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Power Electronic Circuit Based Implementation of a

Solar PV Emulator Using a Power Factor Corrected


Buck Converter
Prateek Garg Priyanshi G Bhuvaneswari
Department of Electrical Engineering Department of Electrical Engineering Department of Electrical Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi Indian Institute of Technology Delhi Indian Institute of Technology Delhi
New Delhi, India New Delhi, India New Delhi, India
prateekgarg95@gmail.com priyanshi1697@gmail.com bhuvan@ee.iitd.ac.in

Abstract—This paper presents an approach to design and so as to simulate the external current-voltage characteristics
implement a power electronic circuit based photovoltaic (PV) (I-V curves) of photovoltaic modules.
simulator which emulates the output characteristics of PV
modules. The characteristics are obtained based on the look-
Consequently, seeing from the photovoltaic power converter
up tables corresponding to an array of ten SunPower SPR-X20- and load, the simulator behaves similar to the photovoltaic
250-BLK photovoltaic modules connected in series. Based on that modules so long as their characteristics are off-line pro-
data, a power factor corrected buck converter circuit is presented grammed in the controller. Therefore, the photovoltaic simula-
here which is able to mimic the panel behaviour at different tor can be used in replacement of actual photovoltaic modules
temperature and irradiance conditions. The designed circuit has
been modeled and simulated in Simulink/MATLAB environment.
to provide a controllable environment for R&D purposes.
The simulation results show that the output characteristics of the
proposed circuit coincide with those of actual PV modules and II. P RINCIPLE OF THE SIMULATOR
hence are promising. Thus, the proposed circuit can be used
in laboratory environments for research purposes when actual
modules are not available or if the environmental conditions are
A. Deriving single exponential model
not conducive. Sera et al [1] used the datasheet values of a BP-MSX120
Index Terms—photovoltaic, buck converter, emulator, power
electronics, rectifier
module to derive the parameters used in design of the single
exponential model of the photovoltaic module. The current-
voltage characteristics based on this single exponential model
I. I NTRODUCTION are:

Photovoltaic systems are becoming widely known for their v+iRs v + iRs
environmental benefits everyday, and have found a pivotal i = Iph − Io (e ns Vt − 1) − (1)
Rsh
position in power supplies across the globe. Consequently,
substantial research is going on to understand and improve the where Iph is the current because of the incident light (hence
functionality of currently used photovoltaic modules. However, is proportional to the insolation of the sun), Io is the reverse
such modules and the corresponding power electronic systems saturation current of the diode, Rs is the series resistance of
are costly and demand a high capital investment. Further, the panel while Rsh is the shunt resistance and A is the diode
the actual solar insolation and temperature are continuously ideality factor. Apart from that, the other constants are q, which
varying, making it difficult for research to be done with actual is the electronic charge, Vt , which is the thermal voltage of the
photovoltaic systems. junction and is defined as AkT q and finally ns is the number of
This paper puts forward a method to solve the abovemen- photovoltaic cells connected in series. The 5 panel parameters
tioned problems by developing a photovoltaic simulator using (Iph , Io , Rs , Rsh and A) are then calculated from the datasheet
a power factor corrected buck converter that emulates the information of the panel. Numerical methods are adopted to
output characteristics of photovoltaic modules so that it can derive them as not all of them can be expressed in terms of
fulfil the purpose of actual photovoltaic modules in R&D. independent equations.
In the emulator developed, the input to the buck converter Based on the parameters of the model the simulations are
is a regulated DC voltage rectified by a PWM converter done in MATLAB to arrive at satisfactory characteristics.
connected to a three-phase ac voltage source. The output of the Similarly, Grandi et al [2] in their work derive the param-
buck converter is adjusted in real time by the control system eters of the single exponential model of a photovoltaic array
978-1-5386-1138-8/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE and use that to emulate required characteristics .
B. Deriving double exponential model
Gow et al [3] worked with a double exponential model
of the photovoltaic array and used the datasheet values to
come up with the values of the model parameters. The double
exponential model is shown in the figure 1. The corresponding
equation is given as equation 2.

Fig. 2. System Block Diagram of the simulator [5]

Fig. 1. Double exponential model [3]


converter (ADC); based on the current, a PWM signal is
generated so that the required duty cycle is used to provide
e(V +IRs ) e(V +IRs )
the corresponding voltage. Vf b and If b are the two feedback
I = Iph − Is1 (e kT − 1) − Is2 (e AkT − 1) signal functions that work so that the PWM controller has two
V + IRs (2) feedbacks at any point of time and can change the duty cycle
− of the chopper automatically so that the reference voltage and
Rsh
feedback voltage approach each other.
The paper [3] aims to calculate these parameters and determine
their variation with temperature and irradiance. The depen- The methodology adopted helped them to emulate multiple
dence of these parameters on temperature can be expressed in kinds of commercially available photovoltaic cells.
the form of direct equations. However, the dependence on the The control strategy of the emulator is very straight-forward.
irradiance is not direct. Once a given temperature and insolation for a particular
Once the dependence on temperature and irradiance is photovoltaic module are obtained, they give us a specific
determined, irradiance and temperature are then related math- current-voltage characteristics. Based on the load connected,
ematically to cell current and voltage. Hence, current/voltage the load line will intersect the characteristics at some point
data of the photovoltaic array is analysed over a range of which will provide us the operating point (voltage and current).
irradiance and temperature to determine the nature of the A successful simulation and hardware implementation of
variation with irradiance. By performing curve fitting the the above mentioned model was achieved in this paper [5],
parameter variations with temperature and irradiance were with satisfactory dynamic response as well.
obtained. Zhang et al [6] also adopted a similar approach where they
The model was simulated using SABER with satisfactory controlled the output using look-up table approach along with
current-voltage characteristics as presented in [3]. DC-DC converter. However, they used a DC source instead of
Similar approach to create a hardware module which could the direct AC supply and used a DC-DC converter to vary the
emulate solar PV characteristics successfully using power voltage based on the requirement on the load side.
electronic circuits has been described in a few more papers [4],
[5] The proposed approached is similar to the ones presented
in [5] and [6]. We designed a voltage controller which was
C. Using a Voltage Controller used to set the value of load voltage based on characteristics
Zeng et al [5] uses a DC chopper to emulate the character- of the photovoltaic module. We have used a PWM voltage
istics of VLX-80 modules by designing a voltage controller source converter to obtain DC voltage from AC voltage (along
that got the module characteristics from a lookup table with with power factor correction). Then we have utilised a buck
the V-I data for selected temperatures and insolations. converter and a resistance to modulate the load resistance
The block-diagram of the system used is shown in Figure 2. visualized by the source and also to control the current.The
Based on the diagram, we see that the control system imple- information about the characteristics was saved in the form of
mented consists of 80C196KC board and a PWM generator. lookup tables. It essentially means a file with the exact V-I
With the help of the control system and the interface board, characteristics of a given module is used to find the operating
the voltage and current outputs obtained from the DC chopper point for any given load, temperature and solar insolation.
are filtered and hence a better characteristic is obtained. The next section concentrates on modeling of this circuit
With the help of CPU board, they detect the output (load which we have adopted as an approach to create the hardware
current) using a current sensor and an analog to digital emulator for solar PV.
III. M ODELING AND S IMULATION The system block diagram of the voltage controller based
emulator is shown in Figure 3. It consists of a 3-phase
In case of our modeling, we performed the simulation PWM rectifier connected to a buck converter that is feeding
of ten SunPower SPR-X20-250-BLK photovoltaic modules a resistive load. There is a voltage and current feedback from
connected in series for the combinations of solar insolation the load that is taken up by the microcontroller that compares
of 1000W/m2 , 500W/m2 and temperatures of 25o and 45o the resistance of load with the I-V characteristics of the
celcius. The V-I characteristics of the array were stored as .csv photovoltaic module at the given temperature and insolation
files in the MATLAB workspace and were accessed when the and gives us the voltage reference. The reference voltage is
operating point for any combination of the temperature and fed to the PI controller which gives us the duty ratio required
insolation for a given load was required (e.g. 1000W/m2 and to achieve the given reference voltage. The duty ratio is fed
25o C). to the PWM controller and hence the buck converter delivers
The understanding of simulating power electronic systems the required load voltage.
using look-up table approach in SIMULINK was developed The reason we have used a buck converter is two folds. First
from a similar work by Gilbert Sybille and Hoang Le-Huy. being the fact that we are getting a constant 600V DC voltage
The paper covered the basics of simulation and developed the from the PWM rectifier which we need to decrease because the
understanding using examples of series compensated transmis- range of voltage that we are working with for the phtovoltaic
sion system. [7] array under consideration are lesser than 600V. The second
reason is that the input side power quality of buck converter
A. Principle of Voltage Controller and the corresponding continuity of current are not of concern
here. Hence, buck converter can be used here.
B. Modeling of Source-side System
A 3-phase source of 380V 50Hz RMS line to line is
connected to the PWM rectifier [8] with about 0.07 pu source
impedance. The output of this rectifier is being maintained
at 600V DC irrespective of the variations in the source
voltage and load parameters. A closed loop control system
consisting of a PI controller and a PWM generator block aids
in maintaining the output DC voltage as a constant. The PWM
rectifier essentially functions in boost mode of operation.
C. Control Strategy of the Emulator

Fig. 4. Intersection of I-V characteristics and load lines for different loads

In the emulator system, to be able to obtain the I-V charac-


teristics of a photovoltaic module, the emulator must be able to
Fig. 3. Block diagram of the proposed emulator
arrive at a certain point at which the output voltage and current
of the buck converter satisfies both the I-V characteristics
(ohm’s law) of the load connected, as well as and the I-V
characteristics of the module at the given temperature and
insolation. As shown in Fig.4, for any load conditions, the
I-V characteristics of the load will coincide with the I-V
characteristics of the module under consideration. This point
where these two characteristics intersect gives us the operating
point of the simulator. A, A1, or A2 show various points that
can be obtained based on the load as shown in Figure 4 .
D. Modeling of Load-side System
Again, referencing the block diagram of the emulator, we
see that there is a control system connected to the load. This
system essentially measures the load resistance by dividing the
load voltage by load current and with the help of the micro-
controller, selects the lookup table corresponding to the given
temperature and insolation to consult. Having found the correct
lookup table, the system finds the operating voltage that needs
to be established across the load. With the help of the PI
controller, the corresponding duty ratio of the buck converter
needed to establish this operating voltage is calculated and
sent to the PWM generator. The PI controller was tuned using
trial and error with Kp = 0.15 and Ki = 0.078. This way
we establish the required voltage across the load. As the load
is changed, this voltage and hence the load current changes,
which is plotted to obtain the complete I-V characteristics
of the given photo-voltaic module at the set temperature and
insolation.
The simulink model of the load-side system is shown in
Figure 5.
IV. S IMULATION R ESULTS Fig. 5. Simulink model of the proposed emulator, the values of the lookup
table change in accordance with the input temperature and irradiation
Based on the emulator system that we have designed, we
tried to obtain the characteristics of an array of ten SunPower
SPR-X20-250-BLK photovoltaic modules connected in series
at different temperatures and insolations. For the purpose of
corroboration, we have considered two insolations, 1000W/m2
and 500W/m2 and two temperatures, 45o C and 25o C.
The characteristics obtained are plotted along with actual
characteristics of the photovoltaic module to get an idea about
the accuracy of the results. These are shown ahead.
Figure 6 shows the actual I-V and P-V characteristics of
an array of ten SunPower SPR-X20-250-BLK photovoltaic
modules connected in series for an insolation of 1000W/m2
at temperatures 25o C and 45o C. From the graph we can
conclude that with the increase in temperature the short circuit
current Isc increases slightly but there is a significant reduction
in the open circuit voltage Voc . Also the maximum power point
is achieved at a lower voltage.
Figure 7 shows the actual I-V and P-V characteristics of an
array of ten SunPower SPR-X20-250-BLK photovoltaic mod-
ules connected in series at 25o C for insolations 1000W/m2 Fig. 6. Actual I-V and P-V characteristics of an array of ten SunPower SPR-
and 500W/m2 . From the graph we can conclude that with X20-250-BLK photovoltaic modules connected in series for an insolation of
1000W/m2 at temperatures 25o C and 45o C
the decrease in insolation the open circuit voltage Voc is
slightly reduced. The short circuit current Isc seems to be
in linear proportion with the insolation as it has become half
the previous value. Figure 8 and 9 compares the I-V and P-V characteristics of
Fig. 7. Actual I-V and P-V characteristics of an array of ten SunPower Fig. 9. Comparison of P-V characteristics of actual solar PV array (blue) and
SPR-X20-250-BLK photovoltaic modules connected in series at 25o C for emulator (orange) for 1000W/m2 and 25o C
insolations 1000W/m2 and 500W/m2

Fig. 10. Comparison of I-V characteristics of actual solar PV array (blue)


and emulator (orange) for 500W/m2 and 45o C
Fig. 8. Comparison of I-V characteristics of actual solar PV array (blue) and
emulator (orange) for 1000W/m2 and 25o C

point, this paper is yet another significant effort to reproduce


the specified solar PV array with that of the emulator at 25o C the characteristics of a solar PV using a power electronic
and 1000W/m2 . circuit. In the proposed system, a PWM rectifier is used along
Figure 10 and 11 compares the I-V and P-V characteristics with a DC-DC converter to accurately bring out the I-V and
of the specified solar PV array with that of the emulator at P-V characteristics of a solar PV module SunPower SPR-
45o C and 500W/m2 . X20-250-BLK where ten of them are connected in series. The
closed loop control has been implemented using PI controllers
V. C ONCLUSION and PWM generation modules. The entire control is based on
Solar PV is becoming the most important renewable energy the look-up table approach where the look-up table can easily
source due to the impetus received from various government be populated by the manufacturer’s data. A microcontoller
agencies and subsidies received from different quarters. The can be employed to generate the PWM signals based on
research related to solar PV generating systems is extremely the look-up table, sensed voltage & currents and subsequent
dependent on the environmental conditions unless an emulator computations. In all, this paper has successfully proposed
is put in place in the laboratory environment. From this view a power electronic closed loop control system to bring out
Fig. 11. Comparison of P-V characteristics of actual solar PV array (blue)
and emulator (orange) for 500W/m2 and 45o C

the characteristics of a solar PV accurately and the results


demonstrate that the circuit is able to emulate the solar PV
modules at different temperatures and irradiations.
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