2018 IEEE PES/IAS PowerAfrica
A tutorial on the development of a Smart Calculator to determine the Installed
Solar requirements for Households and Small businesses
Temitope M. John
Department of Electrical and Information Engineering
Covenant University
Ota, Nigeria
mercy.john@covenantuniversity.edu.ng
Abstract— One of the challenges faced in the Solar
Power industry in Africa is the challenge of proper sizing
of solar equipment to be installed for homes and small
businesses. The installed solar systems in many homes
and businesses are undersized. This has led to the
underperformance of such systems. This and many other
reasons have led to consumer skepticism and reluctance
in installing solar power systems for their energy
requirement. This paper considered the development of a
Smart Calculator (SC) to determine the installed solar
requirement of households and small businesses. The
purpose of this developed SC is to help ascertain to a
large extent the minimum solar requirement to be
installed for any home or business. The calculator
estimates the number and wattage of solar panels
required, the quantity and rating of the batteries needed,
the rating of the inverter and charge controllers to meet
any energy requirement. The calculator is designed using
MATLAB and results are displayed on a MATLAB
GUI. The user could also print out the results of the
calculator in an excel spreadsheet. The results from the
calculator were also compared with Solar Installation
catalogs from a Solar Installation company in Nigeria to
check for similarities and deviations. It was noticed that
the company mostly designed for one (1) day of
autonomy, thus reducing the capacity of the
installed batteries. While this solution leads to
cheaper installed systems, clients need to be made
aware of this concession so they use the systems
properly. This calculator would assist solar system
engineers and installers, home and business owners and
other enthusiasts make better estimates and decisions.
Keywords-Solar calculator; Rural electrification, Solar
Power, MATLAB GUI, Energy analytics; Solar sizing; Solar
Capacity
I. INTRODUCTION
According to the World Energy Outlook (2016) [1],
about 95 percent of the world’s population living without
electricity resides in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and
developing Asia. Also, there are 632 million people living
in SSA without access to electricity [2]. The Africa’s Panel
for Progress estimates that if Africa continues to increase
electrification on current trends, universal electricity access
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Samuel T. Wara
Department of Electrical and Information Engineering
Covenant University
Ota, Nigeria
samuel.wara@covenantuniversity.edu.ng
for all in Africa would not be until the year 2080 [3]. This
bleak projection is a long way off the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) 7; which has a more optimistic
outlook that by 2030 there should be universal access to
electricity in the World [4]. Every important aspect of
development; economy, education, agriculture, manufacture
and health depend on energy. It is imperative for Africa to
tackle the issues relating to Energy insufficiency holistically
as access to energy remains a huge challenge.
According to research, the 632 million individuals
residing in SSA without electricity constitute individuals
who live in rural areas [5-8]. This presents a challenge
because most rural communities in Africa are not connected
to the grid and are characterized by difficult terrains, high
installation costs and low revenues generated because of the
low population in rural areas [9-11]. Hence, grid extension
activities by Governments, Government Agencies,
Independent Power Producers (IPP), International Funding
Agencies, Private participators etc. are usually halted in the
face of these challenges [12, 13].
In Sub-Sahara Africa, rural electrification is still at its
prime, with only about 18 percent of rural communities
having access to electricity. As REN21’s 2016 report shows,
community energy initiatives are increasingly becoming a
least-cost option for power supply for households and small
businesses, and particularly in rural, off grids localities.
In this paper, we propose that households in Africa can
take charge their energy requirements and provide their own
energy needs using solar power [1, 14]. In the last few
years, a lot of private companies dealing in Installation of
Solar home systems have emerged in Africa to provide
Solar Installation services to home and business owners.
The use of solar energy is growing strongly around the
world; this is in part due to the rapidly declining solar panel
manufacturing costs and lavish subsidies, particularly in
Europe. Since 2010, the costs of installing Solar Systems
have reduced by 70% in developed countries like Germany
and USA [15]. This is supposed to be the situation
worldwide but in Africa; Exchange Rate fluctuations have
kept the cost of Solar systems and other renewables at an
all-time high.
The high costs of solar systems have led installers to cut
corners to save cost. As a result, the user is left unsatisfied
with the resultant Installed solar system.
In this paper, the Solar Calculator (SC) gives the number
and wattage of Solar Panels, battery rating, inverter rating
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 2018 IEEE PES/IAS PowerAfrica
and charge controller rating for any solar requirement. It
also gives a life catalog list of solar equipment as specified
by selected manufacturers. It can be used by Solar system
designers, home owners, estate managers when specifying
Solar system requirement for buildings. It can also be used
as an instructional material for training students and
technicians in the specification of the solar home systems.
The paper is organized thus, the second section, gives an
insight to the design methodology at the back end of the
calculator, the third section gives the Validation and
discusses the result from the solar calculator to the design
catalog of a company in Nigeria, the fourth section
concludes the paper.
II. DESIGN METHODOLOGY
This section details the models used in designing the
Solar calculator on MATLAB. These are existing models
used to estimate the solar requirements of buildings and
small businesses. The models run at the back end of the
MATLAB interface. The following step will assist in
approximating the Size of the Solar PV system:
A. Determination of the Power Consumption Demand
The energy demanded by each appliance in the
home/business in watt-hour. In this calculation, the DC and
AC loads were separated. The reason for this is that DC
loads would draw directly from the battery and hence are
more efficient. However, AC loads would draw from the
inverter and as a result of that the inverter efficiency was
factored in the calculations for AC loads. This can be
derived by:
(1)
(2)
(3)
Where Wi = Wattage of the ith appliance, IE = Inverter
efficiency e.g. 0.9, Ti = Total hours appliance would be
used, ni = number of days the appliance will be used per
week, TWhac = Total daily consumption of AC appliances
(Wh), TWhdc = Total daily consumption of DC appliances
(Wh), TKWhDCAC= Total daily consumption of DC and AC
appliances (kWh).
B. Determination of Capacity of PV modules to be
installed (kW)
PV modules come in different sizes and the sizes of the
PV modules determine the power output of the PV modules.
Other parameters that would affect the output of the module
include the climatic condition of the site location. Also, the
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Panel Generation Factor needs to be considered in the
calculation.
(4)
Where beff = efficiency of the battery, PVeff = efficiency of
the PV array, SHp = Peak sun hours of the client site.
(5)
C. Inverter Sizing (W)
Inverters input rating should never be lower than the
active power of the appliances to be supported by the Solar
PV systems. In Standalone systems (the focus of this study),
inverters should be at least 25-30% larger than the total
Wattage of the appliances. If the appliance is a motor or
compressor type load, then the inverter should be at least 3
times the capacity of the appliances. For Grid-connected
systems, the input rating of the inverter should be the same
as the PV array rating. Also, Inverters should have the same
nominal voltage as the battery to be used.
D. Battery Sizing (Ah)
In sizing the battery for the Stand-alone system, the
following should be considered: The efficiency of the
inverter to be used; the number of days the Battery would be
required to support the load without recharging (Days of
autonomy); the operating temperature and voltage of the
battery; the voltage at which the battery would be expected
to operate; how much battery bank the client is open to
installing (more battery connotes more monetary
investment); the efficiency of the Battery.
When batteries are connected in series; the voltage
increases but the current capacity (A) remains the same. To
increase the capacity of the battery bank more battery
strings have to be placed in parallel.
(6)
Where DOA = Days of autonomy, Ki = Temperature
compensation by battery manufacuturer, IE = Inverter
efficiency, DOD = depth of discharge, nbv = nominal
battery voltage.
E. Charge Controller Sizing
The following points should be noted when choosing a
Solar Charge Controller: The charge controller should
match the voltage of the PV array; It is possible to end up
with more than one charge controller; Charge controllers
have a minimum input value they need to stay above and a
maximum input voltage they can allow; how many modules
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 2018 IEEE PES/IAS PowerAfrica
of PV array are in a string; and how many strings are placed
in parallel? In a battery based system, it is safer and better to
connect fewer modules per string.
There are two main types of Charge controllers, the
Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) and the Maximum Power
Point Tracking (MPPT) Charge controller. Charge controller
current rating should first correspond to the current in the
total PV array which the Charge controller will support.
(7)
Where Nsp = number of strings in parallel, Imp=Maximum
power current of the array, CCr = PWM charge controller
rating.
III. VALIDATION AND DISCUSSION
The results from the SC were compared to the solar
design specifications given by a Solar Installation company
in Nigeria (referred to as Company 1). The company
provides 80W, 2, 3.5, 10 and 20kW solar solutions to
households and businesses in Nigeria. Table 1 shows the
comparison between the design specification of the
company and the SC. The table provides solar panel size,
battery size (for 1, 2 and 3 days of autonomy) and inverter
size rating. It is assumed that the depth of discharge (DOD)
of the battery is 60%.
For the rows marked “Within Range”; the values for
Company 1 closely matched the values from the SC with
respect to the preset conditions. For the rows marked “Out
of Range”; the values from Company 1 were not closely
related to that of the SC with respect to the preset
conditions. In designing, it is much better to over
compensate for the installed requirement than to under
compensate. However, it could be expensive to implement
an over compensated design.
From Table 1, the results showed that 52.2% of the
measurements comparing company’s 1 result and SC were
out of range, while 43.5% of the measurements were within
range.
The following reasons could be responsible for the
mismatch between the SC and Company 1:
• The Days of Autonomy in the default design by
Company 1 was clearly different from the values
used in the SSDC. We could conclude from Table
1 that the average day of autonomy designed by
company 1 is 1. The Table 1 also showed the
design calculation for 2 and 3 days of autonomy
respectively;
• The Depth of Discharge was not explicitly stated in
the catalog of company 1. Thus, a DOD 0.6 was
assumed for all calculations.
IV. CONCLUSION
The Solar Calculator (SC) gave an accurate estimate of the
number and wattage of Solar Panels, battery rating, inverter
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rating and charge controller rating for any solar powered
project requirement. It also provided a life catalog list of
solar equipment as specified by selected manufacturers
worldwide. A comparison of the results between product
(solar generators) design listings from one solar technology
provision company and the SSDC was provided in this
paper.
We suggest that this calculator could be used by Solar
system designers, home owners, estate managers when
specifying solar system requirement for buildings. It could
also be used as an instructional material for training students
and technicians in the specification of the solar home
systems.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors wish to appreciate the Covenant University
Renewable Energy Research Cluster (CURERC) and the
Covenant University Center for Research Innovation and
Discovery for sponsoring this research.
REFERENCES
[1] T. M. John, E. G. Ucheaga, O. O. Olowo, J. A.
Badejo, and A. A. Atayero, "Towards building
smart energy systems in sub-Saharan Africa: A
conceptual analytics of electric power
consumption," in Future Technologies Conference
(FTC), 2016, pp. 796-805.
[2] "World Energy Outlook," ed: International Energy
Agency, 2016.
[3] "Power People Planet- Seizing Africa's Energy and
Climate Opportunities (Africa Progress Report
2015)," African Progress Panel2015.
[4] J. Servaes, "Introduction: From MDGs to SDGs,"
in Sustainable Development Goals in the Asian
Context, ed Singapore: Spinger Nature 2017, pp. 1-
13.
[5] "Energy Poverty," ed: International Energy
Agency, 2016.
[6] "Energy Poverty-How to make modern energy
access universal?," in OECD/IEA, 2010.
[7] "Renewables 2016 Global Status Reports,"
REN212016.
[8] A. U. Adoghe, C. O. A. Awosope, A. E.
Airoboman, and C. E. Owuama, "Implemetation of
solar water heating system for a sustainable
environment in Sub-Sahara Africa," 2017, pp. 418-
422.
[9] "From Bottom up: How small Power Producers
and MIni-grids can deliver electrification and
renewable energy in Africa," Directions in
development: Energy and Mining, 2014.
[10] T. M. John, H. Orovwode, and S. Wara, "Pilot
Solar-PV Rural Electrification Scheme for Isalu
Community in Ota Nigeria," Population, vol. 2, pp.
2.68-2.69, 2017.
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[11] O. O. Ajayi, O. D. Ohijeagbon, C. E. Nwadialo, [13] T. M. John, E. Ucheaga, H. Orovwode, and S.

and O. Olasope, "New model to estimate daily
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[12] O. A. Julius Elusakin, Chuks Diji, "Challenges of
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TABLE I. COMPARISON BETWEEN COMPANY 1 AND SOLAR CALCULATOR DESIGN SPECIFICATIONS

Company 1` SSDC Comments

80 W Panel Size 150W 290.971W OR
Battery Size Not Stated 335W NC
Inverter Size 300W 160W OR
2 KW system Panel Size 1680W 2041.48 W WR
Battery Size 12V 1000Ah DOA = 1 12V, 1267.91 Ah OR

DOA = 2 12V, 2535.82 Ah OR

DOA =3 12V, 3803.72 Ah OR

Inverter Size 3KVA 2KW WR

3.5 KW Panel Size 3360W 5060.92 OR
system Battery 12V, 2000Ah DOA = 1 12V, 2987.35 Ah WR
DOA = 2 12V, 5974.69 Ah OR

DOA = 3 12V, 8962.04 Ah OR

Inverter Size 5KVA 5KW WR

10 KW Panel Size 10000 W 11309.6 W WR
system Battery 12V, 5400 Ah DOA = 1 12V, 6675.81Ah WR
DOA = 2 12V, 13351.6 Ah OR

DOA = 3 12V, 20027.4 Ah OR

Inverter Size 5KVA 9KW WR

20 KW Panel Size 20000 W 17000 W WR
system Battery 12V, 10800Ah DOA = 1 12V, 9649.62 Ah OR

DOA = 2 12V, 19299.2 Ah WR

DOA = 3 12V, 28948.9 Ah OR

Inverter Size 20 KVA 16KW WR

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 2018 IEEE PES/IAS PowerAfrica

Figure 1. Overall View of the Solar Calculator Interface on MATLAB

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