Solar Energy Management System with Hybrid Battery/Supercapacitor Storage for Residential Applications

The battery/supercapacitor combination offers excellent performance for hybrid energy storage systems (HESS) in photovoltaic (PV) systems. This study involves a HESS composed of a battery and a supercapacitor (SC), which reduces the current demand on the battery. The performance of HESS in residential PV systems and its impact on energy efficiency are presented. First, the storage device is modeled and sized according to the specifications of the residential PV system under study. A frequency power-sharing strategy is then implemented to manage the power-sharing between the batteries and the supercapacitors. The batteries and PV modules are used to provide steady-state power, and the supercapacitors are used to support peak power. The performance waveforms of each storage device obtained by simulation look promising for the given improvement. The use of a battery/SC combination can significantly improve the performance of the PV system by reducing the battery current levels and lowering the state of charge (SOC) of the battery, thereby extending the overall battery life.