Directly connected PV-battery module cycled under realistic irradiance and load

A properly chosen PV-battery pair can maintain a high degree of internal power coupling even under variable irradiance and load without MPPT electronics. This option is of interest for e.g. module-level integration of PV and battery to cope with natural intermittency of a PV module power output. In this work, we experimentally examine the function of a laboratory scale unit of a 7-cell silicon heterojunction PV module directly connected to a lithium-ion battery and variable load. The unit is the simplest PV-battery module representative for detailed study under a series of emulated realistic profiles of irradiance and power consumption. The directly coupled PV-battery unit shows coupling efficiencies of above 99.8% at high irradiance and approx. 98% on average through the daily cycle – a value that is comparable to modern MPPT devices.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2022.11.040