High Performance AC Drive for Solar Pumps

Renji V.Chacko, B.Sreekumari, K.A.Fathima, Member, IEEE, Z.V.Lakaparampil, Member, IEEE.

Power Electronics Group, Electronics Research and Development Centre of India, Thiruvananthapuram

Abstract Application of solar energy for pumping in remote rural area is presented. The power converter is a high performance AC drive, which supplies a 3-phase induction motor driving the mono block pump. Key issues related to reliable and efficient tapping of solar energy by Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) and optimizing motor performance through energy efficient mode of operation are discussed. Intelligent Power Module (IPM) is used as the power switching element which offers higher reliability and requires lesser interface circuitry compared to other power switching devices. The real time control algorithm is based on Space Vector PWM, realized using high speed digital controller based on TMS320F206 Digital Signal Processor (DSP). The test results of the proto-model drive are presented. Index Terms AC drive, solar photo voltaic, maximum power point tracking, intelligent power module, DSP.

SPV Array DC-DC Converter ( MPPT)

DC Motor

Water Pump

(a)

SPV Array

Induction Motor IM Inverter and MPPT

Water Pump

I. INTRODUCTION ENEWABLE energy sources are becoming a viable substitute for conventional energy sources. They are the only alternative especially in remote area where access to the grid supply is impractical. The major sources of non-conventional energy are solar, wind, bio-mass, tidal power etc. Lot of development are done world wide in solar and wind power applications. Solar energy is the most popular and practical form of energy for low power applications like lighting [6], pumping etc. Most of the Solar Photo Voltaic (SPV) operated water pumping systems today are all connected directly to the solar arrays and use DC motor driven pumps. This scheme is shown in Fig.1(a). This system is easy to operate but is inefficient and requires frequent maintenance for the DC motor. The Solar pump operated with an AC drive uses an inverter and an AC motor. AC Induction Motor offer better choice in terms of size, ruggedness, efficiency and maintainability when compared to the present DC motors. The DC power from the solar array is fed to an inverter which gives a 3-phase, variable voltage, variable frequency AC supply as output. The state-of-the art power conversion devices like Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors (IGBT), Intelligent Power Modules (IPM) and high speed digital controllers based on Digital Signal Processors (DSP) make it possible to realize compact and efficient inverter for AC Induction Motors. The 3-phase AC power from the

(b) Fig. 1. Solar Photovoltaic water pumping systems. (a) Using DC motor. (b) Using AC Induction motor

inverter supplies a 3-phase induction motor coupled to the water pump as shown in Fig.1(b). The main drawback of the SPV operated systems is that the initial installation cost is considerably high. With the improvement in technology the cost of solar array is expected to come down. Hence the key issues are efficient conversion of energy and extraction of maximum power available from the installation. The solar array output varies continuously with solar insolation and temperature conditions [5]. The Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) feature is essential with SPV operated systems. In DC operated water pumping systems a DC- DC converter is incorporated in the system for this purpose [1]. In the AC drive scheme presented, the inverter controller incorporates MPPT through software. The DC voltage and the current from the solar panel is continuously monitored for the maximum power. The maximum power point is tracked by continuously adjusting the motor speed by varying the output frequency and voltage of the inverter. Without additional hardware the MPPT is incorporated. The system can be configured as an Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS) when not required for pumping as shown in Fig.4, thus increasing the utility of SPV array installation.

ISBN Code No. 0-7803-3932-0

P-Layer

Rs Io

+
1

Solar O utput Power (p.u)

10 0 w /s q .c m 0 .8

Light input

0 .6

Ig

Rsh

Vo

Ro

0 .4

0 .2

20 w /s q .c m

N-Layer
Fig. 2. Solar array dc equivalent circuit

0 0 0 .1 0 .2 0 .3 0.4 0.5 0 .6 0 .7 0.8 0.9 1

S o la r T e rm in a l V o lta g e (p .u )

1 1 00 w /s q.c m

Solar Current (p.u)

0 .8

0 .6

II. SOLAR ARRAY ELECTRICAL CHARACTERISTICS Knowledge of variation in power from solar arrays is important for proper SPV system design. The power generated by solar arrays depends on solar insolation, temperature, air mass etc. The power controller influences the performance of the solar array. Hence the basic electrical characteristics of the solar array is discussed briefly. The DC equivalent circuit of the solar array can be represented as a non linear current model as shown in Fig.2. The basic I-V characteristics derived from this model is given by the following equation[5]: Io=Ig-Isat{ exp[q(Vo+IoRs)/AKT]-1}-V/Rsh (1)

0 .4

0 .2

20 w /s q .c m

0 0 0 .1 0 .2 0 .3 0.4 0.5 0 .6 0 .7 0.8 0.9 1

S o la r T e rm in a l V o lta g e (p .u )

Fig. 3. Solar array electrical characteristics

where Io and Vo are the output current and output voltages of the solar array, Ig is the generated current under a given solar insolation, Isat is the reverse saturation current of the p-n junction, q is the charge of an electron, K is the Boltzmanns constant, A is an arbitrary curve fitting constant, T is the temperature, Rs is the series resistance and Rsh is the shunt resistance of the solar array. The reverse saturation current (Isat) of the solar array varies with temperature according to the following equation: Isat=Ior[T/Tr]3 exp[qEgo/KT(1/Tr-1/T)] and, Ig=[Isc+KI(T-Tr)] /100 (3) where Ior is the saturation current at the reference temperature Tr, T is the temperature of the solar array, Ego is the band-gap energy of the semiconductor used in the solar array, KI is the short-circuit current temperature coefficient and is the solar insolation in mW/cm2. Simulated characteristic of the solar array for different insolation is shown in Fig.3. There is a knee point for each curve in the power verses terminal voltage characteristics, where the output power from the array is maximum. On the right side of the knee point, the array terminal voltage is almost constant for each insolation and it behaves as a voltage source with low internal impedance. On the left of the knee point the array behaves as a current source with (2)

high internal impedance. Here the array operation is unstable and even a small increase in current can cause the terminal voltage to collapse. For maximum power transfer the load impedance should mach with the optimum internal impedance of the array for each insolation. The dynamic adjustment of the array operating point is achieved through the Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) process. For the same insolation the power from the solar array varies with temperature. The MPPT algorithm discussed in this paper is independent of insolation and temperature variations. III. SPV OPERATED WATER PUMP WITH AC DRIVE The total block diagram of the system under implementation is shown in Fig.4. Each SPV module has the specification given in Table 1. The arrays are connected for 103 volt, 1590 watts at the maximum power point. SPV array is connected to the pump module. A

TABLE 1 Electrical Characteristics of the Solar module (S-53) (Corresponding to insolation 100mW/cm2, Air Mass 1.5, Temperature 25 C) Open Circuit Voltage Short Circuit Current Maximum Power Peak Power Voltage Peak Power Current Length Width Depth Weight 20.3V 3.4A 53W 17.1V 3.1A 1292mm 327mm 38mm 5.45Kg

INDUCTION MOTOR

WATER PUMP

IM PV ARRAY

UPS MODULE

PUMP MODULE

UPS OUTPUT FB STATUS FB

LED INDICATIONS ON/OFF SWITCH CHARGER

CHANGE OVER SWITCH

UPS LOAD

REMOTE CONTROL RS232C

Fig.4. Block diagram showing SPV operated water pump and UPS system three phase IPM based inverter module as shown in Fig.5 is incorporated in the pump module. The inverter control is achieved using a TMS320F206 DSP based hardware. The controller is activated by a local/remote ON/OFF switch. The inverter output is connected to the UPS module. A changeover switch is provided on this module so that the output can either drive the induction motor pump or the UPS load. Feedback signals are provided from this module to the pump module so that the software will automatically configure the inverter for AC drive/UPS operation. A. Drive Control Algorithm The drive control algorithm is implemented on the DSP based hardware with the total SPV voltage (Vdc) as an input and the gate signals (s1,s2,s3) for the IPM as the output. From the gate signals and Vdc, the two phase equivalent voltages (Vsa,Vsb) of the inverter are calculated[7]. The back emf voltages (Esa, Esb) are equated to the inverter voltages as given below Esa = Vsa = Vdc/2*(2*s1-s2-s3) Esb = Vsb = Vdc/2*3*(s2-s3) (4) (5)

The integration of these voltages give the machine flux (sa, sb). The inverter frequency, s, is calculated as s = sa * Esb - sb * Esa (6)

The frequency reference is an outcome of MPPT and the flux reference is computed to meet the pump torque. Error values are calculated for flux and frequency. A bang bang control logic is adopted to switch the inverter in such a way that these errors are within a specific band. B. Induction Motor and Pump The torque and power developed by the centrifugal pump can be represented as T = Kp 2 P = Kp 3 (7) (8)

Inverter

FROM (+) PV ARRAY (-) (+) TO BATTERY CHARGER(-) DSP BASED CONTROLLER

R Y B UPS MODULE OR MOTOR

where is the pump speed and Kp is the constant of the pump. The flux reference is set proportional to the square of the frequency reference from MPPT algorithm. This ensures minimum losses in the machine at all speed, load conditions.

Fig. 5. AC Drive Control Circuit

C. Maximum Power Point Tracking The per phase equivalent circuit of an induction motor fed from a variable frequency source is shown in Fig. 6. The load seen by the motor is represented by an equivalent resistor Rr/s, where s is the slip of the motor. For pump load the motor can be operated at any slip, by varying the output frequency of the inverter. If the slip is low then the motor represents a high DC resistance to the solar array and the array voltage can rise above the MPP value. This condition occurs if the input power increase when the system operates in a steady state condition. If the slip is high then the motor represents a low DC resistance to the solar array and the array current can rise above the MPP value and the array voltage may even collapse. This condition occurs if the input power decrease when the system operates in a steady state condition. The inverter output frequency should be immediately brought down before the rotor speed decreases much so that the motor will operate in a new stable state. Various methods of maximum power point tracking have been considered in photovoltaic applications. Out of the different MPPT algorithms, the perturbation and observation method (Fig.7) is often used in many photovoltaic systems. In this approach the operating point is moved towards the optimum point by periodically giving small perturbations. To effectively implement this scheme, with quickly varying solar insolation conditions, high speed power control is required. The control strategy for MPPT is illustrated by the flowchart in Fig. 8. The idea behind the scheme is that if an increase (decrease) in frequency leads to an increase in the solar array output power then the next iteration will increase (decrease) the frequency. If an increase (decrease) in frequency leads to a decrease in the solar array output power then the next iteration will decrease (increase) the frequency. The power output of the solar array is computed by sensing the array voltage and array current. To vary the array output power the output frequency of the inverter is varied in steps. While starting, as the frequency is increased from zero the speed of the water pump increases. The power extracted from the solar array increases proportional to the cube of the frequency output

STEADY STATE OPERATION

START-UP POINT

CONSTANT CURRENT REGION

CONSTANT VOLTAGE REGION

Fig. 7. MPPT process

of the inverter. When the array voltage decrease below a minimum value with sharp decrease in solar power the motor will be decelerated at a high rate. The output of the MPPT is the frequency reference for drive control. The MPPT algorithm is incorporated in the DSP hardware for drive control.

START Yes

V(k)<Vmin No V(k)>Vmax No No P(k)>P(k-1) No Yes

f = f - f1

Yes

f = f +f2

Yes

(k)>(k-1) Yes f = f - f

(k)>(k-1) No

f = f + f

f = f - f

RETURN

Rs

Ls

Lr
V(k) V(k-1) P(k) P(k-1) f w(k) w(k-1) Vmin Vmax - Present solar panel voltage, - Previous solar panel voltage - Present solar panel power - Previous solar panel power - Drive frequency reference - Present motor speed - Previous motor speed - Lower voltage limit for MPPT - Upper voltage limit for MPPT

Lm

Rr/s

Fig. 6. Per-phase equivalent circuit of variable frequency source

induction motor with Fig. 8. Flow diagram for MPPT process

D. UPS mode The UPS mode is selected by changeover switch provided in the UPS module. Two arms of the inverter along with an LC filter provide a single phase UPS supply. One arm in the IPM module is configured as chopper to control the battery in float and charge modes. E. System features The control algorithm is sampled at a rate of 50 microseconds. The controller implements the inverter control, battery charging, MPPT, monitoring of various system conditions like pump dry running, over voltage, under voltage, over current, over temperature etc. using a common hardware. The system has features like remote/local operation, auto start, auto shutdown, shutdown under abnormal conditions etc. IV. RESULTS The system response during start up is shown in Fig.9. The solar cell voltage, motor speed reference, actual

power and actual speed at the time of start up shown in this figure. It is observed that as the speed increases the terminal voltage comes down where the power drawn is maximum. In Fig. 10 the solar cell voltage, speed reference, power drawn and actual speed are shown. As the insolation varies the speed reference is varied by MPPT algorithm. The motor runs with the maximum available power from the solar array. A sharp fall in power due to insolation variation can be seen. During this period there is a tendency for voltage collapse, which is avoided by the fast correction from the controller. The inverter voltage and current are displayed in Fig. 11. The high frequency modulation give a nearly sine wave current. The controller is built around three main PCBs namely (a) DSP based controller as shown in Fig. 12, (b) High frequency SMPS to generate the necessary power supplies for the control circuits, user interface with necessary isolation, and (c) Gate Driver PCB with proper isolation for the IPM. The inverter assembly is housed in a water tight enclosure conforming to IP55.

(a)

(a)

(b) Fig. 9. System response during start-up. (a) Solar array voltage and Motor speed reference. (b) Power and actual speed.

(b) Fig. 10. System response under varying solar insolation (a) Solar array voltage and Motor speed reference. (b) Power and actual

Fig. 11. Inverter Voltage and Current

[1] Chihchiang Hua, Jongrong Lin and Chihming Shen, Implementation of a DSP Controlled Photovoltaic System with Peak PowerTracking, IEEE Trans.Ind. Electronics,vol. 45, no.1, pp. 99-107, Feb.1998. [2] Eduard Muljadi, PV Water Pumping with a Peak Power Tracker using a Simple Six - Step Square-Wave Inverter, IEEE Trans. Inustry Applications, vol. 33, no. 3, pp. 714-721, May/June.1997. [3] Bimal K. Bose, Paul M. Szczesny, and Robert L. Steigerwald, Microcomputer Control of a Residential Photovoltaic Power Conditioning System, IEEE Trans. Industry Applications, vol. IA 21, no. 5, pp. 1182-1191, Sept./Oct.1985. [4] L.J.Borle, M.S.Dymond, C.V.Nayar ,Development and Testing of a 20kW Grid Interactive Photovoltaic Power Conditioning System in Western Australia, IEEE Trans. Industry Applications, vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 502-508 , March./April.1997. [5] H.S Rauschenbach,Solar Cell Array Design Handbook, New York: Van Nostrand, 1980. [6] Steven J. Strong and William G. Scheller, The Solar Electric House, Sustainability Press, Massachusetts. [7] Andrzej M. Trzynadlowski, The Field Orientation Principle in Control of Induction Motors, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Massachusetts, 1994.

Renji V.Chacko received BTech Degree from the University of Kerala, India in 1992 and the M.Tech from Regional Engineering College, Calicut, India in 1994. From 1994 he is with ER&DCI(T). He was responsible for developing Universal Controller for AC Drives, High frequency industrial ballasts. Presently he is working on DSP based real time controllers for SPV pump drives and EV drives. B. Sreekumari received BSc Degree in Engineering from the University of Kerala, India in 1983. From 1988 she is with ER&DCI(T). She was responsible for developing digital controllers for ATE, AVR, Radio controlled Trolley and Cyclo Converter. K.A.Fathima received BSc Degree in Engineering from the University of Kerala, India in 1975 and the M.Tech Degree in Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai, India in 1987. From 1975 to 1988 she was with Keltron and has been responsible for UPS design. From 1988 she is with ER&DCI(T) and has been responsible for developing new technologies in the field of AC drives and UPS. Presently she is the Head of the Power Electronics Division of this Centre. Z.V.Lakaparampil received BSc Degree in Engineering from Regional Engineering College, Calicut, India in 1979, the DIISc in Electronics Design Technology and PhD in Engineering from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India in 1980 a

Fig. 12. DSP based controller

V. CONCLUSION In the above scheme a 1.5 kW SPV array is used. This is connected to a 2kVA inverter which in turn drives a 3-phase induction motor coupled to a 1.5hp monoblock pump. MPPT and energy efficient mode for induction motor ensures maximum utility for the solar installation. The motor and pump are specially designed for high efficiency. We hope that the scheme can be utilized in remote area where electricity is not available for water pumping. REFERENCES

nd 1995. From 1979 to 1988 he was with Keltron. Presently Dr. Lakaparampil is with ER&DCI(T) and is working in the field of AC drive technology and its applications.