Proceedings of the 2014 IEEE/SICE International

Symposium on System Integration, Chuo University,

Tokyo, Japan, December 13-15, 2014

SaP1C.4

Assessing the Effect of Design Parameters on Optimal Size of Isolated PV

Systems for Residential Utilizations
Sherif Imam, Ahmed Azmy, Essam Rashad, Member, IEEE, Geza Husi

Abstract This paper investigates the effect of varying

different operating and design parameters on the sizing and
economics of standalone PV systems for residential utilization.
Each subsystem is sized using simplified mathematical
expressions considering the effecting parameters as input
variables. Thus, the sizing and economics of the entire system
can be investigated in a generic form. The cost of each system
component is analyzed based on international prices and
aggregated to obtain the overall cost of energy (COE). The
study is based on a 5 kWh/day residential load. A peak load
power of 1300W is considered when sizing the inverter
capacity. Among the design factors, the battery bank voltage,
charge controller type, the solar irradiation and the depth of
discharge (DOD) are investigated to examine their effect on the
system economy. The analysis results show that the COE relies
heavily on both the size and the selected design voltage of the
battery bank, which in turn depend on the storage hours,
charger size, the (DOD) value and solar irradiation.

I.

INTRODUCTION

The high concern over depletion and high cost of fossil

energy resources put high interest on developing high
efficiency, low cost and clean energy sources [1]. This is
attributed also to the high environmental pollution caused by
fossil energy resources. Photovoltaic (PV) system is
considered as one of the most important renewable energy
schemes regarding this trend [2]. Concerning the running
cost, standalone PV systems (SAPVs) represent a promising
alternative energy source that provides low cost and
unpolluted power generation. Since the power of PV cells is
greatly influenced by light intensity and temperature, the use
of a battery bank is necessary. A review of the current status
of the PV market and recent results on several advanced
types of solar cells are introduced in [3]. Many researches
conveyed different PV technologies and defined the reasons
that prevent their utilization in large scales [3], [4]. A
methodology is introduced in [5] to evaluate size and cost of
SAPV power system components for constant electrical load
of 9 kWh/day. However, this research didn't pay attention to

List of symbols
Symbol
Description
A
AhB
BLC
CA
CBB
CBR
CChr
CCR
CIC
CInv
CIR
CLC
COE
COM
CPV
CTR
CW
CWh
CWp
DPV
DOD
ED
EL
ETot
Hsun
GS
i
Kh
Kr
Ku
LPV
MPPT
NB
PBCB
PCB
PCChr
PCInv

Manuscript received August 29, 2014. The work is supported by the

TMOP-4.2.2.A-11/1/KONV-2012-0041 project. The project is cofinanced by the European Union and the European Social Fund. Sherif
Imam is with the Electrical Engineering Department, Faculty of
Engineering, Kafrelsheikh University, Egypt; phone: 00201115339316;
fax: 002033584249; e-mail: sherif_imam@eng.kfs.edu.eg. Ahmed Azmy
and Essam Rashad are with the Electrical Power and Machines Engineering
Department, Faculty of Engineering, Tanta University, Egypt; e-mails:
azmy@f-eng.tanta.edu.eg; emrashad@ieee.org. Geza Husi is with the
Electrical Engineering and Mechatronics Department, Faculty of
Engineering,
University
of
Debrecen,
Hungary;
e-mail:
husigeza@eng.unideb.hu.

978-1-4799-6943-2/14/$31.00 2014 IEEE

234

PMax
PSVPVS
PV
PWM
SVB
v
VB
VBB
Ysun
ZBB

Autonomy days
Battery Capacity
Battery life cycle
Charger cost per amper
Battery bank cost
Batteries replacement cost
Charger cost
Charge controller replacement cost
Initial capital cost
Inverter cost
Inverter replacement cost
Life cycle cost
Cost of energy
Operation & Maintenance cost
PV array cost
Total replacement cost
Inverter cost per watt
Battery cost per watt hour
PV cost per peak watt
The degradation in PV output power
Depth of discharge
Designed electrical load
Average electrical load
Total generated energy
Average sunshine hours per day
The relative solar irradiation
Interest rate
Forecasted battery health
Relative cost of refurbishment
Used product discount
PV life time
Maximum power point tracking
Number of batteries
Present battery cost for future
investment
Total present battery cost for future
investment
Present charger cost for future
investment
Present inverter cost for future
investment
Maximum continuous load power
Present salvage value
Photovoltaic
Pulse width modulation
Future battery salvage value
Replacement periods
Single battery voltage
Battery bank designed voltage
The sunny days per year
Battery bank size

Unit
Days
Ah
Years
$/A
$/Wh
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$/KWh
$
$
$
$/W
$/Wh
$/W
%
%
Wh/day
Wh/day
Wh
h/day
%
%
%
%
%
years
$
$
$
$
W
$
$
Years
V
V
days
Ah/day

ZChr
ZInv
ZPV
Chr
Inv

Charge controller size

Inverter size
PV array size
Charger efficiency
Inverter efficiency
Uncertainty factor

Table 1: Electrical load on SAPV power system

A
W
W
%
%

Appliance

neither PV module degradation nor the maximum

continuous load for sizing the inverter.An efficient sizing
method for a standalone PV system is introduced in [6].
However, this research didn't consider the optimum DOD
value of batteries. Simulation and optimization of the gridconnected PV residential power supplying system in
Queensland, Australia are introduced in [7]. However, this
research didn't consider the effect of the battery bank
voltage on the COE. Sizing of a standalone photovoltaic
system at minimum cost for remote housing electrification is
introduced in [8]. However, this research considered the
salvage value as a fixed cost of the initial system cost.
The aim of this work is to investigate the effect of
different operating and design parameters on the design of a
standalone PV system for residential utilization. The
economic study considers the effect of each PV system
component on the COE. Both the PV module degradation
and the salvage value of the battery bank were taken into
consideration in this study. The effect of the charger
controller type on both the size of the solar panels and the
COE is clarified. The optimum DOD value and the battery
bank voltage are studied for minimum COE.
II.

SIZING METHODOLOGY AND COST ANALYSIS OF PV

SYSTEM COMPONENTS

B. Defining standard sunshine hours at load location

The number of sunshine hours per day Hsun in Egypt
varies from 6.4 to 11.9 hours. The adapted value in this
paper will be that of Helwan area, which equals 9.5 h/day
[9], [10].

Z PV

ED
H sun

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(2)

The PV module is designed firstly for a standard solar

irradiation of 1000 W/m2. Since the average solar irradiation
in Egypt is about 735 W/m2 [11], [12], (2) should be
modified as follows:
ED

Z PV

(3)

G S H sun

The number of PV modules is determined according to

the peak watt of the PV module available in the market and
the desired battery bank voltage. The PV modules available
in the market range from 30 W to 300 W, and the common
operating voltages of the PV array and battery bank
combination system are 12, 24 and 48 V. With the variation
of the solar irradiation, the design will be accomplished with
the same procedures with different values of (GS).
D. Determination of the battery bank size
The battery bank size can be determined using the
following equations [5]:
A

Z BB

The sizing method adopted for stand-alone PV system is

performed as follows:
A. Defining the electrical load
A typical residential load is analyzed as shown in table 1
to define its average daily consumption. In the table, the
average electrical load (EL) for a household is about
5kWh/day. The designed load (ED) for the PV system should
be higher than the actual load to overcome load fluctuations,
power losses and the uncertainty in the SAPV system
components, so that [5]:
(1)
ED EL
where: is an uncertainty factor and its value is ranged
from 1.2 to 1.5.

C. Determination of PV array size at standard conditions

The PV array size is defined by the following equation
[5]:

Number Power
Working
Total Energy
[W] hours [h/day] [Wh/day]
Ceiling fan
2
60
5
600
Lamps
6
40
6
1440
Refrigerator
1
175
6
1050
TV
1
150
3
450
Water pump
1
245
3
735
Washing machine
1
370
2
740
Total [EL]
5015

NB

DOD

ED
VB

Z BB

(4)
(5)

Ah B

The number of autonomy days for the PV system is

determined according to the cloudy days. The relationship
between the depth of discharge (DOD) value and the cycles
to failure depends on battery type. As shown in figure 1,
DOD value should be decreased to improve the battery life
[13].
E. Defining charge controller capacity and inverter size
The charge controller capacity and the inverter size can
be determined as illustrated in [5]. However, the charger
efficiency and the maximum continuous load have to be
considered when sizing the charger and the inverter
respectively. Therefore, the relations given in [5] are
modified to obtain the charger capacity and the inverter size
as in the following equations:
Z Chr
Z Inv

Chr
PMax

Inv

Z PV
V BB

(6)
(7)

F. Cost analysis of PV system components

The cost of PV module is determined based on its peak
output power multiplied by the cost of the PV per peak watt
as follows:
(8)
C PV Z PV CWp

235

60
50

(15)

1 i v

Since the battery bank will be replaced every five years,

the present battery cost for future investment will be:

The battery life

[Years]

40

PC B

30

C BB

1 i v

, v 5,10,..., 25

(16)

Similarly the present cost of inverter and charge

controller for future investments can be calculated assuming
10 years interval as follows:

20
10
0

C BB

PBC B

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

PC Inv

The depth of discharge [%]

Fig. 1. The relation between the battery DOD value and its life for valve
regulated lead acid batteries (VRLA).

PC Chr

The cost of battery bank is determined based on the

actual battery bank size in watt hour multiplied by the
battery cost per watt hour as follows:
C BB N B V B Ah B CWh
(9)
The cost of power conditioning equipment, like charge
controller and inverter, can be obtained from (10) and (11),
by multiplying the size of each device by its per-unit cost.
C Chr Z Chr C A
(10)
(11)

C Inv Z Inv CW

G. The life-cycle cost methodology

The useful life of PV array is 30 years with 0.5% module
degradation per year [14]. For PV array system, the lifecycle cost (CLC) can be calculated according to the following
formula [5]:
C LC C IC C OM CTR PSV PVS
(12)
Value of CIC is the sum of the capital cost of each PV
system component in addition to the cost of system wiring
and structure support of hardware on the residential rooftop.
COM consists mostly of two terms: the first one concerns
with adjusting the PV modules tilt and its cleaning to
remove dirt and dust. The second term is the batteries
maintenance such as adding water and cable checking. The
total replacement cost can be calculated by summing the
replacement cost of the battery bank, the charger and the
inverter as follows:
C TR C BR C CR C IR
(13)
The relationship between the battery life and the DOD
value, which is illustrated in figure 1, can be obtained from
the following equation [13]:
1
B LC U 2

DOD

U0

U1 1

DOD

1 i v
C Chr

1 i v

, v 10, 20

, v 10, 20

(17)
(18)

The salvage value of the total system is limited to the

salvage value of the batteries because of two reasons.
Firstly, the PV module efficiency is decreases over its life
time. Secondly, there is no existing reliable secondary
market for either power conditioning equipments that were
produced 10 years ago or PV modules that were produced
30 years ago. The salvage value of power conditioning
equipment and PV modules will equal their scrap value.
Their present scrap values will be too tiny to be taken into
consideration. The salvage value of the batteries can be
calculated as follows [19]:
SV B K h 1 K r K u C BB
(19)
The present value of the battery salvage value for future
investments can be calculated as follows:
SV

B
, v= 5, 10, ..., 30
(20)
1 i v
The total generated energy of the system during the PV
life time can be calculated from the following equation
considering the PV degradation in its output:
PSV PVS

L PV

E Tot 1 D PV L PV Z PV G S H sun Y sun

(21)

The COE can be calculated by dividing the life cycle

cost of the system over the total generated energy during the
system life cycle as follows:
COE

C LC
E Tot

(22)

III. SIMULATION RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

(14)

The battery reaches its end-of-life when it can no longer

provide 80% of its capacity. The calendar life of battery and
power conditioning equipment in the stationary application
is estimated to be 5 years for batteries at 50% DOD value
and 10 years for inverter and charge controller [13], [15][18]. Assuming that the replacement cost of battery bank
and power conditioning equipment remains constant during
the life of PV system, the present cost of battery bank for
future investments can be determined as follows:

978-1-4799-6943-2/14/$31.00 2014 IEEE

C Inv

The previous sizing methodology has been implemented

for Helwan city in Egypt. The solar irradiation and other
meteorological parameters have been taken from Ref. [9].
The various parameters that have been used in this study are
listed in table 2 [5], [13] and [19].
The sun shines 341 day over the year in Egypt. In this
paper, the number of autonomy days for the PV system is
taken as 1.1. A computer program is developed to perform
system calculations to determine the size and the percentage
cost of each component in the PV system based on the
parameters defined through previous sizing methodology.
The obtained results indicate that the total required PV
array size is 1090 W. Since the nearest standard module size

236

Table 2: Parameters setting

Parameter

Symbol

Value

Uncertainty factor
Inverter efficiency
Charger efficiency
Average sunshine hours
Autonomy days
Depth of discharge value
Interest rate

Inv
Chr
Hsun
A
DOD
i

1.5
90%
90%
9.5
1.1
47%
6%
0.76
80%
15%
15%
2.5%
0.19
1.69
765

The relative solar irradiation

Forecasted battery health
Relative cost of refurbishment
Used product discount
Annual discount rate
Eq.(14) parameters for "VRLA" battery

IS

Kh
Kr
Ku
R
U0
U1
U2

in the market is 90 W at 12 V each, the PV array will consist

of 12 modules.
According to (6), the charge controller capacity will be 25A
for battery bank voltage equal to 48V. The nearest standard
charge controller available in the market is 30A. In this
study, the maximum continuous load is about 1300W.
According to (7), the nearest standard inverter available in
the market is 1500W. The cost of operation and
maintenance O&M and system wiring and mounting
hardware is about 1% of the initial hardware system cost
and 0.4$/W respectively [20]. The effect of design
parameters on sizing and economics of the stand-alone PV
system is investigated as given in the following sections:
A. The effect of DOD on battery bank size and COE
The economic size of the battery bank has to be designed
taking into account both the battery life and the DOD value.
Increasing the battery life results in decreasing the battery
cost. In addition, when the DOD value is decreased, the
battery size has to be increased, which will increase the
battery cost. However, reducing the DOD value results in an
increase in the battery life as indicated in figure 1.
Therefore, the optimal size of the battery bank is achieved
for a certain value of DOD, which can be termed optimum
DOD since it results in the minimum cost. A computer
program is designed to obtain the optimum DOD value at
minimum cost.
For the investigated case study, the optimum DOD value
will be 47%. The designed number of batteries required for
the existing PV system was determined as 9.05 batteries
based on (4) and (5). The number of batteries has to be
approximated to match the input voltage of the inverter,
which is usually 24V or 48V for small ratings. This is
achieved in such a way that the number of batteries can be
divided by 2 or 4. The approximated number of batteries has
four possible cases, which are summarized in Table 3.
The DOD changes as the number of batteries changes
and accordingly the replacement periods. This affects also
the COE with the new values calculated based on (4), (14)
and (22) as given in Table 3.
For case 3, the battery salvage value of the last
replacement period is increased by the amount of remaining
battery life (2.5 years). According to table 3, the most
economic solution is case 1. In the existing system, the

978-1-4799-6943-2/14/$31.00 2014 IEEE

designed number of batteries is taken as 8 batteries each

having 12 V and 160 Ah capacity. There are two parallel
strings each consists of four series connected batteries to
form a battery bank of 48 V and 320 Ah capacity. Table 4
summarizes the cost of each PV system component
according to (8) through (20) and based on the websites
[21], [22]. The unit cost of each PV system component is
listed in appendix A.
B. Effect of battery bank voltage on charger size and COE
Due to the variety of operating voltages of the PV array
and the battery bank, e.g. 12, 24 and 48 V, the relation
between the battery bank voltage and the charger size has to
be studied. The target is to define the best operating voltage
that provides the minimum COE. According to this study,
Figure 2 is illustrated to show the effect of varying the
battery bank voltage on the COE.
When the battery bank voltage increases, the charger
size decreases, which yields a decrease in the life cycle cost
(CLC) and accordingly in the COE.
C. The effect of the charger type on PV array siz and COE
It is well known that the brighter the sunlight, the more
voltage the solar cells can produce. The excessive voltage
from the solar panel could damage the batteries. A charge
controller is used to maintain the proper charging voltage on
the batteries and to prevent any overcharging, which extends
the battery life. Since the charge controller has a built in
temperature sensor, it is also used to compensate the
charging voltage with the ambient temperature. Currently,
there are two dominant charge controller technologies on the
market: MPPT and PWM. The two controllers charge the
batteries using the three stage charging cycle: bulk,
absorption, and float. The PWM controller is cheaper than
the MPPT controller. However, MPPT charger has the
advantage of compensating the lower battery voltage, which

237

Table 3: Possible cases for approximating the batteries number

NB
VBB (V)
DOD
BLC (Years)
No. of battery replacements
COE ($/Kwh)

Case 1 Case 2 Case 3 Case 4

8
9
10
12
48
12
24
48
54%
47%
43%
36%
5
6
6.5
7.5
5
4
4
3
0.184 0.206 0.187 0.215

Table 4: The cost of each PV system component

Item
PV array
Battery bank
Charge controller
Inverter
Wiring & mounting support
Initial cost of PV system
O & M cost
Present value of battery replacement
Present value of charger replacement
Present value of inverter replacement
Present value of battery salvage value
The life cycle cost
The average cost of energy

Cost
$1512
$3994
$126
$1290
$426
$7348
$735
$9056
$110
$1123
$4778
$13592
0.183 $/KWh

70

0.2

60

0.19

50

0.18

40

Percentage cost

COE [$/KWh]

0.21

0.17
0.16
12 V
24 V
48 V
Battery bank voltage [V]
Fig. 2. The effect of battery bank voltage on the COE

PV array cost [%]

Inverter cost [%]

Battery cost [%]

Charger cost [%]

30
20
10
0
0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

The ratio of current solar irradiatio to

standard solar irradiation

Fig. 3. The effect of solar irradiation on the percentage cost of PV system

components

0.22

COE [$/KWh]

is lower than solar panel voltage, by increasing the delivered

current to the battery to obtain the solar panel full power.
MPPT controller can increase the overall power output from
the solar panel by 30% [23]. Table 5 shows the effect of the
charger controller type on both the PV array size and the
COE.
It is clear from Table 5 that there is a slight difference
between the two cases regarding the COE which can be
neglected. But there is noticeable difference in the PV array
size, which means that using MPPT controller will save the
area occupied by the solar panels.
D. The effect solar irradiation on PV array size and COE
The output power of the PV array depends on the solar
irradiation, which varies with the change of the latitude or
using a tracking PV system. The effect of changing the solar
irradiation on the system economics is studied for each
component. The global horizontal irradiation (GHI) can be
increased by 53% if 2-axis tracking PV system is used [24].
Regarding (3) and (6), the PV array size is inversely
proportional to the solar irradiation and directly proportional
to charger size. Increasing the solar irradiation will
decreasing both the PV array size and cost and hence, both
the size and the cost of the charger will also decrease.
Obviously, the increase of solar irradiation will decrease the
COE and the percentage cost of the PV array in the manner
illustrated by the bar graph of figure 3. Since the cost of the
charger is low compared to other components of the PV
system, its percentage contribution is slightly affected by the
solar irradiation. The cost of the battery bank and the
inverter will not be affected by the solar irradiation.
However, their contribution in the percentage cost will be
changed since the cost of both PV array and charger are
changed. The effect of varying the solar irradiations on the
COE is illustrated in figure 4.

0.2
0.18
0.16
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1
The ratio of actual solar irradiation to standard
solar irradiation
Fig. 4. Effect of varying solar irradiation on the COE

E. Effect of each PV system component on COE

The pie-chart illustrated in figure 5 shows the percentage
cost of each component of the PV system within 30 years of
PV life time. The analysis shows that battery bank cost
represents the major COE, while cost of power conditioning
equipments (inverter and charger) represent only 13% of the
whole cost. The minimum life time of all PV system
components is 5 years, for the batteries. Since the life time
of all other components are multiple of that of batteries, the
COE analysis is performed each 5 years. The results of the
analysis are illustrated in figure 6. It is clear that the
percentage cost of the battery bank is the highest percentage
value compared to these of PV system components along
the system life time.
12%

14%

1%

Table 5: The charger type effect on both the PV array size and the COE

Charger type
Charger size
PV array size [W]
Capital cost of the charger [$]
Present replacement cost of
the charger [$]
PV array cost [$]
COE [$/KWhr]

Case 1
PWM
48V/30A
1080
126

Case 2
MPPT
48V/30A
830
366

110

318

1404
0.183

1079
0.184

978-1-4799-6943-2/14/$31.00 2014 IEEE

PV array
Battery Bank
Charger
Inverter

74%

Fig. 5. The percentage cost of each PV system component for 30 years

238

PV array cost [%]

Inverter cost [%]

Percentage cost

0.7

Battery cost [%]

Charger cost [%]

0.5
0.3
0.1
-0.1

10

15
20
Years

25

30

Fig. 6. The percentage cost of PV system component every 5 years

Moreover, it is noted that the percentage cost of the PV

modules increases over the life of the PV system since its
efficiency decreases by a degradation factor of 0.5% per
year. The percentage cost of the power conditioning
equipment is changed slightly.
IV. CONCLUSION
An economic analysis of a stand-alone PV system for
residential applications is carried out to define each
component size and COE over the PV life time. The PV
degradation and battery salvage value are considered, while
the replacement cost of battery bank and power conditioner
are assumed to be uniform over the PV life time. In addition,
the effect of some parameters, such as DOD, battery bank
voltage, charger controller type and solar irradiation, on the
COE is investigated. From the results, it is found that the
battery life cycle is inversely proportional to the exponential
function of the DOD. To decrease the charger size and
reduce COE, the battery bank voltage is to be increased
without neglecting both the required battery charging
current and the load current limitation. Although the charger
has the lowest percentage cost in the PV system, it can
decrease the COE by more than 12% if the battery bank
voltage is increased from 12V to 48V. This can be achieved
by changing the battery connection method without
changing its capacity. From the scope of the study, it can be
concluded that, the charger controller has negligible effect
on the COE, but it has a great effect on saving the area at
which the solar panels have to be installed. On the other
hand, increasing the solar irradiation results in reducing the
COE as the PV array size is decreased. The analysis showed
that the cost of battery bank plays the major role for defining
the COE. More investigation is required to reduce the cost
of battery banks or develop new storage configurations.
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