Reliability of rechargeable batteries in a photovoltaic power supply system

We investigated the reliability of a rechargeable battery acting as the ene rgy storage component in a photovoltaic power supply system. A model system was constructed for this that includes the solar resource, the photovoltai c power supply system, the rechargeable battery and a load. The solar resou rce and the system load are modelled as stochastic processes. The photovolt aic system and the rechargeable battery are modelled deterministically, and an artificial neural network is incorporated into the model of the recharg eable battery to simulate damage that occurs during deep discharge cycles. The equations governing system behaviour are solved simultaneously in the M onte Carlo framework, and a first passage problem is solved to assess syste m reliability, (C) 1999 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.