Designing a power saving mode system to monitor and control the power consumption of households for Kanyegaramire solar mini-grid

Abstract

Kanyegaramire solar mini-grid is facing deficiency of getting the regular power especially during cloudy weather. Energy stored by the battery banks in this mini-grid does not always meet peak demand requirement resulting into power outages. This project presents a new strategy for monitoring and direct control of loads with the aim of providing the consumers with the benefit of using high priority loads of their choice, even when there is less voltage on the batteries by distributing the load in two categories low and high. This project contains the controller which is used to monitor the charge on the battery and as per set value it will turn on/off the load. The Zigbee is used for data transmission as well as communication between transmitter and receiver as per IEEE 802.15.4 Standard. The Zigbee covers enough area needed for communication and it works on low data rate of 20Kbps to 250Kbps with minimum power consumption. The controller is programmed in such a way that, the supply to load will never be zero. The adopted design calculates the consumed power continuously and turns off the low priority appliances in case of a substantial drop in the battery voltage. This project is designed to prioritize the loads as follows; i. During the day when there is enough sunshine and the batteries are fully charged; all loads can be switched on simultaneously. ii. When the batteries are charged in the range of 100%-40%, all categories of loads can be connected (low and high). iii. When the batteries are charged 39%-20%, only lights and phone charging connected. When the batteries are charged below 20%, no load is connected so as prevent the batteries from being over drained