Battery Charge Regulators

What they are and how their charge regulators work
batteries

A battery charge regulator is also required to complete the photovoltaic system. The charge regulator is a relatively simple electronic device that takes care of the proper charging of the batteries of our photovoltaic system. It checks the charging process and stops charging when it finds that the battery is fully charged so as not to be damaged and whenever the battery voltage drops below the full charge level it starts the process again.

Charging regulator size

To find the required size of a charge regulator, we simply divide the total power of our panels by 12 (for example if our system is at 12V or by 24 if our system is at 24V).

Suppose we have a panel with a total power of 480Wp / 12V = 40A charge regulator. It is important not to choose a regulator that will work marginally to ensure proper charging of our batteries.

 

An MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracking) controller utilizes almost all the available power of the panels, resulting in up to 30% more than ordinary controllers. Simple regulators simply regulate the voltage by losing the extra power produced by the panels several hours a day. Simple regulators, however, are suitable for small photovoltaic systems, if the economy is more important than taking full advantage of the available power of the panels.

 

In any case, stay away from cheap low quality charge regulator options: The charge regulator cost is the lowest in a system and is not worth saving here. Its role is to properly charge and maintain comparatively much more expensive batteries and it is not worthwhile to significantly reduce the life of batteries to save just a few tens of euros, in a system that costs hundreds or thousands of euros.