ABSTRACT

In recent years, the interest in solar energy has risen due to surging oil prices and environmental
concern. In many remote or underdeveloped areas, direct access to an electric grid is impossible
and a photovoltaic inverter system would make life much simpler and more convenient. With
this in mind, this project aims to design, build, and test a solar panel inverter with thermo electric
generator to convert waste heat in to electricity. This inverter system could be used as backup
power during outages, battery charging, or for typical household applications. The key features
of the system are a true 50Hz, 230Vrms voltage output, a wide input range, and an intelligent
charger, and a power output for led lamps. The overall goal is to design this system while
minimizing component costs. Although systems with similar features already exist, many are
prohibitively expensive for those people who stand to benefit the most. In addition, inverters in
the lower price range typically lack the features mentioned above.
INTRODUCTION

The initial selection of this project was motivated by the increased interest in renewable energy
systems, which has been fuelled by rising oil prices and environmental concern. It is our belief
that the marketplace needs a wider variety of products that will utilize such systems for
household applications. We also believe that the process of designing a solar panel interface will
be greatly beneficial to a power engineer in the rapidly expanding field of renewable energy
applications. The main objective of this project is to design, a solar panel inverter. With
additional power source as thermoelectric generator for waste heat to power, as compared to
other commercially available inverter system, flexible – utilizing a wide input voltage range for
various photovoltaic panels as well as providing a charge control option, and make optimal use
out of any solar panels

DESIGN PROCEDURE

Design Procedure The initial idea for the project consisted of a dc to dc converter input stage
followed by a single boost converter, which would bring a nominally 12 V solar panel up to the
necessary 18 volts and thermo electric voltage. Using two boost converters in tandem was briefly
considered but eventually discarded as excessively difficult to control and inelegant. 12 V
nominal input voltages were not feasible since, so a smart switcher and a charger were used to
monitor the process and control the charge when need.
 Power requirement as according to the sector

RANGE APPROX USAGE APPLICATIONS SECTOR

0 - 250W 50-100W Rural Home Lighting, 20 million+

Street Lighting, households, Remote
Lanterns, Emergency Village Electrification
Lights, Lighting program of MNRE
Retrofits etc covering about 10,000
villages
250W-5KW (off-grid) 1kw Residential, Small Entire Power back-up
Commercial, SPV industry market, 4
Pumps million inverters per
year
5 - 50KW (roof-top, 3kw Big Commercial, 150,000+ rural
off-grid) Telecom Towers, telecom towers,
Rural ATMs, Govt. 50,000+ rural ATMs
Buildings
3 - 100KW (roof-top, 3-25KW Big Commercial, 70% of commercial
grid connected) Govt. Buildings buildings in 2030 are
to be built from now
to 2030.
>100KW, IPP, Grid- 100KW-1MW Independent Power National Solar
connected Plants Mission – 1000MW
by 2013, 20,000MW
by 2022

BLOCKDIAGRAM CHARGER CONTROL

 LCD16X2

10WATT

MONO ALARAM
CRYSTALLINE
SOLAR PANEL

THREE MODE 10BIT

SMART ADC PIC18F4520 INVERTER
CHARGER ON/OFF
CONTROL

12V/7.2AH 10BIT
CHARGE MICROCONTROLLER
SLA
ADC LOAD
SWITCHER
BATTERY
CONTROL

HARDWARE SPECIFICATION
  Pic 18f4520
 Bta12 triac
 Max 232
 Opto coupler
 Lcd 16x2
 Relay
 Transformer 12v,1a
 10watt solar panel
 9-0-9 2 amp transformer
 Irf 540 fet
 Cd 4017 ic
 Buzzer
 12 volt 7.2 ah sealed lead acid battery

SOFTWARE SPECIFICATION

 Embedded –c
 Proteus lab
 Diptrace
 Mikro c
 Osa rtos
 Terminal window

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