Development of an intelligent Arduino-based power factor corrector for a domestic installation powered by solar panels

Abstract

Power factor correction using capacitor banks reduces reactive power consumption, leading to minimization of losses while increasing the efficiency of the power system. The issues of energy saving and reactive power management have led to the development of single-phase capacitor banks for domestic applications. The development of this project consists of improving the operation of single-phase capacitor banks to improve the operation of a domestic solar installation by developing a control system based on the Arduino. The control unit will be able to control the operating stages of the capacitor bank based on the variable charging current. To properly calculate the power factor in real time, we used two sensors, however, the current sensor is used to measure the load current for sampling purposes and the voltage sensor to measure the voltage. Intelligent control using this microcontroller control unit, calculates the current/voltage phase shift and ensures uniform utilization of capacitor stages, minimizes the number of switching operations and optimizes power factor correction. In order to validate the proper functioning of our project, we installed the latter in a PV installation of 2kW in total, the latter is installed within the energy engineering and electrical engineering laboratory, thus this installation is equipped with different types of load such as as the purely resistive, purely inductive load and the asynchronous motor which represents the inductive load. The values obtained by the device and displayed on the LCD are confirmed using the oscilloscope by plotting the currents and voltages. The results obtained show the success of this project and the efficiency of the device has improved the power factor.