Design and Simulation of a High Performance Standalone Photovoltaic System

Abstract

This paper proposes a full design with all included stages of a high performance standalone photovoltaic system based on discrete electronic components. The design proposes a solution to reduce or eliminate the fluctuation of the supplied DC voltage of solar panel due to weather variations. The proposed design includes DC–DC boost converter that produces a stable DC output voltage with a higher level, this is achieved by controlling the Duty cycle of the drive switching pulses during sensing the level of the solar panel voltage. The next stage is a modified unipolar Sinusoidal Pulse Width Modulation inverter with Zero Crossing Detector circuit that is designed with a modified higher power reference wave compared with traditional SPWM. The modified SPWM controls the Modulation Index to stabilize the fluctuation in the output AC voltage. The selected filter type LCL-Filter is designed to minimize the effect of harmonics on the load voltage. On the other hand, an accurate DC power supply is designed to provide the required stable DC voltages for all included electronic circuits; the solar panel voltage is an input to the designed DC power supply. Total Harmonic Distribution measurements, the stable output voltage level of the DC–DC converter, DC power supply, and the stabilization of the load voltage reflect the effectiveness of the proposed photovoltaic system. The overall electronic design works under wide range of solar panel voltage fluctuations. The satisfactory simulation results indicate that there is a promise to implement the proposed electronic design using discrete components as practical module.