Solar Home Systems (SHS) have recently gained prominence as the most promising solution for increasing energy access in remote, off-grid communities. However, the higher than standard testing conditions (STC) temperatures have a significant impact on the SHS components like PhotoVoltaic (PV) module and battery. A modeling methodology will be presented for quantifying the temperature impact on SHS. For a particular location with high irradiation and temperatures and a given load profile, an SHS model was simulated, and the temperature-impact was analyzed on the performance and lifetime of the SHS components. Different PV module temperature estimation models were applied, and the corresponding dynamic PV outputs were compared. The PV yield was found to be affected by almost 10% due to thermally induced losses. When different levels of temperature variations were considered, the battery lifetime was seen to be up to 33% less than that at 25°C.
Nishant Narayan, TU Delft