Increasing climate change-caused natural disasters calls for mobile self-powered backup solutions for rescue and survival. However, existing portable solar systems rely on single storage with high risk of suspension in emergency and prolonged cloudy period. This work presents a portable solar-dual storage system, which enables essential loads to fu. ••Portable solar-powered system with integrated supercapacitor-battery storage.••System controller switches between two independent modes: direct and off-grid.••Automatic hybrid mode with an algorithm to prioritizes a load support.••System verification under varying simulated sunlight intensity and outdoor scenarios.••Demonstration of loads usage in outdoor scenarios: sunny, mixed, and cloud. Standalone applicationsPortable photovoltaic systemHybrid energy storage systemSelf-powered systemEnergy management systemOutdoor demonstrationIn recent decades, climate change and global warming have caused numerous natural disasters to occur approximately 400 times per year (Burkett et al., 2013, Froment and Below, 2019, Thomas and LLpez). These calamities threaten lives and interrupt daily activities from the breakdown of infrastructure, including power outage, which can take from a few hours up to months (Nateghi et al., 2016, Oyedeji, 2017). During such emergency, primary batteries have majority been used in small household items, while fuel-based power generators have most conveniently been utilized as backup power in a larger community level. Increasing usage of primary batteries requires proper disposal to prevent toxic waste. Whereas, the application of the power generators is quite limited to stationary usage and can cause side environmental effects from generated heat (Liu et al., 2007) and pollutants, looping back to global warming (Oludaisi et al., 2018). Alternatively, solar cells, which convert solar energy into electricity (Sharma et al., 2015) without a need of depletable fuels, are one of promising clean solutions for emergencies. However, its power conversion ability directly follows constantly fluctuating incident light, size of the panel, and temperature of the cell (Hadj Arab et al., 2020, Maka and O'Donovan, 2022, Woyte et al., 2006).In a large-scale stationary solar-powered system, fluctuating power generatio. A solar panel (Poly-crystalline Si 20 W, sized 35 cm × 45 cm × 2 cm, weighed 1.8 kg), a battery (KOLSAT gel deep cycle battery 12 V 12 Ah sized 10 cm × 9.9 cm × 15 cm, weighed 3.2 kg), and a supercapacitor 16 V 16F (EATON HV supercapacitor series 6 module with protection board) are connected through a smart device controller (sized 30 cm × 40 cm × 17 cm, weighed 4 kg) as illustrated in Fig. 1for portability. The final weight of PSDBS is about 9 kg with a size of around the solar panel and controller, which is unobtrusive when holding and also portable for emergency. Any of these three components can be replaced by a local solar panel with a minimum power of 10 W with a maximum power of 120 W, a battery with a minimum capacity of 12 V 5 Ah, and a 16 V supercapacitor with a minimum 1F and a maximum of 100F, respectively. The controller consisting of Atgema328p microcontroller, INA219 current–voltage sensor, and 4 channel relays (Fig. 2) enables selection of operating modes among direct, off-grid, and hybrid modes either manually through a switch or automatically when the hybrid mode is selected.In the direct mode, the solar-generated electricity flows through a DC converter (input 6–32 V to 3–28 V 3A) to a 12 V DC electrical load max 20 W or a load via a 5 V USB adapter with 4A max current. In this mode, only the supercapacitor buffers the electricity when the solar irradiance drops significantly. In the off-gr.
