Heat Generation and Thermal Response of Enclosed Batteries/Electronics in Autonomous Street Lighting Applications

可再生能源，太阳能和风能，现在被用于离网街道照明应用，就像PoleCo有限公司生产和销售的那样。这种系统被安装在没有电网的地区，那里有足够的太阳能（或风能）资源来给铅酸电池充电，并为日常使用的灯供电。专注于太阳能资源丰富的地区，在那里一组电池白天从太阳能光伏板充电，晚上放电，同时为路灯提供电力；该系统面临着高太阳辐照度和高周围温度的不幸后果。这导致电池和控制电子元件的工作温度升高，从而导致其寿命急剧减少，并可能因热失控而发生灾难性故障。该研究项目将通过实验研究PoleCo使用的铅酸电池的热行为，以开发路灯应用中使用的电池/控制电子设备/外壳的有效数值模型。有了这样的模型，各种情景将通过数值变化的环境条件（太阳辐照，外部温度，风因子）来研究，以确定系统的热瞬态行为。最终，可能的设计将导致更好的热管理进行数值研究，最有前途的设计将由PoleCo公司实施。从热的角度来看，更好地管理电池和电子设备将延长设备的使用寿命，降低系统的运营成本，并为PoleCo公司提供更多的市场份额，收入和增长，使加拿大经济受益。

Renewable energy, solar and wind, are now being used in off-grid street lighting applications, like to ones manufactured and sold by PoleCo limited. Such systems are installed in regions where the electrical grid is absent and where there is enough solar (or wind) resources to charge lead-acid batteries, and power the lamp for daily usage. Focusing on areas of high solar resources, where a set of batteries is charged during the day from a solar photovoltaic panel, and discharged at night while providing power to the street lamp; the system is faced with the unfortunate consequence of high solar irradiance and high surrounding temperatures. This leads to an increase operating temperature of the batteries and control electronics which results in a drastic decrease in their lifetime as well as possible catastrophic failures by thermal runaway. This research project will experimentally study the thermal behaviour of the lead-acid batteries used by PoleCo in order to develop a validated numerical model of the batteries/control electronics/enclosure used in their streetlight applications. With such model, various scenarios will be studied by numerically varying environmental conditions (solar irradiation, outside temperature, wind factor) in order to determine the thermal transient behaviour of the system. Ultimately, possible designs leading to better thermal management will be numerically studied, with the most promising ones leading to implementation by PoleCo. The better management of the batteries and electronics from a thermal point of view will result in the prolonged life of the equipment, reducing the operating cost of the systems and providing PoleCo with an increase market share, revenue and growth of the company, benefiting the Canadian economy.