| In photovoltaic (PV) solar systems design, weather characteristics play an important role. The design criteria which takes the availability or unavailability of weather into account is mathematically described as the loss-of-load-probability (LOLP), which is defined as the fraction of the life time load.The function of a PV system also depends on the overall reliability of its components. The impact of component reliability on a PV system is that it will be likely to fail, for example, when a critical component in it fails ahead of its designated service life, even when the system is properly sized to match weather characteristics. Available literature indicate that to this time a PV design tool has not been developed to address quantitatively this requirement. Present work involves the development of such a tool, based on a new mathematical model involving the user defined confidence level, the LOLP.In the developed model, the LOLP is made a function of both weather factors and component reliability characteristics and the design configuration is accordingly made to produce an optimum configuration based on least cost. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
