Replacement of Batteries for the 1KW Solar System at Aoral

The 1 KW Solar Powered System at Aoral, Cambodia was installed in 2008. The batteries were working since then until today (April 2013). Most operations at PKH Aoral were for day time usage until the expansion of PKH Aoral to become a Training Centre for Hospitality and Technical Training for the surrounding villagers.

The batteries were operating for the last 5 years. The batteries have exceeded its operating life and acted as capacitors and did not store electricity for night usage.

The battery voltage over a 24 hours period was data logged and presented below. Two fans were operating, 2 notebooks were charging and a PC witch ON.

 
A new set of 10 Deep Cycle Batteries were purchased and installed at PKH, Aoral. The Batteries Voltage was monitored and data logged for 24 hours. The results of the data logging is shown below.



As we can see that the battery voltage is more stable 2 fans, 1 notebook charging and sometimes the PC is switch ON. Between 6 to 10 pm, the generator is turn ON and the solar battery is switch OFF. After 10 pm, the generator is switch OFF and revert back to Solar. At night, 2 Fans and a Flourescent Lamp were ON the whole night. The batteries were able to sustain the whole night operations with a day charging.

The system calculations allows 4 Fans in the Mission House to operate for 8 hours at night and 3 Fans in the Office for 8 hours during the day. It has 2 days of stand-by battery charge.

The second graph shows the battery voltage taken 6 months later (October 2013) for 2 days.