Abstract
A PV-Simulator is a DC power source in which the current-voltage (I-V) characteristics of different PV arrays can be programmed. With a PV-simulator, the operation of the solar power conditioning systems can be validated at a laboratory level itself before actual field trials. In this work, design, operation and controls for a two-stage programmable PV-simulator required for the testing of solar power conditioning systems are presented. The proposed PV-simulator consists of a three-level T-type active front-end converter in the first stage and a buck-chopper-based DC-DC converter in the second stage. An active front-end rectifier using a three-level T-type IGBT-based converter is used at the input stage to help in operating the system at unity power factor. A DC-DC converter at the output stage of the simulator is regulated to obtain the I-V characteristics of the programmed PV-Array. Hardware-In-Loop simulations are carried out to validate the proposed system and the associated controls implemented in the controller. As a case study, this PV-simulator is programmed with electrical parameters of a selected PV-array and the characteristics obtained from the PV-simulator are compared with the actual PV-array characteristics. The dynamic response of the system for sudden changes in the load and sudden changes in irradiance values are studied.
Highlights
The operation and efficiency of a solar power conditioning system at different operating points can be tested using a variable DC source in the laboratory, but to validate the ability to track the maximum power point (MPP) in the power conditioning system, it is necessary to test the system with an actualPV array, but with an actual PV array, it is difficult to test the system at predefined operating points due to varying climatic changes
The MPP voltages and powers obtained from the PV-simulator at different irradiance inputs are compared with the PV module datasheet (SPR-435NE-WHT-D) and it is found that the proposed PV-simulator can replicate the actual PV array characteristics
Unity power factor operation is achieved with this configuration which results results in an optimized power rating of the simulator
Summary
The operation and efficiency of a solar power conditioning system at different operating points can be tested using a variable DC source in the laboratory, but to validate the ability to track the maximum power point (MPP) in the power conditioning system, it is necessary to test the system with an actual. The above discussed configurations and the components required for each configuration are summarized in Table 1 and it is observed that the buck-chopper-based PV-simulator is the most economical compared to other configurations due to its lesser number of magnetic components and power switches. Buck-chopper-based PV-simulator is cheaper than the systems presented in [3,4,5,6,7,8,9] since this configuration requires only one inductor on the output stage and only one IGBT/MOSFET switch. A PV-simulator with an AC input source presented in [13,14] consists of a single phase diode front end rectifier and a buck chopper-based DC-DC converter. The design of a low cost PV-simulator with a single phase front end converter and a buck-chopper-based DC-DC converter is proposed. I-V characteristics obtained from the PV-simulator are compared with the actual PV-array characteristics to validate the controls
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