A development of an Arduino pure sine wave inverter for a small scale off-grid solar PV system

Abstract

This paper presents the implementation of Arduino Nano microcontroller for a single-phase pure sine wave inverter, which can convert DC voltage to AC voltage at high efficiency and low cost. Solar-powered electricity generation is being favored nowadays as the world increasingly focuses on environmental concerns. The designed inverter converted DC voltage into AC voltage for a small-scale off-grid solar PV system suitable for electrification in remote areas, pollution-free, and inexpensive. Its inverter uses a sinusoidal pulse width modulation technique and a simple circuit, consisting of only 2 MOSFET switches and 1 MOSFET driver. The H-bridge inverter’s output is applied to a step-up transformer with a dual coil input and a single-coil output, and hence, we can create positive and negative sides of the wave. Mitigate a voltage noise; a capacitor is parallelly installed at the secondary side of the transformer. Several simulations are performed to verify the effectiveness of the designed inverter using Proteus software, and continued hardware implementation. Based on some experiments we have done, the designed inverter produces a 230 V r.m.s 50 Hz sine wave with very low harmonics distortion. The highest efficiency was obtained using 2200nF / 400V of the filter capacitor, and the smallest voltage regulation gained using 2200nF / 400V of the filter capacitor when compared with other capacitors. The proposed system is economical, efficient, and reliable and can be used for small scale power applications.