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Laurent_11701600_2022.pdf
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- Photovoltaic panels systems are a good solution to ease access to electricity in underserved areas that benefit from a high solar potential. However, in countries such as Cameroon, the populations living in those areas often have a low investment capital and they cannot afford such solar systems. Therefore, so-called Pay-As-You-Go systems have emerged with the purpose of mitigating the high upfront costs of solar systems by allowing a customer with low incomes to pay by instalments. However, companies that propose photovoltaic systems with the Pay-As-You-Go feature want to keep some control over their installations. Therefore, these companies often want a solution to monitor and control remotely the system to facilitate the after-sales services but also to switch off the system when the client is in payment default. The main goal of the following work is therefore to assess the technical possibilities offered in terms of monitoring and control of solar systems to a given company, in this case the Belgian and Cameroonian start-up Solarly that is in close contact with the UCLouvain. To do so, a wide investigation work is carried out and approaches are proposed to the company. The benefits, drawbacks, and technical challenges related to the proposed solutions are considered. Then, based on a set of technical requirements that is established, the compatibility of the considered possibilities with Solarly is assessed. Next, a conclusion on the most suited solutions for the solar company is conducted and existing solutions linked to the approaches are presented and compared to the requirements of Solarly. Afterwards, two existing monitoring and control solutions for solar systems are tested to evaluate their monitoring and control capabilities. Finally, it is concluded that they meet the needs of the company and therefore can be considered for use in the field.