and our first step is always the same: the basic knowledge

Step 1 Basic knowledge (added to the one in our first Instructable)

OK, we have already seen some basic knowledge on my previus instructable, but now we add a lot more of variables, since wind is more unstable than solar.

We are going to use WIND SPEED. And you will see later, that wind speed goes cubed on the power over the shaft, so is the variable we whant to increase.

Roughtness of the ground, wich means how much wind is drawn by the terrain, or the trees. General rule: sea or lake = the best; city of forest = bad.

With wind power location is everything. So we will take a look at some HomePower issues, that you could download for free from it's web site, and read on, to catch up with some not-that-basic knowledge.

In this methos we use watts in everything. So get familiar with this. When you size your battery bank, you will have to choose 12 Vcc, 24 Vcc or 48 Vcc. Here we will get different currents that will travel across the conductors (cable), and since A x V = W; more power means more amps at the same voltage.

We will use here the "Peak Sun Hours" too, so lets see it again:
W = A x V
MJ / 3,6 = Peak Hours (HSP) in further formulas referred as "H"
The full formula looks like this: 1 HSP = [(1000 W x 1 h ) / m2] x [3600 s / 1 h] x [1 J/s / 1 W] = 3,6 MJ/m2

I assume in all the process that you have already take a look at my previus Instructable, so I don't have to put everything back again here.
Let's go to on the Energy Needs of this case.