1. THE PROJECT
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    Grupo 28: Karel Castex, Julio Lara, David Wade, and Jing Zou
    As the demand of energy increases, renewable energy has become more and more popular among all of the energy forms. However, since the nature of natural resources, such as solar and wind, are unstable and uncontrollable, the performance of a solar or wind system independently can be quite inconsistent. Moreover, relying on solar or wind source solely may not be able to produce enough power to satisfy the power consumption. Therefore, it becomes appealing more than ever to create a power system including the following characteristics: environmental friendly, energy and cost efficient. In general, wind and solar are integrated together in a power system synergistically to improve the overall stability. Nevertheless, in reality, it is difficult to charge the battery using both wind and solar energy at the same time. This is because the voltage drop across the source impedance of the wind generator and the solar cell are very different. The goal of the project is create an integrated wind and solar power system that optimizes the efficiency and performance of the overall system. The intent is to implement an extremely efficient charge method that will be able to charge the battery bank during varying atmospheric conditions.
    Integrated Renewable Power System
  2. THE PROJECT
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    Grupo 28: Karel Castex, Julio Lara, David Wade, Jing Zou
    In a world of increasing energy demand, it is imperative to come up with innovative solutions to reduce and conserve energy use. There is a significant interest in creating an environmentally friendly system that will save money on electricity and maximize the cost return on investment for solar panels. The photovoltaic industry continues to strive to create efficient and inexpensive systems that can be competitive with other energy sources. The goal of the project is to create a charge controller that takes energy generated in a solar panel and store this power in a battery. The system utilizes a maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithm which provides a huge improvement to efficiency. Due to the inherent losses that occur in photovoltaic systems, it is essential that the maximum power is extracted. The charge controller is able to monitor the power generated by the photovoltaic array and deliver the maximum amount to the battery bank during varying atmospheric conditions.
    Integrated Renewable Power System
    http://www.google.com/search
    The major components that are required in the demonstration of the off-the-grid integrated wind and solar power system are divided into four categories. The first category is energy source, which include wind turbine and solar panel. The next is control unit containing DC/DC converters, microcontroller based efficiency optimizer, and diversion charge controller. Then, energy will be stored in the battery bank or diverted to the diversion load with respect to the battery charging conditions. The last category is power outlet which consists of a DC/AC inverter and transformer. Users will be able to access the stored energy to run electrical devices. Figure 1 is the overall block diagram of the system. In the figure, the black solid arrows indicate the power flow of battery charge and power output, and the brown dash arrows show the flow of load diversion.

    In order to implement the efficiency optimization of the system, voltage sensors will be inserted in the MC-based optimizer unit. Data from the voltage sensors will be fed into a microcontroller. Then a switching algorithm which adjusts the charging duty cycle ratio of two energy sources to obtain a maximum input to battery bank. Then microcontroller will make switch decisions based on the data it received from the voltage sensors. Battery will be charged in varying atmospheric conditions. Diversion controllers are connected between the power generators and battery bank to monitor the voltage level and divert the exceeding power to dump load to protect the battery. All of the components for the control unit will be connected in a control box. An LCD screen will be attached to the control box for the users to view the status of the system. In addition, live data is pulled from control box to a computer where a rich user friendly application displays several metrics, status, and quantitative reports. Input voltages from both of the sources, charging mode, temperature, and battery level will be displayed.
    System Overview
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  3. The major components that are required in the demonstration of the off-the-grid integrated wind and solar power system are divided into four categories. The first category is energy source, which include wind turbine and solar panel. The next is control unit containing DC/DC converters, microcontroller based efficiency optimizer, and diversion charge controller. Then, energy will be stored in the battery bank or diverted to the diversion load with respect to the battery charging conditions. The last category is power outlet which consists of a DC/AC inverter and transformer. Users will be able to access the stored energy to run electrical devices. Figure 1 is the overall block diagram of the system. In the figure, the black solid arrows indicate the power flow of battery charge and power output, and the brown dash arrows show the flow of load diversion.

    In order to implement the efficiency optimization of the system, voltage sensors will be inserted in the MC-based optimizer unit. Data from the voltage sensors will be fed into a microcontroller. Then a switching algorithm which adjusts the charging duty cycle ratio of two energy sources to obtain a maximum input to battery bank. Then microcontroller will make switch decisions based on the data it received from the voltage sensors. Battery will be charged in varying atmospheric conditions. Diversion controllers are connected between the power generators and battery bank to monitor the voltage level and divert the exceeding power to dump load to protect the battery. All of the components for the control unit will be connected in a control box. An LCD screen will be attached to the control box for the users to view the status of the system. In addition, live data is pulled from control box to a computer where a rich user friendly application displays several metrics, status, and quantitative reports. Input voltages from both of the sources, charging mode, temperature, and battery level will be displayed.
    System Overview
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    THE PROJECT
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  4. To demonstrate an off-the-grid charge controller, there are four major components needed. First, solar panels are used as the energy source. This power is fed to the charge controller which is output into a battery which allows for energy storage. On the output of the battery is an inverter which provides outlets for the user to access the stored energy. The solar panel, battery, and inverter were bought as off-the-shelf parts, while the MPPT charge controller was designed and built by Solar Knights. In addition to providing efficient power storage, the charge controller features a LCD screen for live data capture, and a radio frequency (RF) module for wireless data logging. The charge controller consists of a DC-to-DC Buck-Boost converter, 5V and 3.3V switching regulators, 10A fuses, reverse protection diodes, microcontroller, LCD, wireless transceiver, temperature sensors, voltage sensors, current sensors, and an irradiance sensor.
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    Wind Turbine
    The idea of this project would work for a integrated system of wind and solar energy delivers up 1.5 kW for a typical household. For testing and illustration purposes, a wind turbine delivering from 250 to 400 Watts fits this project. The Hyancinth P-300W wind generator meets our needs for the project. It starts producing energy at 3 m/s. According to the vendor, Hyancinth P-300W Wind generator features the specification as the table below.
    Specifications Values
    Rated Power 300W
    Rated DC Voltage 12/24V
    Rated Current 25/12.5A
    Rated Speed 900rpm
    Max Power 350W
    Cut-in Speed 3m/s
    Cut-out Speed 15m/s

    Solar Panel
    SunWize builds a solar panel that best suites the needs of this project. SunWize models are designed for warm climate locations and the SW-S85P model is the model that has been selected for this system. This model is within our budget and it has close to the 100W output that was originally desired. The SW-S85P has an open circuit voltage of 22.0V and has been factory configured for 12V use. Since the panel has a short circuit current of 5.4 A, much consideration has been given to acquiring parts that are rated for high current.

    Power Generation
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  5. Wind Turbine

    The idea of this project would work for a integrated system of wind and solar energy delivers up 1.5 kW for a typical household. For testing and illustration purposes, a wind turbine delivering from 250 to 400 Watts fits this project. The Hyancinth P-300W wind generator meets our needs for the project. It starts producing energy at 3 m/s. According to the vendor, Hyancinth P-300W Wind generator features the specification as the table below.
    Specifications Values
    Rated Power 300W
    Rated DC Voltage 12/24V
    Rated Current 25/12.5A
    Rated Speed 900rpm
    Max Power 350W
    Cut-in Speed 3m/s
    Cut-out Speed 15m/s
    Power Generation
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    Controller box is the IRPS concept for the encapsulation of some components and functionalities. IRPS performs some actions directly related to microcontroller both in the input and output direction. However, it is important to highlight that the reason of having some components forming part of controller box concept doesn’t mean that they are physical located next to microcontroller in the prototype implementation. Rather, controller box encapsulate them as grouping similar actions to easily explain most of IRPS actions. Being controller box one important part of IRPS circuitry but not the whole board, several electrical components are left out of its design and they are detailed in their own design section. Controller box concept encompassed the microcontroller, voltage sensors, temperature sensor, LCD display, USB interface, and User Interface Report.

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    Control Unit
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  6. THE PROJECT
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  7. THE PROJECT
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  8. THE PROJECT
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    Jing Zou is a senior in Electrical Engineering with an interest in power system and power electronics. She is currently working as an electrical engineering intern in Power Grid Engineering. Jing will be working as an application engineer for Texas Instruments in Dallas, TX upon graduation.
    Jing Zou
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    Karel Castex is a graduating senior in Computer Engineering. He is a senior software architect/developer in .NET framework. His interests include software engineering and lead developing. He currently holds a position as Software Engineer III at Golf Channel, NBCUniversal.
    Karel Castex
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    David Wade is a graduating senior in Electrical Engineering. His hobbies include playing music and traveling. He will be spending this summer playing bass on the Vans Warped Tour and plans on finding employment in the Semiconductor industry afterwards.
    David Wade
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    Julio F. Lara is a graduating senior in Electrical Engineering. He is a senior Co-Op at Siemens Energy and currently has an offer to work for Siemens Industry as Electrical Systems Engineer. His main areas of interest are in power systems, drive technology and electrical systems.
    Julio F. Lara