Standalone System

A stand alone system is ideal for locations that are not connected to the grid or are located a few miles away from any power lines such as a remote cabin in the woods or remote villages in Africa and Asia.

PV systems are the most cost effective way to electrify remote locations that do not have access to the grid and are at least a couple of miles away for any power line.

A block diagram of a stand alone system design is shown below:

The main components of a Grid Interactive system are: PV Arrays, Battery Charge Controller, Battery Bank, Inverter. Other components include Fuses and Switches, Ground Fault protector devices, wiring, combiner boxes sometimes also referred to BOS (Balance of Systems).

The only difference between a Grid-Interactive system and a Stand Alone system is that a stand alone system does not depend on nor is connected to the grid/main power lines. All the design principles and formulae discussed for a Grid-Interactive system apply to stand alone systems expect that the Inverter used in a stand alone system does not need to have the "Islanding" capability. Refer to the section on Grid Interactive system to design the components of the stand alone system as shown in the picture above. Nevertheless it is important to have a fresh mind set when designing a stand alone system as there is no backup of power from the grid and it might be beneficial to select an Inverter that allows for charging the battery bank using a diesel/gas powered generator.