PIC Based Solar DC Power System with

Supercapacitor and Sepic Convertor

Sethu madhavan NR1, ezhil arasan P2, ilayaraja R3

1
ug, eee, s.a.engineering college, chennai-77
2
ug, eee, s.a.engineering college, chennai-77
3
ug, eee, s.a.engineering college, chennai-77
[email protected]

ABSTRACT-As the conventional energy resources are depleting there is an urgent need for switching to renewable
energy resources as well as increasing its functionality. This paper proposes a design of solar power system fed by a
photovoltaic source with a super capacitor storage system and sepic convertor. The super capacitor has the fastest
charging time compared to all other storage devices and also guarantees a longer lifetime in terms of charge cycles and
has a large range of operating temperatures, but has the drawback of having low energy density . The lithium
battery has higher energy density but requires an accurate charge profile to increase its lifetime. Combining the
two storages is possible to obtain good compromise in terms of energy density. Sepic convertors allow output from
convertors to be higher or lower than its input and allow the output to be non-inverted state with respect to input. It also
reduces the amount of harmonics present in the output. A Controller is added between the solar panel and the battery to
improve the system performance. The solar power system is controlled and monitored using PIC microcontroller.

KEYWORDS-Supercapacitor, SEPIC converter, PV cells

I. INTRODUCTION

With the ever-increasing demand for low-cost energy and growing concern about environmental issues, PV
based systems are being increasingly employed in diverse applications both at domestic and commercial levels.
While a wide variety of harvesting modalities are now feasible, solar energy harvesting through photovoltaic
(PV) conversion provides the highest power density, which makes it the preferred choice to power an
embedded system that consumes several mille watt using a reasonably small harvesting module. The
growing emphasis on energy saving. PV being a major energy source enables the dc loads to be connected
directly to the dc bus. Photovoltaic systems can be broadly classified into stand-alone system and grid-
connected system. The stand-alone system is widely used in remote places where access to electricity is not
viable. The stand-alone configuration can provide a well-regulated load voltage, but the reliability of power
supply cannot be guaranteed. Storage batteries are widely used to improve the reliability of the stand-alone
system. The integration of a PV system to the grid is rapidly increasing due to the improvement in the power
electronics technology. In grid-connected PV systems (gcpvs), the generated PV power is fed to the grid, or it
supplies the linear and nonlinear loads connected at the ac side. In some hybrid systems[5] battery is used to
compensate the mismatch between the generation and demand.

II. CURRENT SCENARIO

In developing countries, the demand for power is growing beyond the planners estimation, and the power grid
is weak, and scheduled power outages throughout the year are common. In addition, there are also unscheduled
short term outages which are random and frequent. Therefore, the grid-side inverter should operate in grid-tied
mode and off-grid mode to supply uninterrupted power to the critical loads during power outages. A grid-
connected PV system[1] involves a power source (PV array), a power sink (load), and two power sources/sink
(utility and battery), and hence, a power flow management system is required to balance the power flow among
these source. The load profile seen by the electrical grid is undergoing a notable change as these devices have to
operate from a dc source. In some applications, a battery was connected directly in parallel with the dc bus. The
size of the battery can be reduced. when a battery charger/discharger circuit is inserted between the dc bus and
the battery. Utilizing the battery charger/discharger circuit for regulating dc link voltage decouples the dc link
control from the ac current control and achieves faster regulation of dc link voltage.

III. CHALLENGES FACED IN CURRENT SYSTEM

When the solar radiation is less, the power quality is degraded as the total harmonic distortion (THD) of the line
current is inversely proportional to the power injected into the grid. Furthermore, the disturbance in dc link
voltage is reflected in PV array power, and the PV operating point shifts from the maximum power point (MPP).
Hence, a fast regulation of dc link voltage is necessary to ensure constant dc voltage while simultaneously
maintaining the THD of the current injected into the grid within the standard limit dc bus. The size of the
battery can be reduced when a battery charger/discharger circuit is inserted.

IV. PROPOSED SYSTEM

A simple and low cost way to extract and store energy from a PV source is to connect the solar panel directly to
a battery with a diode. The main disadvantage of this solution is that the system does not always work in
the optimal condition to convert the available solar energy. To improve the system performance, a controller
can be added between the PV panel and the battery. Maximum power point tracking (MPPT) circuits
differentiate themselves in the design of the power converting electronics and/or in the control strategy,
but the charging of batteries in presence of fluctuating power sources remains an open issue.

This paper proposes a power management architecture that utilizes both super capacitor cells and a
lithium battery as energy storages for a photovoltaic (PV). The super capacitor guarantees a longer lifetime in
terms of charge cycles and has a large range of operating temperatures, but has the drawback of having low
energy density and high cost. The lithium battery has higher energy density but requires an accurate charge
profile to increase its lifetime, feature that cannot be easily obtained supplying the wireless node with a
fluctuating source as the PV one. A Controller is added between the solar panel and the battery to improve the
system performance. Sepic convertors allow output from convertors to be higher or lower than its input and
allow the output to be non-inverted state with respect to input. The controller is usually a dc-dc converter and
controls the input voltage or current another convertor is generally used as the output converter to step-up
the voltage because of the low voltage of the super capacitor. Combining the two storages is possible to
obtain good compromise in terms of energy density.

A. functional block diagram

Fig.1 simple block diagram of proposed system

Figure 1 shows the functional block diagram of the proposed system. A combination of two SEPIC converters is
used across a supercapacitor. The two converters can be used for both step up and step down operation
according to the supply and demand. Voltage and current are sensed at source and load sides and given to ADC
of PIC controller, so that it suitable provide switching pulse to SEPIC converters through MOSFET switches

B. Circuit diagram

Fig.2 Detailed circuit diagram

V. SUPER CAPACITOR

A Super Capacitor is an electrochemical component that will lead electrical energy storage into a new
dimension. Super Capacitor cells are able to fill the gap between capacitors and batteries by providing high
power performance. A Supercapacitors strength is its ability to charge and discharge within seconds without
damage. Super Capacitor performs in harsh environments reliably and maintenance free. The official naming
of a Super Capacitor is Electric Double-Layer Capacitor (EDLC) under many different brand names such
as Super capacitor, Pseudo capacitor Ultra capacitor. . Super capacitor cells are able to fill the gap between
strength is its ability to charge and discharge within seconds without damage.

A. Working principle

Like an ordinary capacitor, a Super Capacitor has two plates that are separated by a dielectric. The differences
are the plates are coated with activated carbon. Activated carbon is a very porous substance, having an
enormous surface area enabling storage of much more electrical energy. The dielectric that separates the plates
of a capacitor is an electrolyte. The electrolyte is a liquid that is electrically active. In a normal capacitor there
is a dielectric separator that keeps the positive charges on one plate and negative charges on the other plate
safely apart. A Super Capacitor the electrolyte is polarized by the charged plates.
 Fig.3 sketch of supercapacitor layers

The positive ions of the electrolyte are attracted by the negative charge of one plate; conversely, the negative ions by
the positive charge of the other plate. This movement of the ions form a second charge, the double layer allows
the Super Capacitor to store much more electrical energy providing a higher power performance.

Their cycle efficiency, which is defined as the ratio of the energy input to the energy output of an energy storage
element, reaches almost 100%. The terminal voltage of a supercapacitor is a linear function of its state of charge,
which is given by

VCAP(T)=Q(t)/C=(2.ECAP(t) C) / ..(1)

Where Ecap is the energy stored in the supercapacitor, and C is the capacitance. Ecap increases or decreases
dynamically as charge or discharge operations are performed. The same is true for Vcap, whose variation is much
higher than the terminal voltage of an ordinary battery, and therefore, the charger efficiency of a supercapacitor
varies more significantly compared with that of a battery.

Fig.4 example of current drawn that maximize P charge

MPPT is maximum power point tracker which indicates the point at which maximum power can be extracted from a
solar cell.various studies have been carried out in finding an algorithm for MPPT[6].Conventional MPPT simply
finds the operating point that result in maximum Ppv regardless of the charger efficiency at that point. In the figure 4,
this point is b. In reality we are interested in maximizing Pcharge, which is achieved at point a in the figure 4. This is
because at point a, although the current Ipv is offset from the current of the MPP, since efficiency is high enough,
Pcharge at this point is larger than Pcharge at the MPP, i.e., point b. Consequently, MPPT and maximum efficiency
tracking of the charger should be considered at the same time. Because efficiency is affected by both the PV module
voltage and the supercapacitor voltage, we have to take the status of the supercapacitor into account when finding
the optimal operating point that maximizes Pcharge.
B.Internal charge-distribution process after the first charging cycle.

Fig.5 Voltage decreasing during the delay interval

Fig.6 measured energy

Supercapacitors experience several charge-distribution processes with different time constants, even in isolated and
disconnected state. This makes it difficult to identify the process that is responsible for voltage variations. After just
being charged for a short period, a disconnected supercapacitor will exhibit a decreasing voltage. This decrease is
mainly caused by a charge distribution within branches. E form represents the energy content of the supercapacitor
computed by measuring its output voltage and using the formula,

Eform=(1/2)CV2 ..... (2)

While is obtained by measuring first the energy de-livered by the generator for the charging phase and then, during
discharging, measuring the energy delivered to the load. The energy E in is the total energy provided to the
supercapacitor during charging, while Eout represents the total energy delivered by the supercapacitor during
discharging. Notice that the supercapacitor does not behave as an ideal storage device as E in is larger than Eout .
Hence, we can define the cycle efficiency of the supercapacitor as

cycle=Eout/Ein.100 ..... (3)

Fig.7 Cycle efficiency Charging and discharging

An important phenomenon that accounts for the non ideality of the supercapacitor is the decrease of the
supercapacitor voltage during the delay interval. No energy is extracted from the supercapacitor, and still, the
voltage decreases. This is mainly caused by the charge-distribution process that, in the short term, is more important
than leakage. Fortunately, this non ideal behaviour becomes less significant as the number of charging/discharging
cycles increases, so becomes a more reliable estimator of the stored energy with errors that are lower than 10%. As a
consequence with the increment of the number of cycles, the difference between E in and Eout decreases.

C.Comparison between super capacitor and Li-ion battery

FUNCTION SUPER LI-ION

CAPACITOR

Charge time 1-10 seconds 10-60

minutes

Cycle life 1 million to 500 and

30,000 h higher

Cell voltage 2.3 to 2.75 V 3.6 to 3.7 V

Service life Unlimited 5 to 10

years

Specific 5 Wh/Kg 100-200

energy Wh/Kg

Specific Up to 10,000 1000 to

power W/Kg 3000 W/Kg
Discharge - 40 to 65 C -20 to 60 C
temp.

VI. SEPIC CONVERTOR

Single-ended primary-inductor converter (sepic) is a type of dc-dc convertor allowing the electrical potential at its
output to be greater than, less than, or equal to that at its input; the output of the sepic is controlled by the duty
cycle of the control transistor. A sepic is similar to a traditional buck-boost converter, but has advantages of having
non-inverted output in which the output has the same voltage polarity as the input.Sepics are useful in applications
in which a battery voltage can be above and below that of the regulator's intended output.

A. circuit diagram

Figure 8 shows a simple circuit diagram of a SEPIC converter, consisting of an input capacitor,Cin an output
capacitor, Cout; coupled inductors L1 and L2, an AC coupling capacitor, Cs power MOSFET, Q1, and diode
D1.

Fig.8 Typical SEPIC convertor

B.working principle

When Q1 is on energy is being stored in L1 from the input and in L2 from Cs. When Q1 turns off, L1s current
continues to flow through Cs and D1, and into COUT and the load. Both COUT and Cs get recharged so that they can
provide the load current and charge L2, respectively, when Q1 turns back on.

Fig.9 Switch ON Position

When Q1 is off, the voltage across L2 must be VOUT. Since CIN is charged to VIN, the voltage across Q1 when Q1 is
off is VIN + VOUT, so the voltage across L1 is VOUT. When Q1 is on, capacitor Cs, charged to VIN, is connected in
parallel with L2, so the voltage across L2 is VIN. The currents flowing through various circuit components are
shown in Figure 10.

Fig.10 Switch OFF Position

Because the potential (voltage) across capacitor C1 may reverse direction every cycle, a non-polarized capacitor
should be used. However, a polarized tantalum or electrolytic capacitor may be used in some cases, because the
potential (voltage) across capacitor C1 will not change unless the switch is closed long enough for a half cycle of
resonance with inductor L2, and by this time the current in inductor L1 could be quite large.

The capacitor CIN is required to reduce the effects of the parasitic inductance and internal resistance of the
power supply. The boost/buck capabilities of the SEPIC are possible because of capacitor C 1 and inductor L2.
Inductor L1 and switch Q1 create a standard boost converter, which generates a voltage (VS1) that is higher than
VIN, whose magnitude is determined by the duty cycle of the switch S1.

Since the average voltage across C1 is VIN, the output voltage (VO) is VS1 - VIN. If VS1 is less than double
VIN, then the output voltage will be less than the input voltage. If V S1 is greater than double VIN, then the output
voltage will be greater than the input voltage. The evolution of switched-power supplies can be seen by coupling the
two inductors in a SEPIC converter together, which begins to resemble a Fly back converter, the most basic of the
transformer-isolated SMPS topologies.

VII. DESIGN OF CONVERTERS

A. Inductor Selection
IL= Iin*40% ..... (4)

Iin= Iout* (Vout/ Vin) * 40% ..... (5)

max= ((Vout+VD) / (Vin+Vout+VD)) ... (6)

VD = forward diode voltage

L1 = L2= (Vin/ (IL* fsw)) * max ..... (7)

B. Capacitor Selection

Cin = IL/I12 ..... (8)

Cout = (Iout* max) / (Vripple* 0.5 * fsw) ..... (9)

Coupling capacitor, Cp = (Vripple* 0.5)/(IL1 + IL2) ..... (10)

IL1 = Iout * ((Vout+VD) / Vin) * (1+(40%/2))

..... (11)
IL2= Iout* ( 1+(40%/2)) ..... (12)

C. Diode Selection
To reduce losses, Schottky diodes should be used.

ID=(1-Vout/Vin).IL .....(13)

The forward current rating needed is equal to the maximum output current. I OUT (max) = maximum output current
necessary in the application Schottky diodes have a much higher peak current rating than average rating. Therefore
the higher peak current in the system is not a problem. The other parameter that has to be checked is the power
dissipation of the diode.

D.Snubber Circuit
RC snubber circuits are normally connected across a switching device to limit the dv/dt. A simple snubber uses a
small resistor (R) in series with a small capacitor (C). This combination can be used to suppress the rapid rise
in voltage across a mosfet, preventing the erroneous turn-on of the mosfet. It does this by limiting the rate of rise in
voltage (dV/dt) across the mosfet to a value which will not trigger it. Let the minimum switching time constant is T
= 1/20 KHz = 0.05 milli seconds

Hence the RC should satisfy this time constant i.e RC=0.05msec. Let C = 0.05uF, then R = 1 Kilo ohm.

E.Reliability and Efficiency

The voltage drop and switching time of diode D is critical to a SEPIC's reliability and efficiency. The diode's
switching time needs to be extremely fast in order to not generate high voltage spikes across the inductors, which
could cause damage to components. Inductors with lower series resistance allow less energy to be dissipated as heat,
resulting in greater efficiency.
VIII.SIMULATION RESULTS FOR PROPOSED SYSTEM USING MATLAB

Fig 11a.PWM pulses for converter 1 switch

Fig 11b.PWM pulses for converter 2 switch

Time (min)
Fig 11c.output seen across Sepic 1

Time (min)

Fig 11d.output seen across Sepic 2

 IX.CONCLUSION

So, we have integrated super capacitor and li-ion battery which increase the life time of the battery and reduce the
size of it. Also by introducing SEPIC converter we can control the system in a better way. We have demonstrated
the model using MATLAB simulation. Also, by developing these kinds of projects we may be able to charge our DC
loads like mobiles, laptop batteries instantly during power outages. Also, may be in near future we may develop
stations which provides instant charging for cost using large solar array.

X. REFERENCES

[1]Balasubramanian indu rani,member,ieee ganesan saravana ilango, and chilakapati

nagamani,member,IEEE,Control strategy for power flow management in a pv system supplying dc loads,
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[2] Dariga Meekhun,Vincent Boitier,Jean-Marie Dilhac Stphane Petibon, Corinne Alonso and Bruno EstibalsBuck
converter design for photovoltaic generators with supercapacitor energy storage, international conference on
renewable energies and power quality, (icrepq11) Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Spain), 13th to 15th April, 2010

[3] Davide brunelli, clemens moserDesign of a solar-harvesting circuit for batteryless embedded systems. IEEE
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2009

[4] Hicham fakham, di lu, bruno francois, senior member,IEEEPower control design of a battery charger in a
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[5] Teena jacob and arun electrical and electronics engineering.Modeling of hybrid wind and photovoltaic energy
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[6] Younghyun kim, naehyuck chang seoul national university, koreayanzhi wangMaximum power transfer
tracking for a photovoltaic-supercapacitor system

XI. ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I am thankful to S.A.Engineering college for providing us full support to carry out this project. I also thank INEL
POWER SYSTEMS, CHENNAI for providing technical help and support to let us do this project in their company.