An approach towards a sustainable urban city - utilization of existing rooftop solar energy panels by making use of DC appliances

Abstract

As with the growing GDP, the economy of Bangladesh is developing. This economic growth leads the nation to an energy crisis because of the increasing gap between demand and production. Although having infinite possibilities of harnessing solar energy, 90% of the urban rooftop solar panels are idle. The paper aims to propose an urban solar home system (SHS) that will utilize the existing rooftop solar panels and reduce power consumption by using DC appliances. In this paper, the proposed SHS system's design, simulation and performance evaluation are done. A comparative study between AC and DC appliances is also done regarding efficiency, power consumption and feasibility. In the proposed system, DC appliances get power from solar panels and excess solar energy is stored in the battery bank for later use. Moreover, the grid connection is kept as a backup source. Finally, the proposed system eliminates the expensive inverter cost and power loss in the conversion process. The satisfactory simulation result has encouraged us to believe in its effectiveness and efficiency.