Abstract
The interest in photovoltaic (PV) pumping systems has increased, particularly in rural areas where there is no grid supply available. However, both the performance and the cost of the whole system are still an obstacle for a wide spread of this technology. In this article, a hybrid photovoltaic (PV)-thermoelectric generator (TEG) is investigated for pumping applications. The electric drivetrain comprises a synchronous reluctance motor and an inverter. A control strategy for the drivetrain is employed to execute two main tasks: 1) driving the motor properly to achieve a maximum torque per Ampere condition and 2) maximizing the output power of the PV system at different weather conditions. This means that the conventional DC-DC converter is not used in the proposed system. Moreover, batteries, which are characterized by short life expectancy and high replacement cost, are also not used. It is found that the motor output power and the pump flow rate are increased by about 9.5% and 12% respectively when the hybrid PV-TEG array is used compared to only using PV array. Accordingly, the performance, cost and complexity of the system are improved. Measurements on an experimental laboratory setup are constructed to validate the theoretical results of this work.
Highlights
In the last decades, the global warming has become a major issue
The maximum torque per Ampère (MTA) condition is achieved in the field oriented control (FOC) technique based on a lookup table (LUT) that is generated from finite element modelling (FEM)
The test bench consists of the following main components: 1) 3-ph Synchronous reluctance motors (SynRMs), of the specifications shown in Appendix section, fed from a SEMIKRON inverter, 2) 3-ph induction motor fed from a commercial inverter, 3) power analyzer to measure the voltage, current and power, 4) torque, speed and current sensors, 5) dSpace controller board and 6) a controlled direct current (DC) supply
Summary
The global warming has become a major issue. In addition, the prices of the fossil fuel has increased significantly. The Sun light can be converted directly to electric energy by using photovoltaic (PV) cells This conversion process has a low efficiency and high capital cost. Instead of installing a cooling system for the PV arrays that could increase the whole system cost, thermoelectric generator (TEG) modules to convert the generated heat from the PV cell to electrical energy could be a promising solution. The output power of each of both arrays is maximized for the different operating conditions This hybrid system has two DC-DC converters with two controllers to increase the harvested energy from the arrays, which increase the cost and complexity of the system. In the PV pumping system, it is possible to maximize the output power of the PV system using only the inverter that drives the electric motor, without introducing additional DC-DC converter. The proposed system has an improved performance and could be a promising solution for pumping applications in remote areas
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