Volume 7: Urban Energy Systems: Building, Transport, Environment, Industry, and Integration

Optimal Battery Sizing for a Solar Home System Considering Battery Operation and Capacity Loss Xianming Ye*, Lijun Zhang, Xiaohua Xia, Farshad Barzegar

Abstract

In this study, we aim to find an optimally sized battery that can be installed to an existing grid-tied solar home system without a prior energy storage system, in order to maximize the user’s financial benefits while maintaining reliable power supply to the home. To solve this optimization problem, we formulate the objective function as the net present value of the investment on the battery. Solution to the optimization problem returns the optimal battery size, power flows and battery age status during a 10-year evaluation period. In order to identify the most favorable solution to the user, we apply the proposed optimization algorithm to five typical photovoltaic (PV) generation and home load levels, and find that the optimal battery size is very sensitive to the level of PV power generation and the home load. In addition, it is more financially viable to have the battery when the daily PV power generation is less than the home load.

Keywords Microgrid, energy modelling, energy optimization, battery life, solar home system.