Switching model photovoltaic pumping system

Abstract

Photovoltaic (PV) pumping systems are widely used due to their simplicity, high reliability and low cost. A directly-coupled PV pumping system is the most reliable and least-cost PV system. The d.c. motor-pump group is not, however, working at its optimum operating point. A battery buffered PV pumping system introduces a battery between the PV array and the d.c. motor-pump group to ensure that the motor-pump group is operating at its optimum point. The size of the battery storage depends on system economics. If the battery is fully charged while solar radiation is available, the battery will discharge through the load while the PV array is disconnected. Hence, a power loss takes place. To overcome the above mentioned difficulty, a switched mode PV pumping is proposed. When solar radiation is available and the battery is fully charged, the battery is disconnected and the d.c. motor-pump group is directly coupled to the PV array. To avoid excessive operating voltage for the motor, a part of the PV array is switched off to reduce the voltage. As a result, the energy loss is significantly eliminated. Detailed analysis of the proposed system shows that the discharged water increases by about 10% when compared with a conventional battery-buffered system. The system transient performance just after the switching moment shows that the system returns to a steady state in short period. The variations in the system parameters lie within 1% of the rated values.