The price of fossil fuels is constantly escalating.
Fossil fuels are also the major cause of air pollution and global
warming. Renewable energy sources appear to be a suitable
alternative as they are abundant and pollution free. However, the
major drawback of replacing fossil fuels completely with
renewable energy sources, especially solar energy, is that the
renewable energy sources tend to be inadequate in meeting the
energy demands in certain situations and are also not wholly
reliable under all circumstances. This paper presents a novel
strategy to feed the electrical loads in a bus using solar energy.
The already existing bus electrical system which is powered by
the alternator coupled to the bus engine, is integrated with
Photovoltaic (PV) cells in order that minimum energy is drawn
from the fossil fuels. An efficient power flow management
strategy is incorporated together with a Maximum Power Point
Tracking (MPPT) algorithm such that the solar energy augments
the power supplied from the bus engine and thereby reduces fuel
consumption in the process. This control strategy is formulated
using State of Charge (SoC) of the battery as the criterion