The group is responsible for four laboratories: one strictly for teaching, one is divided between teaching and research and two laboratories are only for research. The research laboratories are equiped with instruments for electrical characterization (Keithley 2612A SMU, welling station Weller 3030, 4-channel oscilloscope with protocol decoders, SMUs). Small photovoltaic system deployed on the roof consists of three different PV technologies (monocrystalline, polycrystalline and amorphous silicon) and is connected to monitoring and control system in the laboratory. The system also includes battery inverter, batteries and energy management units. Finally, there are six educational packages based on Siemens S7-1200 PLC and several microcontroller boards.
The research will be focused on photovoltaic systems with energy storage. The main challenge is to match production and consumption of electricity. In order to achieve this, all components will be analysed both separately and as a part of the system, and the influence of each component on system operation will be investigated. We will look at the possible optimization of each system component in order to achieve better system efficiency. Energy flow in the system will be measured and possible optimization of the system with regard to both production and consumption side will be analysed.
One separate topic involves simulation of photovoltaic systems. Widely accepted simulation procedures and simulation tools will be analysed and compared with data from measured PV systems in Croatia. Comparison data will be used in order to detect possible underperforming PV systems. Also, recommendations from PV community will be used to adopt common practice in building reliable PV monitoring systems in Croatia. The goal is to establish procedures for monitoring and analysis of reliability of PV systems.