Use of Photovoltaic Energy to Minimize the Impact of Load-shedding in South Africa

Solar energy applications are rapidly growing, thanks to the advancement in the technology that support the development of Photovoltaic (PV) based equipment. Solar based hybrid units have also been designed to power the equipment that are prone to regular power interruptions. One example of scheduled power interruption is load- shedding. Load-shedding is executed in stages, which resemble the amount of power to be switched off for a duration that may last up to four hours, depending on the cause. During load-shedding, all activities that rely upon grid energy supply are halted. This study was conducted to reveal the strategy that can be used to avoid load-shedding or minimize its impact. In this study; the microcontroller diverts the connections of low-power electrical load to the solar source whenever this energy prevails. High-power equipment connections are reserved for the grid power source. The minimum amount of solar energy that each a participating house has to produce to counteract grid energy shortfall that result to load-shedding is estimated, and solar equipment that are recommended for the task were outlined. This research successfully proved that with the inclusion of stand-alone solar energy systems to a number of South African homes, the impact of load-shedding upon electrical consumers could be minimized