DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF DYNAMIC POWER DISTRIBUTION AND MANAGEMENT SYSTEM USING ARDUINO FOR SOLAR POWERABLE INVERTER SYSTEM

ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING

Limited power sources like the solar inverter systems require optimum management making it imperative to implement power shedding and sharing for efficiency in power control and management. Increase in power demands by users on constant basis as a result of increase in population, necessitates the need to efficiently utilize the limited available power resources. The high costs often associated with the acquisition and installation of solar-inverter power system also encourage sharing and shedding of the limited energy resources among users. Although the entire solar inverter system is typically equipped with overload protection mechanism, this paper developed a standalone power control system to provide independent smaller power system units within the inverter system in which each unit is having an overload protection system with the aim of achieving scalability, efficiency, resilience, affordability and reliability. This approach will ensure that, each sub power system is developed and consequently functions independently of other units. The approach integrated ACS712 as current sensors, ZMPT101B type voltage sensor, Arduino UNO and relay modules each part playing significant roles in ensuring an efficient power sharing and shedding system. Each power user is connected to a current sensor which measures the amount of current passing through each segment. This information is coordinated by the Arduino UNO to effect appropriate actions by controlling the relay module to either switch on or off the load in accordance with the programmed over-current safe limit range for each unit. The voltage sensor works with the current sensors to determine the power to each user. An alarm is incorporated to provide alertness in the case any unit violates the principle of governing power sharing. The system was tested and functioned as appropriate, providing quick system response to facilitate efficiency and reliability in the use of shared solar energy resources.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.