Sizing stand-alone photovoltaic systems

A method of sizing stand-alone photovoltaic systems regarding the reliability to satisfy the load demand, economy of components, and discharge depth exploited by the batteries is presented in this work. Solar radiation data simulated by an appropriate stochastic time series model, and not actual measurements, are used in the sizing procedure. This offers two distinct advantages: (a) sizing can be performed even for locations where no actual data exist, (b) the influence of the variation of the statistical parameters of solar radiation in sizing can be examined. The method has been applied and tested for several representative locations all over Greece for which monthly daily average values of solar radiation are given by ELOT (Hellenic Organization of Standardization)