Comparison between Lead-Acid and Li-Ion Accumulators in Stand-Alone Photovoltaic System Using the Gross Energy Requirement Criteria

International audienceThe high economic (and energetic) cost of storage accumulator system is still limiting the proliferation of SAPV system. Presently, due to its technical maturity and its low economical investment cost, the storage system universally used in SAPV market, is the lead-acid technology. Nevertheless, the advantages offered by the Lithium-ion (Li-ion) technology in terms of better charging/discharging efficiencies and ageing make Li-ion accumulators more and more envisioned in such applications. In this paper, sizing optimisations of SAPV systems have been lead for each accumulator technology considered. The photovoltaic system has been simulated hour by hour on the whole cycle life duration. Experimental outcomes, lead in order to establish a complete energetic model for Li-ion accumulators, are presented in this paper. Results have been compared using the Gross Energy Requirement (GER) criterion of the whole SAPV system. Results show that Li-ion technology allows us to reduce the energy cost of SAPV systems notably when considering a simulation duration corresponding to the expected life time of PV panels