Performance Evaluation of a 4 kW Isolated Solar Powered Lab with IoT Energy Management System

A stand-alone solar powered system is an economic & effective alternative to provide electric power at places in remote and difficult terrains. These setups consist of an array of solar panels, dc-dc charge controllers, dc-ac inverters & an energy storing element. This work presents performance evaluation of an isolated photovoltaic (PV) power plant roof-top installation located at Electrical Department block, Krishna Institute of Engineering & Technology, Muradnagar, U.P., India. The aim of this work is to promote the utilization of mini isolated solar power plants to provide electricity to schools & households in rural locations & places with difficult terrains. The scope of this paper is to acquire data from the installed setup & evaluate performance of the system. In this work, we establish an economic energy logging system for data logging & monitoring. This energy management system uses a Wi-Fi module for Internet of Things (IoT), which provides easy access to the data anywhere around the world. After its successful installation, the performance of the stand-alone PV system is evaluated. The experimental data was recorded from 1st August to 30th October, 2018 through the IoT system. The assessed parameters of the PV installation include performance ratio, Capacity utilization factor, inverter efficiency and system losses.