Design, installation and commissioning of a solar-powered water pumping system

Abstract

Water is one of the basic human needs, yet today, 2 billion people in the world experience water stress at least one month of the year. The availability of drinking water is identified as one of the world's major problems. The United Nations have highlighted it as one of the Sustainable Development Goals and many other initiatives followed. Several technologies exist to solve this problem, now we need the will as a global community to achieve this. One of the possible technical solutions is the widespread implementation of photovoltaic water pumping systems (PVPS). PVPS has the advantage that it can be used in remote locations, is easy to implement and is cost-effective. The purpose of this study is to design, build, test and compare two complete pumping systems, one with a battery and a second without. Initially, the small-scale systems will be installed and tested at the Héliolab Michel Trottier on the roof of ÉTS. Then, a full-scale system will be designed for later installation and testing, at a real case site. The results showed that a battery-driven system is more efficient and flexible, while a directdriven system is more economical. Combining the PVPS with a reservoir and adjusting the consumption to the weather condition is advantageous. Winter conditions have an important impact on solar energy production. Remote monitoring the very convenient, especially for stand-alone applications. The pre-design of a real case application in the sub-Sahara region demonstrated the feasibility of cheaper systems. It is recommended to improve the control system, design a portable mechanical support for the solar panels and their components, and test under different operating conditions including the use of a reservoir.

Date	13 Dec 2022
Original language	American English
Awarding Institution	École de technologie supérieure
Supervisor	Daniel Rousse (Supervisor)