Energy Conversion and Management 181 (2019) 133–142

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Energy Conversion and Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enconman

A novel solar photovoltaic system with pumped-water storage for T

continuous power at constant voltage
Bahadur Singh Pali , Shelly Vadhera
⁎

Department of Electrical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra, India

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: A novel off-grid small power generation system using locally available sources is proposed in this paper for the
Constant voltage areas, where the open-wells or the permanent sources of water are available. Although, the system can be
Continuous power installed anywhere, but its installation in remote and rural areas, where there is no access of electricity, can be an
Energy storage interesting application. The proposed system comprises of a solar photovoltaic (SPV) system, solar water pump,
Solar photovoltaic system
pico-hydro turbine-generator and pumped-hydro energy storage system. Its operation is quite different from all
Sustainable energy
other existing SPV power generating systems. In this paper, an innovative power generation technique is de-
veloped, due to which the output power of the proposed system is absolutely unaffected by the changes that
occur in solar irradiation. The proposed system does not require the use of batteries, inverter, transformer, and
charging or controlling circuits at all. The attractive features of the system are simplicity, reliability and ability
to generate continuous power at constant voltage irrespective of variations or absence of solar irradiation. The
mathematical model of the proposed system has been developed in the paper. The simulation is carried out using
real solar irradiation for performance evaluation of the proposed model.

1. Introduction
Among all the renewable energy sources (RESs), the wind and solar
are the most widely used energies for sustainable power generation [1],
because of their free and easy availability in abundance on the earth
[2]. Despite the continuous and tremendous development in their
power generation technologies, the present renewable power genera-
tion systems are still not reliable and adequate to fulfil the global de-
mand of clean energy. Many issues, challenges and problems such as
grid integration, power quality, cost, plant failures [1,3,4] are still the
matter of concern. A large number of people still live without electricity
access. Even in China, the country having the highest wind power in-
stalled capacity in the world [5], 2.4 million households do not have
electricity access as per Small Wind World Report 2016 presented by
World Wind Energy Association (WWEA) [6]. According to United
Nations and The Secretary General’s Advisory Group Report 2010,
worldwide about 1.5 billion people have no electricity access and up to
one billion more people have not connections from reliable electricity
networks [7]. There is still no hope of electricity access in many of such
remote and rural areas, because the installation of new power sub-
stations and transmission lines is not economically feasible due to the
geographical constraints in these localities. The off-grid power gen-
eration systems are the only option to electrify these areas [8], but
instead of conventional systems like diesel engine driven power sys-
tems, the installation of small off-grid renewable energy (RE) power
generation system, may be an interesting application of RES.
Therefore, in view of providing clean energy excess, an isolated
solar photovoltaic (SPV) power generation system suitable for the
people of these remote and rural areas is proposed in this paper. The
proposed system is entirely different from all existing solar power
generation systems. The electric power, in the proposed system, is
generated by the hydro-power which is stored by the solar water pump
(SWS) in the form of potential energy of water in a reservoir. However,
the hydro-power is used to generate electric power in previous research
[9] also, but the proposed system is fundamentally quite different from
the previous research and has many major benefits over the previous
one [9]. The primary source of energy in the proposed system is sun,
while in the previous system it is wind and not the sun, because of
which the previous systems cannot be installed in the areas where the
daily average wind speed is too low or the wind variations are quick,
frequent, sharp and large. In such places, the present system can be
installed without any operational problems. Moreover, the wind system
produces the noise pollution, which is undesirable in residential lo-
calities. While, the SPV power system operates silently without un-
desirable noise. Not only this, but also in a study conducted in [10], it is
observed that the solar energy is the best option for future energy

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: bahadursinghpali@gmail.com (B.S. Pali).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2018.12.004
Received 21 October 2018; Accepted 3 December 2018
Available online 14 December 2018
0196-8904/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
B.S. Pali, S. Vadhera
Nomenclature
APV area of solar array, m2
AUR area of upper reservoir, m2
AC alternating current
DC direct current
EES electrical energy storage
G solar irradiance, W/m2
GSTC solar irradiance at standard test conditions, W/m2
g acceleration due to gravity, m/s2
HHT water head of pico-hydro turbine, m
Hin initial PHT head at the start of a time interval, m
Hmax maximum water head of PHT, m
Mmin minimum water head of PHT, m
HSP water head of solar water pump, m
Imp current at maximum power, A
Isc short circuit current, A
MPPT maximum power point tracker
efficiency of the SPV system
PV
overall efficiency of solar water pump
SP
TG overall efficiency of pico-hydro turbine-generator
Pmax maximum power, W
Po system output power, W
requirement and is superior as compared to other renewable energies
because of its availability, capacity, accessibility, cost effectiveness and
efficiency. The rapid annual growth rate of 35–40%, the PV production
about 10.66 GW in 2009 and the record efficiency of thin film solar
cells from 16.5 to 20%, have made the SPV systems to be considered as
one of the best choices for the world energy requirement for sustainable
future [11].
The installation cost of SPV systems has also come down due to the
remarkable improvements in solar cells efficiencies. In a study con-
ducted in [12] to review the past, present and future of thin films solar
cells, it is found that the efficiency of thin films solar cells reaches close
to 22%. Another study [13] reports that the fast development of halide
perovskite solar cells (PSC) has enhanced their power conversion effi-
ciency even over to 22%. A new design of PSC using kesterite mesos-
tructure presented in [14] demonstrates an amazing enhancement in
the efficiency up to 29%. Further research is still being continued on
PSC. The recent enhancements at such a high rate in power conversion
efficiency may put the PSC at the best place among new generation
solar cells replacing the traditional Silicon solar cell [15].
Despite of the fact that the solar energy alike wind energy is also
omnipresent and environmental friendly [2,16], it has a major draw-
back, that is its variable and intermittent nature, because of which the
power output from SPV systems is not continuous and constant. In view
of variable characteristics of solar irradiation, the SPV power systems
are required to have the capability to handle the fluctuations and un-
certainty of power output [17]. Therefore, in order to avail the con-
tinuous power, the hybrid system of solar and other energies is an in-
dispensable requirement. The hybrid combination of RESs such as solar
and wind also needs some electrical energy storage (EES) devices for
stand-alone applications. A lot of research work has been done in this
direction and several studies and research papers on the hybrid systems
of solar energy with renewable or non-renewable energy systems along
with various types of EES schemes are available in the literature. An
overview of the current state of the optimization, simulation and con-
trol technologies for the isolated hybrid system of solar and wind en-
ergies using batteries for EES is presented in [2]. In order to handle the
power fluctuations, a suitable maximum power point tracking (MPPT)
system is required to be used with the SPV system. A fast and very
accurate unified MPPT system is presented in [18] for tracking the
134
Energy Conversion and Management 181 (2019) 133–142
PPV power output from the SPV
PSP power input to the SWP
PHES pumped-hydro energy storage
PHT pico-hydro turbine
PSC perovskite solar cell
PV photovoltaic
QHT water discharge rate of hydro turbine, m3/s
QSP water discharge rate of SWP, m3/s
RE renewable energy
RES renewable energy source
RL load resistance, Ω
W water density, kg/m3
SPV solar photovoltaic
SPVWPS solar photovoltaic water pumping system
STC standard test conditions
SWP solar water pump
T time after beginning of a time interval, sec
UP Uttar Pradesh
UR upper reservoir
Vmp voltage at maximum power, V
Vo system output voltage, V
Voc open circuit voltage, V
WES wind energy system
maximum power points of both PV and wind energy systems (WES) and
is implemented in a wind-solar hybrid system, which uses a fuel cell for
power back-up. In another study carried out in [19], an MPPT system
under overcast and cloudy conditions is optimized and it is observed
that the daily increments in solar irradiation were registered up to
19.91% in the plane of array. A clear and comprehensive study of the
important existing EES technologies along with their principles of op-
eration, economic and technical performance features is conducted in
[20], which suggests their suitable integration into power generation
systems. In spite of the fact that the hybrid systems of solar and wind
energies improve the system efficiency, power reliability and are be-
coming more and more popular [2], these systems still need a con-
tinuous research for the development in their power generation tech-
nology to improve the system reliability, performance and power
quality [2,16].
In developing countries, the batteries are largely used for EES in SPV
off-grid systems, but the frequent charging and discharging of batteries
for longer period create problems and give rise to system failure. In a
study [21] conducted in Ethiopia for monitoring of 31 off-grid solar
power systems starting from installation to system failure, it is found
that the main cause of the systems failure is the failure of batteries.
In addition to batteries, another very popular EES, which is used all
over the world for a long time is the pumped-hydro energy storage
(PHES) system. The PHES system for energy storage in isolated re-
newable energy (RE) power systems is a promising and efficient solu-
tion in view of continuous and reliable power supply for electrification
in remote and rural areas [22]. The other studies conducted in [23–26],
explore that the PHES is a commercially acceptable and well-estab-
lished technology for EES, which is suitable for off-grid as well as grid-
connected RE power generation systems and is being used all over the
world since as early as 1890s. This technology is capable to store energy
in bulk as well as at a very small scale also.
In all existing solar power systems that have PHES for energy sto-
rage, the power generated from the SPV system is directly supplied to
the load through converters/inverters and controlling circuits. When
the power generated is in excess or in surplus, it is stored in the PHES
system in the form of potential energy of water. The energy thus stored
is used latter to generate power, when needed. A grid-connected SPV
power generation system with pico-hydro turbine, hydraulic pump and
B.S. Pali, S. Vadhera Energy Conversion and Management 181 (2019) 133–142

PHES with open well for minimization of residential electricity bill is the maximum solar irradiation from the available one, an appropriate
described in [27], in which, the pump gets power when the energy MPPT can also be used with SPV system.
generated is in excess, surplus or from the grid at night when the energy A suitable open-well is utilized as the lower reservoir of the PHES
is cheaper and sucks water from the open well for storing it into the system. The SWP and PHT-generator are mounted separately on two
upper reservoir. During the day when the electricity prices are higher, suitable foundations having supports of sufficient strength inside the
the electric power is generated using the water thus stored and is sold at open-well just above the water level. If submersible type of SWP is used,
high rates. An off-grid solar-wind hybrid power generation system it remains inside the water. The UR is constructed on the ground in such
comprising of a PHES, pico-hydro turbine, open-well and submersible a way so that the head available due to the distance between the centre
pump is presented in [28], which also supplies power to the water of the PHT impeller and the upper inside surface of the UR is equal to
pump to store water when the energy generated is in excess or surplus. the maximum water head required for the PHT used. The head of the
The water thus stored is used to generate power when needed. SWP is equal to the distance between the water level in the well and the
In addition to hydro power generation, the other part of the meth- upper surface of UR. The penstock through a water controlling valve is
odology adopted in the proposed system is the direct supply of the connected between the UR and the PHT. Another pipe is connected
power generated by the SPV to the SWP throughout the day instead of between the SWP and the UR for storing water in the UR. An overflow
consumer load, which is a new concept in SPV power generation. pipe is also connected in the UR, in view of discharging the extra water
However, the solar photovoltaic water pumping system (SPVWPS), again into the well from the UR, if it is over filled. In order to supply the
which comprises of a mechanical pump directly powered by SPV system electric power generated by the SPV system to SWP, an electric cable is
is being used for a long past in other applications like irrigation and carefully installed in between the two.
water supplies.
The first direct coupled SPVWPS using DC motor was introduced in
2.2. System operation
late 1970s [29]. The SPVWPS is the promising substitute to the con-
ventional pumping system and is the sustainable and cost-effective
Unlike all other existing SPV power systems, the SPV power gen-
approach [30–32]. It has been broadly used in the remote and rural
erated in the proposed system is directly and solely supplied to the SWP
areas of developing countries for the irrigation of agricultural crops and
all the time throughout its operation instead of the load. The SWP sucks
fulfilling the water need of industrial as well as domestic sectors
water from the open well and stores it into the UR. The water thus
[31,33]. The SPVWPS is economically viable in comparison to diesel
stored in the UR falls on the PHT impeller blades through the penstock.
and electricity based pumping systems and its investment package is
The potential energy of water is now converted into the kinetic energy
found to be 4–6 years [29]. These pumping systems are capable to lift
and produces rotational motion in the PHT impeller, which rotates the
water ranging from 5 m to more than 200 m with the daily outputs of
generator coupled with it. The generator thus generates electric power
water volume up to 250 m3 [29].
and supplies the same to the consumer load. The water, after imparting
A detailed design of a standalone SPVWPS for pumping under-
its energy to the PHT impeller, is discharged into the well from where it
ground water from a well having static water level of 147.3 m with
is again stored in the UR by the SWP and then again falls on the PHT
288 m3/h flow rate of water, is presented in [34]. A case study con-
impeller through the penstock. This cycle, using the same quantity of
ducted in [35] for comparative performance of 4 small SPVWPS at
water is repeated again and again and the continuous power supply is
Madinah, Soudi Arabia, claims that at 80 m of water head, the average
maintained throughout the system operation.
daily water volume from solar water pumping systems at maximum
The capacities of SPV system, SWP and UR, in the proposed system,
power of 0.7, 0.75, 0.9 and 1.0 kW is 15, 20.9 21.8 and 22 m3 respec-
tively. Another study [36] conducted at Northern Tunisia for a
SPVWPS, which uses a 101.5 m2 of PV module’s surface, claims that the
daily water volume vary as 274, 281.6, 291, 321 and 321 m3 during
March to July respectively.
Despite so many attractive features, the main drawbacks of the solar
energy, due to which all the solar energy based systems suffer, are its
variable nature and its absence in night, but the proposed system takes
due care of these issues and generates continuous power at the constant
voltage nearly equal to the rated one, irrespective of variations and
absence of solar irradiance in night. In view of the systematic study of
the proposed system, this paper is organized as follows: the Section 2 of
the paper presents the proposed system description; Section 3 provides
the technical features; Section 4 describes the system modelling; the
component selection and design procedure are described in Section 5;
the Section 6 presents the simulation results and discussion; the Section
7 gives the conclusions; and the references are listed in the last.

2. Proposed system description

In order to describe the proposed SPV-PHES power generation

system in a clear and systematic way, all its aspects are described in
following sub-sections:

2.1. System configuration

The main constituents of the present power generation system are

SPV system, SWP, pico-hydro turbine (PHT)-generator, penstock, water
controlling valves, floating valve and PHES system which includes an
open-well and upper reservoir (UR) as depicted in Fig. 1. For extracting Fig. 1. Proposed solar-PHES power system.

135
B.S. Pali, S. Vadhera
are designed in such a way so that, during the day time, the proposed
system is capable to store the adequate quantity of the water that is
needed to run the system for power generation throughout the whole
day and night continuously under the specified daily solar irradiation.
Thus, if the UR is fully filled with water before starting the system
operation, the proposed system runs continuously throughout the day
and night giving the power generated independent of solar irradiation
at all. In fact, the power output from the proposed system depends on
the PHT water discharge rate and the water head available due to the
distance between the PHT impeller and the maximum water level inside
the UR, which is constant and is fixed equal to the maximum water
head needed for the PHT used in the system. Therefore, if the PHT
water discharge rate is once adjusted to generate voltage equal to the
rated one, the proposed system generates continuous power at constant
voltage nearly equal to the rated one irrespective of solar irradiation
changes or its absence in night. The solar irradiation changes, in the
proposed system, affect the water discharge rate of the SWP only, due to
which the filling rate of water to be stored in the UR is affected, but not
the power generated. Hence, the power output of the proposed system
is absolutely unaffected by the changes or even by the absence of solar
irradiation.
However, when the solar irradiation is poor in the day or zero at
night, the SWP discharge and hence the water filling rate in UR is either
less than the PHT discharge rate or zero, due to which the water level of
the UR begins to fall. In such situations, the PHT water head starts to
decrease due to the fall in water level inside the UR from its maximum
point. Therefore, in order to maintain the PHT water head almost
constant, a very simple, easy and novel technique is proposed in this
paper, which does not allow the variation in the PHT head beyond a
specified limit. Thus, the PHT water head is achieved almost constant in
the proposed system by way of the proposed technique, according to
which, the inside height of the UR is designed sufficiently less than the
difference between the maximum and minimum specified water head
limits of the PHT used. In doing so, the maximum change in PHT water
head is limited up to the inside height of UR only, which is small in the
proposed system and so the variation in PHT water head is negligible.
Hence, the proposed system is self-sufficient to maintain the PHT head
almost constant, which is a necessary requirement for power generation
at constant voltage.
In order to make the system unaffected by the load variations, the
power balance in the proposed system can easily be maintained simply
by the resistive dummy loads, each of which is separately connected in
parallel with each actual load through a two-way switch. When the
actual load is switched off through the two-way switch, the dummy
load is automatically switched on and vice-versa.
One important aspect to be noted is that during the proposed system
operation, there is some probability of getting the well water to be con-
taminated. Therefore, in view of avoiding even the least chances of impurity
in drinking water, any one of the cost effective and efficient methods de-
scribed in [37,38] can be incorporated with the present system.
3. Technical features
The prominent and necessary features of the methodology adopted
in the proposed system are briefly and precisely described below:
3.1. Feasibility and reliability
In the proposed system, the power is generated from the hydro
power stored in the PHES system, which is already a matured, estab-
lished and commercially proven technology [23–26]. The other part of
the system is the direct use of SPV power to the SWP, which is a new
concept in SPV power generation, but is a viable, reliable, commercially
proven, sustainable and cost effective approach [29–32].
Hence, the methodology proposed in the present system is feasible,
reliable and practically viable.
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Energy Conversion and Management 181 (2019) 133–142
3.2. Cost and robustness
In the proposed system, the water is stored by the SWP, which gets
electric power supplied by the SPV system. The hydropower thus stored
generates power using a PHT-generator.
While, in all the existing SPV-PHES power systems, the converters,
inverters and controlling circuits are necessarily required [27,28].
Moreover, the batteries and their charging circuits are also not com-
pletely eliminated in the existing isolated SPV-PHES systems [26,28].
Therefore, the existing systems involve more installation cost and are
more complicated and prone to failure in comparison to the proposed
system. Secondly, because of the frequent maintenance and repairing
charges of above accessories plus replacement cost of batteries after
every 3–4 years, the power generation cost of the existing off-grid SPV-
PHES systems is also more than that of the proposed system. Moreover,
in most of the cases, the main cause of the failure of existing SPV sys-
tems is the batteries failure [21].
On the other hand, due to the complete elimination of the above
accessories, the proposed system is quite simple, more reliable and
robust in comparison to existing ones.
3.3. Stability
Alike wind, the solar energy is also of variable and intermittent
nature, because of which the power available from the existing SPV
systems is not stable, but in the proposed system, the power generation
is continuous and stable having output voltage almost constant without
affecting by the changes in solar irradiation as discussed in Section 2.2
above.
3.4. Novel features
Although, the use of MPPT allows continuous power at constant
voltage in many previous researches, but the MPPT is useful in the
presence of solar irradiance only. Therefore, the existing SPV systems
cannot supply power in night even with MPPT. If the batteries are used
for continuous supply, the SPV systems suffer from the drawbacks as-
sociated with the use of batteries as discussed above in Section 3.2, but,
the proposed system continuously operates in the day as well as in night
equally with stable power output as described in Section 2.2. Hence, the
continuous power generation throughout the day and night at constant
voltage equal to rated one irrespective of solar irradiance changes or its
absence in night and without using batteries, converters, inverters,
charging and controlling circuits etc. is the novelty of the present
system in addition to simplicity and reliability.
4. System modelling
The main constituents of the present SPV-PHES system are the SPV
array, SWP, PHT open well and the UR. Therefore, the complete model
of the proposed system comprises of its constituents modelling as de-
scribed below:
4.1. Solar photovoltaic array
The typical I-V and P-V characteristics of the SPV panel can be
plotted using the single-diode Rp- model [39] as given below:
q (V + IRs ) V + IRs
I = Iph I0 exp 1
akT Rp (1)
where I is the output current; Iph is the photocurrent, the magnitude of
which depends on the flux of incident irradiation and the absorption
capacity of the semiconductor material; I0 is the saturation current; q is
the absolute value of the charge of electron; V is the output voltage; a is
the ideality (quality) factor; k is the Boltzmann’s constant; T is the
B.S. Pali, S. Vadhera Energy Conversion and Management 181 (2019) 133–142

temperature of the junction (K), Rs and Rp are the series and shunt re- (9)
W gHSP QSP = SP (PSP ) = SP [PPV ]
sistances. The ratio, kT/q is known as the thermal voltage, Vt.
3
Further, at standard test conditions (STC), Iph is equal to the short- where W is the water density in kg/m , g acceleration due to gravity in
circuit current, Isc [40] and is directly proportional to the solar irra- m/s2, HSP effective water head of the SWP in m, QSP is the water dis-
diance, G [41]. Hence, charge rate of the SWP in m3/s and ήSP is the overall efficiency of the
SWP.
Iph (STC ) = Isc (STC ) (2)
From (9), the sucking rate of the water from the well is equal to the
and discharge rate of the water into the UR and can be expressed as:
G
Isc (G) = Isc (STC ) SP (PPV )
G(STC ) (3) QSP =
W gHSP (10)
where Iph(STC), Isc(STC) and G(STC) are the photo current, short circuit
current and solar irradiance under STC.
4.3. Pico-hydro turbine-generator
Also, the power output, P of a PV cell can be expressed as:
P = VI (4) The output power of the proposed system is equal to the power
The magnitude of the voltage and current of the solar panel is equal generated by the PHT-generator, which can be expressed as:
to the sum of voltages and currents generated by the number of solar
PO = TG W gHHT QHT (11)
cells connected in series and parallel respectively. Hence, the power of
the SPV system depends largely on the solar irradiance. However, the where PO is the system output power in W, TG is the overall efficiency
ambient temperature, wind speed and the SPV panel characteristics also of the PHT-generator set, HHT is the PHT water head in m and QHT is the
affect the SPV power. water discharge rate of the PHT in m3/s.
In the proposed system, the SPV power generated is imparted to the If the load is assumed to be resistive, the system output voltage is
SWP, which sucks water from the open well and stores it in the UR. given by:
Thus, the system output power, which is generated by hydro power, is
entirely unaffected by the SPV power. Therefore, if the factors other VO = [PO × RL] (12)
than the solar irradiance are ignored in computation of SPV output
where VO is the system output voltage in V and RL is the load resistance
power from available irradiance, there will be no mistake or wrong
in Ω.
consequences on the part of the system output power. However, the
SWP power may be affected a little. Hence from (3) and (4), the SPV
4.4. Upper reservoir
output power, PPV(G) at any available solar irradiance, G can be ex-
pressed as:
The rates of incoming water into the UR and that of outgoing water
G from it are equal to the discharge rates of the SWP and the PHT re-
PPV (G) = PPV (STC )
GSTC (5) spectively. Therefore, the both UR water level and the PHT water head
are constant, if
where PPV(STC) is the maximum power available from a SPV panel
having its surface perpendicular to the solar irradiance falling on it QSP = QHT (13)
under STC. The SWP discharge rate depends on the solar irradiation. Therefore,
Each solar panel has its own efficiency of converting the solar ir- it is variable and there may be two probabilities as given below:
radiance into electrical power. Hence, the output power of the SPV
system, PPV(G), which is practically equivalent to (5), can also be ex- QSP < QHT (14)
pressed as: and

PPV (G) = PV APV G (6) QSP > QHT (15)

where PV and APV are the overall efficiency and the area in m2 of the
SPV panel respectively and G is the available solar irradiance in W/m2
at any time.
4.2. Solar water pump
In the present system, whatever power is generated by the SPV is
totally supplied to the SWP for storing water. Thus, the power output
from the SPV system is the power input to the SWP. Hence,
PSP = PPV (7)
and from (6), the power input to the SWP can be expressed as:
PSP = PV APV G (8)
where PSP is power input the SWP.
The power available to the SWP from the SPV as given by (8) is
utilized to suck water from the well and to store it in the UR, but the
power used to suck the water is less than the power received by the
SWP from the SPV due to the losses that occurs in SWP. Therefore, using
(8) and (7), the potential energy of water stored per second in the UR is
given by:
Hence if QSP < QHT, then the water level in UR begins to fall. If this
situation persists for longer period and the whole water is exhausted,
then the system will stop and no power would be generated. On the
other hand, if QSP > QHT, the water starts accumulating in the UR. If
the SWP discharge is still more than that of PHT and the UR is com-
pletely filled with water, then the water begins flowing back into the
well through the overflow pipe.
The UR capacity of storing water is designed in such a way so that the
water stored in it does not finish even after the system operates for the
whole day and night in normal conditions. During this operation the PHT
head is almost constant and always observed within its prescribed limit.
However, using (13), (14) and (15), the exact PHT head, HHT at any
time, T seconds after the beginning of any time interval can be ex-
pressed as:
T
HHT = Hin + [QSP QHT ]
AUR (16)
where Hin is the initial water head in m at the beginning of the time
interval and AUR is the UR area in m2. Here, it is assumed that during a
time interval of one hour, the solar irradiance remains constant and is
equal to the average value of the solar irradiance during the time in-
terval.

137
B.S. Pali, S. Vadhera
Fig. 2. Operation of the proposed system.
The working operation and the control algorithm of the proposed
system are shown in Fig. 2, which 2 reads the system data, gets the
input power from the solar irradiance, which generates power to op-
erate the SWP during the day for storing the adequate quantity of water
needed for 24 h. The system starts when the UR is initially fully filled
with water. As the system starts operating, the water quantity inside the
UR also starts changing due to variable solar irradiance, because of
which, the PHT water head also varies, but this variation cannot be
allowed beyond the internal height of the UR and thus, the PHT head
always remains in between Hmax and Hmin. Hence, both QHT and HHT are
almost constant, as a consequence of which, the system supplies con-
tinuous power at constant voltage till water remains in UR.
5. Component selection and design
In order to illustrate the process of component selection and design
of the proposed SPV-PHES power generation system, a real problem to
generate 0.3 kW at 230 V, single-phase, 50 Hz is considered in the
paper. If any parameter such as efficiency of any system component is
not available, its normal average value is assumed for computation and
simulation purpose. The real hourly average solar irradiation data of
Agra, Uttar Pradesh (UP) in India taken from Weather Spark, USA [42]
as presented in Fig. 3 is used for system design and for carrying out the
simulation.
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Energy Conversion and Management 181 (2019) 133–142
Fig. 3. Hourly average solar irradiance during December 28–30 at Agra, India.
The proper selection and appropriate design of system components
are very essential for the continuous operation of the present system. In
this system, the solar energy supplied by the SPV during the bright
period of the day, is utilized for smooth running of the system con-
tinuously for the whole day and night by way of storing adequate
quantity of water in the UR in the form of potential energy of water. In
Agra, the shortest days of the year are in the month of December. The
poorest solar irradiation at Agra is also in this month as observed from
Fig. 4, showing the month wise daily average solar irradiation in a year
at Agra taken from Weather Spark, USA [42]. Therefore, in view of
assured, reliable and continuous power supply for the whole year, this
month is preferred for performance evaluation of the proposed system.
In view of reliable and assured operation of the system, the bright
period in the month of December is assumed to be of 8 h and the dark
period of 16 h every day. The weather conditions like cloudy and foggy
days are neglected.
5.1. Pico-hydro turbine-generator
The PHT-generator choice depends on the power generation capa-
city opted according to the power requirement. Once the power gen-
eration capacity is decided, a suitable PHT-generator can be availed,
whose specifications are utilized for deciding the selection of other
system component. The specifications of commercially available single
nozzle turgo turbine-generators are shown in Table 1. The column third
of this table has the specifications of the PHT-generator of 0.3 kW
power. The overall efficiency of the PHT-generator is 70% and its
maximum head is 14 m. Using these data, the PHT water discharge rate,
computed from (11) to generate 0.3 kW power, is 0.00313 m3/s (3.13 l/
s).
5.2. Solar water pump
The SWP selection is made on the basis of its capacity to store
sufficient quantity of water during the bright period of 8 h in the day for
running the system for 24 h. The water quantity required for running
the system for 24 h at the rated PHT water discharge of 0.00313 m3/s is
270 m3. This quantity of water is to be stored by the SWP in 8 h. Hence,
from here, the water discharge rate of the suitable SWP is found to be
0.0094 m3/s. For calculation point of view of the SWP power, the total
dynamic head (TDH) of the SWP can be determined from the water
level depth in the well and the PHT head. In this study, the TDH of the
SWP is calculated to be 17 m, which includes the suction and elevation
heads that are equal to 1.0 m and 14.5 m respectively plus head losses
assuming to be 10% of these heads (1.55 m, say 1.5 m). The elevation
B.S. Pali, S. Vadhera Energy Conversion and Management 181 (2019) 133–142

head of SWP is taken 0.5 m more than the PHT head, which is equal to
14 m. In most of the cases, the water level depth in the well is not equal
to the PHT head. In such cases, the elevation head for the SWP is equal
to the distance between the SWP and the upper surface of the UR and
the suction head is equal to the distance between water level and SWP.
Now, assuming 60% as the overall efficiency of SWP, the input power
required by the SWP for satisfactory operation of the proposed system,
computed from (9), is 2.5 kW.
The varieties of SWPs are available in the market in different AC and
DC voltage ranges with or without SPV system. Some manufacturers
claim that their DC motors can directly be powered from the solar panel
and are suitable for low power when the sun rises or increases during
the day or drops to zero at evening. Moreover, their performance par-
allels to changing voltages and currents. Although, the positive dis-
placement pumps generally require low SPV input, low capital cost and
has high hydraulic efficiency even up to 70% [29], but the direct
coupled centrifugal pumps have proven long term reliability [43].
Therefore, in the proposed system, from reliability point of view, the
centrifugal pump with direct SPV powered DC motor is preferred.
5.3. Solar photovoltaic system
5.4.2. Upper reservoir
The main consideration of UR design is that it should have capacity
of storing adequate quantity of water to run the system continuously
throughout the day and night without appreciable variation in PHT
head. As explained in Section 5, the system needs to store water for 16 h
for its continuous operation. Taking the PHT discharge rate equal to
0.00313 m3/s, the water quantity required for this period is equal to
180 m3. Therefore, the UR capacity of storing water should not be less
than 180 m3.
In view of maintaining the PHT head almost constant, the UR inside
height is taken to be 1 m, which is far lesser than the difference in
maximum and minimum water head of the PHT used. Hence, the UR
having area equal to 180 m2 and inside height of 1 m, is constructed at
the ground in such away so that it creates the maximum water head
required for the PHT equal to 14 m. Hence, the minimum PHT head
cannot be less than13 m.
5.5. Component specifications
The component specifications as computed above in Section 5, are
given below:

In the proposed system, the electric power generated by the SPV

system from the solar energy is directly supplied to the SWP. Hence, the The coefficient values used:
Acceleration due to gravity 9.81 m/s2
average power generated by the SPV system should match the SWP Water density, W 1000 kg/m3
power required for filling water in UR at the rated discharge. Therefore, Solar Irradiance, G(STC) 1000 W/m2
SPV system should generate output power equal to 2.5 kWp at the Pico-hydro turbine:
average solar irradiation in order to supply the required input power to Type Single Nozzle Turgo Turbine
SWP. The technical specifications of the SPV module given in second Output power 0.3 kW
Water head (14 ≥ HHT ≥ 13) m
column of Table 2 are used in the proposed case study. Water discharge rate 0.00313 m3/s
The SPV module delivers 250 Wp power under STC and the overall Rated speed 1500 RPM
efficiency of the SPV array is 15.3%. Therefore, in order to generate the Pipe diameter 50 mm
required power output, the SPV system is designed at the average daily Turbine runner Turgo
Generator coupled with PHT:
irradiance. As observed from Fig. 3, the average irradiance of three
Type Permanent magnet generator
months November, December and January, which have the lowest ir- Rated power 0.3 kW
radiation, is 420 W/m2. According to this average irradiance, the SPV Rated voltage 230 V
system should be of 6.0 kWp. The power of this magnitude is delivered Phase Single
by 24 numbers of SPV panels of 250 Wp, which are arranged in suitable Frequency 50 Hz
Power factor 1
parallel and series combination to deliver the voltage as required by the Rated speed 1500 RPM
SWP. Overall efficiency(including PHT) 70%
Solar water pump:
Type Centrifugal pump
5.4. PHES system Total dynamic head 17 m
Rated discharge rate 0.0094 m3/s
The PHES in the proposed system comprises of an open well, UR, Power input 2.5 kW
and SWP. The SWP is already described in Section 5.2. The open well Overall efficiency 60%
Solar photovoltaic system:
and UR descriptions are given below:
Maximum power of each module 250 WP
Number of solar modules 24
5.4.1. Open-well Maximum power of solar array 6.0 kWP
Efficiency of solar array 15.3%
The open well selected should have the capability to supply the Area of solar array 39 m2
sufficient quantity of water, for which there should be a proper boring Upper reservoir:
in the well. Another requirement is the distance between its water level Inside area 180 m2
and the inside upper surface of UR, which should match with the PHT Inside height 1m
Open well:
head required. If, the depth of water level of the well is outside of the
Water level depth 14 m
range of specified PHT head, the PHT-generator is mounted inside the Load:
well at such a place so that the distance between the PHT and the upper Resistance 176 Ω
level of water in the UR is equal to the PHT head desired. In the present
system, the PHT head is 14 m. Therefore, the depth of the preferred
water level is 12–20 m, which can be suitable for the PHT used in the 6. Simulation results and discussion
proposed system. In this study, the water level depth is assumed to be
14 m. The open well should also have minimum seasonal variation in Using real solar irradiation data of Agra, UP, India for three con-
water level. If the water level variation is appreciable, it should be secutive days from December 28–30 as presented in Fig. 3, the simu-
considered in the head calculation of the SWP. For UR construction and lation is carried out on the proposed SPV-PHES system in Matlab for
SPV installation point of view, the surrounding area of the open well evaluation of the system performance continuously for 72 h. The de-
should be open and free from any obstacles to sun. signed values of system components taken from Section 5 with a

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Fig. 5. System output power along with solar irradiance and SWP power.
Fig. 4. Month wise daily average solar irradiation in a year at Agra, India.

Table 1
Specifications of few commercially available single-nozzle turgo turbine-gen-
erators.
Water turbine

Model XJ14- XJ14- XJ18- XJ18- XJ22-

0.2DCT4- 0.3DCT4- 0.5DCT4- 0.75DCT4- 1.1DCT4-
Z Z Z Z Z

Rated head, m 10–14 12–14 12–18 14–18 16–22

Rated flow, l/s 3–4 3–5 5–7 5–8 8–10
Output power, W 200 300 500 750 1100
Efficiency, % 60 70 70 70 70
Pipe diameter, mm 50 50 50–75 75 100
Turbine runner Turgo Turgo Turgo Turgo Turgo

Generator

Model SF0.2-4 SF0.3-4 SF0.5-4 SF0.75-4 SF1.1-4

Power, kW 0.2 0.3 0.5 0.75 1.1

Voltage, V 230 230 230 230 230 Fig. 6. System output voltage.
Phase Single Single Single Single Single
Frequency, Hz 50 50 50 50 50
Current, A 0.87 1.30 2.17 3.26 4.78
Speed, rpm 1500 1500 1500 1500 1500

Table 2
Specifications of SPV panel.
Model JP250W24V JP300W24V JP325W24V

No. of cells 72 72 72
Maximum power, Pmax, Wp 250 300 325
Voltage at maximum power, Vmp, V 35.9 36.6 38.4
Current at maximum power, Imp, A 6.97 8.2 8.47
Open circuit voltage, Voc, V 44.5 44.8 46.3
Short circuit current, Isc, A 7.45 8.6 8.97
Dimensions, mm 1640 × 990 1960 × 990 1960 × 990
Weight, kg 18.3 22 22

resistive load of 176 Ω resistance are used for carrying out simulation.
Initially the UR is fully filled with water and the system starts at 00:00
Fig. 7. UR capacity for running the system for short periods after sun set.
in night. The system output power and voltage obtained from the si-
mulation results are shown in Fig. 5 and in Fig. 6 respectively. Available
solar irradiance and the power supplied by the SPV system to SWP are
also presented in Fig. 5 along with system output power. The results 230 V respectively. However, the SWP power varies with the solar ir-
show that despite the variations in solar irradiance during day and radiance variations.
without any irradiance in night, both output power and voltage are The maximum fall in output voltage, as shown in Fig. 6 is in be-
almost constant and nearly equal to the designed values of 300 W and tween 7 and 8 AM daily. In this period, the voltage gradually falls from

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Table 3
Power consumption of home appliances.
S. no. Appliances
1 LED light bulbs
2 Smart phone charger
3 Tablet computer
4 CFL: equivalent to 40 W
5 CFL: equivalent to 60 W
6 Tablet charger
7 Table fan
without using any electronic circuits or controlling devices. The sim-
plicity, reliability and quality power generation are the attractive fea-
Power required in Watts tures of the present system. The system can be installed anywhere, but
its best use is in the remote and rural areas of developing countries,
7–10 where no electricity access is there. The mathematical model of the
4–7
system is developed in the paper. The simulation is carried out in
5–10
11
Matlab using real solar irradiation data. The proposed model was run
18 continuously for 72 h for evaluation of the system performance. The
10–15 simulated results were observed in excellent close affirmation with ones
10–20 for which the system was designed.

230 V at 5 PM to 226.8, 222.6 and 222.6 V up to 7 AM daily on next 3
consecutive days i.e. at 7, 31 and 55 h, each of which is the 7 AM of
first, second and third day respectively. Thus, the daily maximum fall in
voltage during the period of 14 h (5 PM to 7 AM) is 1.4%, 3.2% and
3.2% for 3 consecutive days respectively. Here, it is observed that the
voltage fall on second day is equal to that of third day, which shows
that there is no drop in voltage after second day. This observation as-
sures that the present system is stable and capable for continuous op-
eration up to the desired period without any further fall in voltage.
Also, it validates the ability of the proposed system to generate con-
tinuous power almost at constant voltage equal to rated one.
Although, the present system can be installed in any area in any
desired capacity, but for electrification of remote and rural areas, where
still there is no electricity excess, this system can be a better option. If
there is no open well there, any natural water source can also be uti-
lized or a well can be dug at a suitable site.
If the system is installed in remote or rural areas, where, the people
do not need the power for the whole night or for 24 h. Therefore, if the
electricity excess is for a few hours in night in addition to day for doing
domestic work such as cooking of food, children study etc., it is quite
sufficient for these people.
If the system is run to provide electricity for a few hours in night
after the sun set instead of whole night, the installing cost of the system
can further be reduced due to the construction of small sized UR and
procurement of low power SWP and SPV system. Fig. 7 shows that for
operating the system from 7 AM to 7.55 PM, 8.58 PM or 9.57 PM, the
UR capacity needed is only 43 m3, 55 m3 and 66 m3 respectively.
According to World Bank-Energy Sector Management Assistance
program (ESMAP) for the people of rural and remote regions of de-
veloping countries [44], the first critical application of electricity access
is the lighting and mobile phone charging, for which ESMAP re-
commends to provide minimum power of 3 W for 4 h in the day and 1 h
in evening to each household under Tier-1 access in initial stage. In
view of this recommendation, 30 households can easily avail 10 W or
15 households 20 W or alternatively 20 household 10 W along with 5
households 20 W of continuous power instead of 3 W from the proposed
system.
The power ratings of essentially required different home appliances
that consume power either 20 or less than 20 W, are given in Table 3.
The appliances can be run alternately whenever required.
7. Conclusions
In the present paper an isolated solar power system using locally
available renewable energy sources with a novel operating technique
for continuous power generation at constant voltage is proposed. The
system comprises of a PHES system, open well, SWP and a PHT. The
proposed system differs a quite from all other existing solar power
generation systems. The solar power generated, in the proposed system
unlike any other existing solar power systems, is directly supplied to the
SWP throughout the system operation instead of the external load. The
unique design of the UR in the present system maintains the continuity
and stability of the PHT water head, which enables the proposed system
to supply continuous power to the external load at constant voltage
Conflict of interest
The authors declared that there is no conflict of interest.
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