TimothytheHolis/uganda-hybrid-solar-design

Cost-optimized hybrid solar system design for Ugandan homes with critical load prioritization, including Python-based sizing and simulation. # Hybrid Solar System Optimization (Uganda) 🇺🇬☀️ A simple tool for designing practical, cost-effective hybrid solar systems for homes and small businesses in Uganda. --- ## Why I Built This In Uganda, power cuts are normal. So people turn to solar, which is logical because the country's solar potential is high. But from what I've seen, most systems end up either too expensive because they're overdesigned, or unreliable because they're undersized or poorly put together. A big part of the problem is how systems get sized in the first place. The common assumption is: *the battery must power everything.* That looks fine on paper, but in practice it leads to very large battery banks, high upfront costs, and people settling for cheap batteries that don't last. On the other end, some installations skip proper design entirely — just trial and error — and those usually work for a while before quietly falling apart. I wanted to try something more grounded. --- ## The Idea Instead of designing for everything, this tool focuses on: - using solar output directly during the day, and - sizing the battery only for what actually needs backup Put simply: **don't spend money storing energy you don't need to store.** --- ## What the Tool Does This is a Python simulator that takes a realistic load profile (your appliances and when you use them), pulls in real solar irradiance data, and simulates energy flow hour by hour. From that it gives you: - recommended PV size (kW) - recommended battery size (kWh) - graphs showing how solar output and load interact across the day --- ## Two System Types ### 1. Full Load System Solar and battery cover everything — no grid required. Good for off-grid setups or high-budget installs where you want complete independence. ### 2. Critical Load System *(main focus)* The battery only covers essential appliances. Heavy loads either run on solar during the day or stay on the grid. | Critical (battery-backed) | Non-critical (grid / daytim …