Charge controller for hybrid VAWT and solar PV cells

This paper discusses the design of charge controller using Arduino-mega chip for a hybrid renewable energy system combining low wind-speed vertical wind turbine and solar photovoltaic panels as a small-scale alternative source of electrical energy. The proposed hybrid system employs a microcontroller to ensure the finest utilization of resources and hence improving the overall efficiency, as compared with their individual mode of generation, under varying climatic conditions without measuring the irradiance on the photovoltaic panels or the wind speed, using pulse width modulation control technique. A complete description of the hybrid charge controller for proposed hybrid system is discussed in this paper.