Grid-tie Systems with Battery Backup

When the grid is running properly, your home or business will use power generated from your
solar panels or pull electricity from the grid. Any excess power generated over and above your
needs go back to your utility company for credits on your power bill in areas where net-metering
is available.
In the event of grid blackouts, these systems will switch to "off-grid mode" drawing power stored
in your battery bank to power your home AND using your solar panels to recharge your battery
bank.

ON THE GRID DURING A SUNNY DAY

Solar electric systems generate electricity silently and without any moving
parts. Sunlight falls on the solar array and generates DC electricity. That DC
electricity is converted into household 120V AC electricity by the inverter. The
AC electricity is fed into your electric meter and circuit breaker panel. The
electricity either goes to your appliances and lights, or to the grid, or some to
each. This happens silently and automatically every day.
ON THE GRID AT NIGHT OR DURING A CLOUDY DAY
At night and during cloudy weather, the solar systems output is reduced or
stopped; however, your home then gets electricity from the utility grid. You
are always connected to the grid, so you can have as much power as you
need, any time you need it, regardless of whether the solar system is able to
put out any power.
When the solar system does put out power, it reduces your usage at the
time, or, if there is excess, your meter spins backwards, counting down your
electric use and bill. Special metering, such as Time-of-Use metering and
billing arrangements can help you take advantage of higher daytime rates,
allowing you to sell power at a high rate and buy it back at night at a lower
rate. This helps reduce the necessary size of your solar system while still
cutting your bill by the same amount. The only catch is that during a utility
power outage a standard grid tie system will not produce power until the grid
power is available. If this is a issue read on.
GRID TIE WITH BATTERY BACKUP refers to a system that has all the
advantages of both a grid tie system and an off grid system. When utility
grid power is available the system works just like a standard grid tie system
and sells excess power back to the utility. But unlike a standard grid tie
system, when the utility power fails the battery backup allows the solar array
to continue to supply the home with power during the day, and the batteries
can supply select circuits within the home during the night. Once the utility
grid starts up again the system automatically switches back to normal
operation.

Solar power
Solar power is the conversion of sunlight into electricity, either directly using photovoltaics (PV),
or indirectly using concentrated solar power (CSP). Concentrated solar power systems
use lenses or mirrors and tracking systems to focus a large area of sunlight into a small beam.
Photovoltaics convert light into an electric current using the photovoltaic effect.[1]
The International Energy Agency projected in 2014 that under its "high renewables" scenario, by
2050, solar photovoltaics and concentrated solar power would contribute about 16 and 11
percent, respectively, of the worldwide electricity consumption, and solar would be the world's
largest source of electricity. Most solar installations would be in China andIndia.[2]
Photovoltaics were initially solely used as a source of electricity for small and medium-sized
applications, from the calculatorpowered by a single solar cell to remote homes powered by
an off-grid rooftop PV system. As the cost of solar electricity has fallen, the number of gridconnected solar PV systems has grown into the millions and utility-scale solar power
stations with hundreds of megawatts are being built. Solar PV is rapidly becoming an
inexpensive, low-carbon technology to harnessrenewable energy from the Sun.

Photovoltaics
A solar cell, or photovoltaic cell (PV), is a device that converts light into electric current using
the photovoltaic effect. The first solar cell was constructed by Charles Fritts in the 1880s.[4] The
German industrialist Ernst Werner von Siemens was among those who recognized the
importance of this discovery.[5] In 1931, the German engineer Bruno Lange developed a photo
cell using silver selenide in place of copper oxide,[6] although the prototype selenium cells
converted less than 1% of incident light into electricity.

How does PV Cells Work

p-type and n-type materials

Solar cells are running on junction effect principle. To

understand junction effect, we should understand n-type and p-type
material. Doping process is needed to obtain n-type or p-type material.
Doping means inserting another atom into the bulk crystal. Consider
silicon crystal: each silicon atom has four electrons in its valance band and
these electrons make bonds with other Silicon atom. You can see the

silicon crystal in the left side with valance electrons of each Si atom. Note
that we call that structure as crystal since all Si atoms are perfectly
aligned. We can convert this structure in to n-type or p-type by doping
different atoms. For example lets dope it by boron. Boron atom has 3
electrons in its valance band. When we insert B atom instead of a Si atom,
one bond between B atom and a Si atom will be very weak. To complete
the prefect symettry in this structer, crystal willbe aimed to catch an
external electron. As you can see an electron is missing since B atom has

3 electron in its
valence band. This missing bond can be
treaeted a positively charged particle called hole. This material is called
p-type material. What if we dope Phosphoroous atom instead of Boron
atom? Phosphorous atom has 5 electrons in its valance band.

When P atom is inserted into the Si lattice, 4 electrons

will be able make bond with neighbour Si atoms. However 5th electron wil
be hanged on. So, it will be in an energy level that very close to
conduction band since it will be nearly free. This nearly free electron can
easly leave P atom with a small thermal energy. Note that there is an
extra electron in this new structure. So we call this new material n-type
material. In contrast to p-type material, n-type material has a tendency to
give electrons. Consequaently we have two types of maerials. One wants
to give electrons and the other wants to receive electrons. We can create
a p-n junction by bringing them together.

p-n junction
When we bring p-type and n-type material together, a diffusion occurs on
the surface between them. Electrons starts to diffuse from n-type to ptype. Similarly, holes diffuses from p-type region to n-type region. This
diffusion creates aelectron-hole free region in a very short distance at the
interface region. This thin layer is called depletion region.

You can see the diffusion in depleti

on in
figure. Blue line indicates the electron concentration while red line
indicate hole concentration trough semiconductor material. As you see
there is an electric field from the n-side to the p-side of the depletion
region. Since the electrons are negative charges this electric field applies
a force to an electron entering the depletion region. Any electron
generated by sun light in the vicinity of the depletion region may pass to
the n-side of the junction very easily. If we connect a wire or any load
between the ends of n-type and p-type region with metal contacts, this
electron will flow to the p-type through this external load. So we need an
external energy to create this current: something should energize the
electrons in the p-type region to enter depletion region. Solar radiation is
an excellent energy source to do this job.
The solar cell type explained above is the example of first generation,
wafer based Crystal Silicon solar cells. There are some differences in the
structure of other solar cell types. But the basic principle is the same:
some kind of p-n junction (or similar potential energy profile) has to be
used to conver the solar radiation to electrical energy.