RECHARGING A BICYCLE BATTERY WITH PV IN TOULOUSE: WILL YOU HAVE TO RIDE THIS WINTER?
This question, asked by Vincent Boitier and Hervé Martinetti, teacher and technician at University Toulouse III – Paul Sabatier, is the pretext for studying the dimensioning and operation of a complete autonomous solar installation including a 375 Watt solar panel, a battery regulator, two 12 Volts 100Ah batteries, a 300 Watts autonomous inverter and an electric bicycle and its charger.
Figure 1. The storage and recharging system of the electric bicycle
Figure 2. Solar panels on the building roof
With an electric bike it is possible to move forward with little effort but the battery must be recharged. Will this system be able to charge the bike in all seasons? See figures 1 and 2.
Figure 3. Simulation results: the brown part (Energy suplied to the user) has the same value every month, which indicates that there is never a shortage of energy to recharge the bike and there is even a surplus in summer (Unused energy).
A simulation study carried out by four students this year guarantees charging even in the middle of winter (figure 3). “In the summer, we can even run an extra fridge,” says two Masters students who set up and instrumented the system. Ongoing measurements, recorded by the many sensors installed in the system will make it possible to compare the results of the simulations with the experimental measurements.