Characterization of Storage Sizing for an Off-Grid House in the US and the Netherlands

This work uses experimental data to estimate the size of storage needed for an isolated off-grid household in two different regions (Austin, Texas, US, and Nunspeet, NL). In our study, an off-grid house is considered to be supplied with 100% renewable energy during the summer period, in which cooling demand is neglected, and a solar photovoltaic (PV) system and batteries are the main electrical energy providers. Based on results achieved with the DEMkit simulation package we can conclude that, in both cases, using a solar PV system and a Sea-Salt battery would have been sufficient to provide the necessary electricity without showing a blackout during the summer of 2016. The Austin household needs a solar PV system of 38 kWp and storage of 452 kWh; in the case of Nunspeet, a solar PV system of 11.5 kWp and storage of 90 kWh is sufficient. Furthermore, using the DEMkit model, it is possible to determine an optimal value for the size of storage to half of the initial battery capacity (226 kWh for Austin and 45 kWh for Nunspeet) and still be able to provide enough power to cover the load demand of the households during the summer. In a second part, data of the solar PV system and load from Austin for one specific week was used to create data of a ‘typical’ but downscaled day. This day was used to determine the fluctuation of electricity for a real Sea-Salt battery for the considered off-grid scenario in Austin. The downscaling of the data was needed in order to have load values that fit to the size of the real battery. The tests show that the Sea-Salt battery under real electricity fluctuations is possibly adequate for off-grid scenarios