Study and implementation of a stand-alone photovoltaic water pumping system (PVPS) in desert region

Supply building with the safe water is necessary for domestic use that is why the Photovoltaic Pumping System (PVPS) should be integrated in such solar architectural study or urban planning. Because of its desert position and low buildings, Ghardaia site is an appropriate location to use the (PVPS), with an easily full south inclined PV array. The availability of solar radiation covering the whole Algerian Sahara, with an average sunny day ranges between 5 h to 10 h, as well as the abundance of the underground water, with static head ranges between 5 m to 40 m help to use a stand alone (PVPS) for drink and irrigation, especially in remote regions far away from national electric grid. On March 2005, complete PV water pumping test bench has been installed at our URAER (Applied Research Unit for Renewable Energies)-Ghardaia site in order to carry out the characterization tests on available solar water pumps. The obtained results will be used in such dimensioning study needed for (PVPS) installation. Many tests have been carried out on different submersible water pumps, namely: Grundfos with nominal power (DC 30 V - 300 V, Imax = 7 A, P = 900 W), Water Max WA 64 with nominal power (V = 64 V, Imax = 4,6 A, P = 300 W). With the Grundfos solar pump model, an average of about 40 m 3 per day of the pumped water volume has been achieved from fixed head of 25 m, at daily average solar irradiance (7 hours) of bout 760 W/m 2 to about 880 W/m 2 , during March. With the Water Max WA 64 model, an average of about 5 m 3 of the pumped water volume has been reached during 7 hours of pumping, from fixed head of 15 m, at daily average solar radiation (7 hours) ranges from about 880 Wh/m 2 to about 940 Wh/m 2 , during April. Similar studies have been done to implement two stand alone(PVPS) for two irrigating wells of two farms ,within TMHs are 28 m and 25 m respectively, and with reservoir storage capacity of 50 m 3 each. It has been averred that the daily required powers are approximately 4.5 kW and 3 kW, respectively is needed to extract such quantity of water. The mentioned study is carried out upon the pumping lab PV array, which is implemented outside, on full south with an inclination angle of 32°.