Sizing a Battery Charging Systems (BCS)

Electricity demand

When sizing a BCS it is important to consider the electricity demand of possible customers. On the individual scale (demand of a family) electricity demand in a newly electrified area can be estimated to lie at about 50 to 200 Wh/d if a flourescent light and a small radio with tape recorder is used. A commonly available 12 V battery of a useful capacity of 80 Ah has a stored energy of 960Wh. Depending on consumption it must be recharged every 5 to 20 days. This lies in the required range for acceptance of the technology by the consumers.

Thus, the generation facilities for running a BSC should be sized in order to meet these minimum demands (that is about 200 Wh/d x customer base).

Modular BCS

Principally, BCS can easily be operated in a modular way, implying that adding more batteries to the charging stations as demand grows is possible as long as electricity generation is sufficient.