2016 International Conference on Automatic Control and Dynamic Optimization Techniques (ICACDOT)

International Institute of Information Technology (I²IT), Pune

DESIGN AND SIMULATION OF SOLAR PV

SYSTEM
Kartika Dubey M.T.Shah
M.Tech in Electrical Power System Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering,
Institute of Technology, Nirma University Institute of Technology, Nirma University
Ahmedabad, Gujrat, India. Ahmedabad, Gujrat, India.
[email protected] [email protected]

Abstract— The demand of the electrical power is increasing per converter (either step up or step down) is used. Other than the
day which is supplied by fossil fuels resulting into huge carbon boost converter (Step up converter); buck converter (Step
emissions in the atmosphere, which leads the electrical engineers down converter), buck-boost converter, SEPIC converter and
to generate the power by using the renewable energy sources. Cuk converter configurations can also be used. The duty cycle
This paper is aimed at simulation and development of Solar PV
of the dc-dc converter is regulated to vary the load impedance
system which is able to fulfil the power demand in the isolated
locations or in standalone condition. The system consists of as seen by the source, to match point of the maximum value of
various components like PV solar panel, DC-DC converter (Step power of the source in order to transfer the maximum power of
up converter) and two level inverter connected to load. The the panel to the load [4]. Thus, using MPPT techniques the PV
controlling of input loop of the solar PV system is shown with the array is made to operate on MPP (Maximum Power Point).
help of PI controller for maintaining the dc link constant There are many MPPT techniques used like: Perturb and
irrespective of changes in the input side and output side Observe (P&O) method, Incremental Conductance (IC)
parameters resulting into the constant inverter output. The method, Fuzzy Logic Method, Constant Voltage method, etc.
simulations are performed in the MATLAB SIMULINK [5]. The most simplest technique amongst them is P&O
software.
method which is used mostly, as it provides fast tracking of
Keywords—Solar PV Power Generation, DC-DC Boost MPP and it have easy algorithm to implement [6][7][8]. But in
Converter, SPWM Technique, MPPT Techniques, Two level this paper, in spite of using the MPPT technique to control the
Inverter. switching of boost converter, simple PI controller is used to
maintain the constant dc link voltage by controlling the
I. INTRODUCTION converter duty cycle.
The conventional sources like fossil fuels are used to supply The panel voltage and current obtained are dc quantity,
the energy demand in the world, which is the most basic cause which should be converted into ac quantity by means of
of generating the carbon contents in the environment. These inverters to feed the ac loads or for grid connection. The solar
carbon contents are responsible for the unwanted change in PV systems are of two types: Grid-connected system and
the climate or for Global Warming. Standalone-system. In the grid connected system, the solar PV
Solar energy is the most efficient renewable energy source system will supply the power to the connected grid along with
if it is efficiently harnessed by the modern technology [1]. In the loads connected to it. The grid connected solar PV
solar PV system, the sunlight is directly converted into the inverters used can have different configurations like: Central
electrical energy. The energy that can be produced by a solar inverters, String inverters and Multi-String inverters. The
cell basically depends on the intrinsic properties of the cells central inverter configuration is the simplest one having main
and the amount of solar radiation which falls on the panel [2]. drawback that when different solar irradiation falls on the
The typical size of the solar array as well as AC inverter module then the strings of the panel will operate at different
required for solar PV applications depends on the type of loads MPPs. The string inverters have advantage of operating at
connected. The energy from the panel can also be stored by common MPP even for different irradiance value. The
using battery storage for later use. selection of inverter configuration is based on the cost, power
The basic disadvantage of solar PV system is its lower requirement and the area of project. In the Standalone system,
efficiency as panels are hugely dependent on highly the solar PV system will feed the loads which are directly
unpredictable atmospheric parameters, i.e., the solar radiation connected to it. Both of the systems are capable of feeding ac
and temperature. So, it is bit difficult to extract the maximum and dc both types of the load. The standalone systems are
power from the panel resulting into reduced efficiency of mostly preferred for household applications.
system. To increase the system efficiency and to extract
maximum power from the panels, different MPPT (Maximum
Power Point Tracking) techniques are used [3][4]. II. SOLAR PV SYSTEM
The power obtained from the PV panel is of fluctuating dc The technology of Solar PV is mostly used now-a-days. The
in nature. To convert this value into constant dc value, dc-dc characteristic of all solar panels depends on the two important

978-1-5090-2080-5/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE 568

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atmospheric parameters: Temperature and Solar irradiation. constant dc value into ac value which is compatible for the
The I-V and P-V characteristic of solar array is shown in Fig. connected ac loads.
1, having constant temperature of 250C and different solar The system parameters like dc link voltage and inverter
irradiations of 1.2kW/m2, 1kW/m2 and 0.8kW/m2. As the output voltage will change, as the output parameters (loads) as
irradiance is increased the current across the panel is increasing well as input parameters (solar radiation and temperature) are
significantly having almost insignificant change in the voltage, changed which is not required and accepted. To obtain the
resulting into the increase in the power produced. Thus, more controlled system the switching of power electronic devices are
the solar irradiation more will be the power produced. changed and PI controllers are used. The entire system diagram
for the close loop system is shown in the Fig. 4, for standalone
system.

Fig 3: Block diagram of close loop solar PV system

Fig 1: I-V and P-V characteristics of PV Array at constant temperature of

250C and varying solar irradiation

The I-V and P-V characteristics of solar array having

changing temperatures and constant irradiation of 1000W/m2
and different temperature of 650C, 450C and 250C is shown in
the Fig. 2. The voltage reduces with the increase in the
temperature having insignificant change in current, which
reduces the power of the array. So, at very high temperature the
array does not work efficiently and will not produce high
power.

Fig 4: Entire block diagram of close loop solar PV system with system
components.

A. Boost Converter
The important functions of various dc-dc converters are
mentioned as follows:
x To convert the fluctuating input dc voltage into
Fig 2: I-V and P-V Characteristics of PV array at constant solar constant output dc voltage.
irradiation of 1000W/m2 and varying temperature x To reduce the amount of voltage ripple in the
output voltage.
x To regulate and maintain the dc output voltage
III. SYSTEM DESCRIPTION against the variations or fluctuations in load and
The solar PV system consists of mainly two power line.
electronic components: boost converter and inverter. The block x To isolate the input source and the load.
diagram of close loop solar PV system having interconnected
power electronic components is shown in Fig. 3, where boost When the voltage at the input side is not sufficient then the
converter will convert the fluctuating dc obtained from PV value of output voltage is increased to the certain required
panel into constant dc value and the inverter will convert this level. For this purpose boost converters are used having

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converter has an inductor, a switch (usually IGBT or
MOSFET), diode and a capacitor. The Fig. 5 shows the basic
diagram of dc to dc boost converter.

Fig 6: Three phase voltage source inverter

The PWM techniques basically results into the reduced

Fig 5: Boost converter THD and controlled output voltage of the system. The SPWM
switching technique allows controlling of magnitude and
frequency of the output voltage. In SPWM scheme, triangular
¾ Calculation of Inductor Value: carrier wave having high frequency is compared with a
sinusoidal modulating signal. The peak magnitude of the
Given parameters: modulating signal is less than the peak magnitude of the carrier
Panel Output Current, Ipanel = 2A signal. The SPWM techniques have two operating modes:
Input Voltage, Vin = 34V Unipolar and Bipolar. The unipolar operation is preferred
because it gives less input ripple current. The pulses are
Assume: obtained as the output of the comparator which is then applied
Switching frequency, fs = 20 kHz. to the gate of the IGBTs for driving IGBT switches [10][11].
Duty Ratio, D = 0.5 The generation of pulses using SPWM technique is shown in
∆iL = 10% of Ipanel = 0.2A Fig. 7. The parameters considered for SPWM pulse generation
are: amplitude of reference sine wave and carrier wave is 0.8
The voltage obtained at the output of the boost converter is and 1 respectively and the switching frequency of reference
calculated by using (1): wave and carrier wave is 50 Hz and 1 kHz respectively. Thus,
the amplitude modulation index is 0.8. The modulation index
௏೔
V0 = = 68V (1) less than 1 provides better controlling of the output rms
ଵି஽
voltage.
The inductor value is calculated by using (2):

௏೔೙ ‫כ‬஽
L= = 4.25mH (2)
ο௜ಽ ‫כ‬௙ೞ

The value for capacitor is taken as standard value equals to

4700μF. The capacitor value is decided so that the ripples in
output voltage of boost converter are lesser in the desirable
limit. The entire simulation is performed considering these
values of inductor and capacitor.

B. Inverter
The main function of voltage source inverter is to convert a
fixed dc quantity into three phase ac voltage having variable
magnitude and fixed frequency which are compatible for the ac
load applications. The basic diagram of three phase voltage
source inverter is shown in the Fig. 6. The IGBT’s are used as
switches. In this paper, the gate pulses given to the inverter
switch are generated by using SPWM switching technique.

Fig 7: Unipolar sinusoidal pulse-width modulation (SPWM) technique and

line-to-line Voltage (Vab)

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C. Boost Converter Control Scheme Similarly, we can implement this scheme for the other two legs
The changing input parameters tends to change the change of inverter.
of dc link voltage as shown in Fig. 12 and the inverter output
IV. SIMULATION RESULTS
voltage. The voltage across the dc link should remain constant
for having controlled system and better result at the output The simulation is performed in order to analyze the behavior
side. The input side controlling of the system is done by using of the solar PV system having changes at its input and output
PI controller in the input loop by tuning the value of controller side. The entire simulation is performed in the MATLAB
to maintain the dc link constant throughout the operation. Thus, Simulink software and the results are shown below. The open
other than the MPPT technique, the input loop can also be loop system, when operated on constant input and output
controlled by simply using PI controller at the input side. The parameters produces the output voltage across boost converter
control scheme of boost converter is shown in the Fig. 8. and inverter as shown in Fig. 10 and Fig. 11. The open loop
offers no controlling of the system output with respect to
change in input and output parameters.

Fig 8: Boost converter control scheme

The actual dc link voltage is sensed and compared with

reference value. The error is sent to the PI controller. The Fig 10: Output voltage of boost converter with constant load
output obtained from PI controller is then compared with the
triangular generator for generating the pulse which will then
fed to the boost converter switch.

D. Inverter Control Scheme

The inverter output voltage is also affected by the variation
in system parameters. Thus, the inverter output is also
maintained to a constant value.

Fig 11: Output voltage of inverter with constant load

When the load is changed in the system with no close loop

feedback at 2 and 4 seconds then the dc link voltage will
change as shown in Fig. 12, which results into unwanted
change in the inverter output voltage. Fig. 13 shows the change
in load current with change in load, as the load is increased in
parallel in the system the load current is increasing.

Fig 9: Inverter control scheme

Fig. 9 shows the control scheme for one leg of inverter to

control the output side of the system. The voltage across the dc
link is sensed and compared with the reference value. The error
produced is sent to PI controller. The PI output obtained will be
a dc quantity. This dc quantity is multiplied by the sinusoidal
value to convert it into ac value which is then compared with Fig 12: Change in DC link voltage with change in load without PI
controller
the triangular wave for producing pulses for inverter switches.

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 The input side controlling is required to have system dc
link constant irrespective of the change in input parameter and
the controlling is done by using the boost converter control
scheme as shown in Fig. 8. Considering the RL-load in the
system with no load change, the following results are obtained
after controlling the input side. The constant dc link voltage is
obtained giving constant inverter output voltage as shown in
Fig. 16 and Fig. 17.

Fig 13: Output load current with change in load at 2sec and 4sec without
PI controller

The entire close loop system as shown in Fig. 4, shows the

controlling of system from both the sides. It is seen that as the
input and output parameters of the solar PV system are
changed, the dc link voltage and the inverter output current
changes. In order to have the controlled system the different
switching control schemes for input loop and output loop are Fig 16: DC link voltage waveform with PI controller at input side
used as shown in Fig. 8 and Fig. 9.
The output side controlling is required to make system
output voltage constant irrespective of the load change and the
controlling is done by using the inverter control scheme as
shown in Fig. 9. After implementation of the close loop the dc
link voltage obtained is now constant as shown in Fig. 14 and
the inverter output voltage is shown in Fig. 15. The simulation
is performed for R-load and load is changed at 2 and 4 seconds
respectively.

Fig 17: Output voltage waveforms of the inverter with PI controller at

input side

The output current obtained is also sinusoidal in nature

which is compatible for the ac loads, as shown in Fig. 18.

Fig 14: DC link voltage with load change (2sec and 4sec) with PI controller
at output side

Fig 18: Output load current waveform of inverter having RL-load with PI
controller at input side

The change in input parameters of the system is considered

by varying the input voltage of the boost converter. The
simulation results obtained for the inverter output voltage and
load current is obtained almost same as that shown in Fig. 17
and Fig. 18 above. The variation in dc link voltage will occur
Fig 15: Inverter output voltage with change in load with PI controller at
output side
when the input voltage will be changed which is shown in

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Table. 1. The reference voltage is 34 V and the variation taken mainly occurs because of the changes occurred in load,
is of 8 V, considering step size of two units. The result resulting into unwanted system behavior. In this paper, the
obtained shows that the change in dc link voltage is only in simulation results of the uncontrolled solar PV system and the
between the ripple of 3 V, for the range of variation in the input controlled solar PV system have been discussed. The proposed
voltage of about 8 V. control technique having PI controller in both the input and
output control loops gives utmost stability as compared to an
TABLE I. VARIATION IN DC LINK VOLTAGE WITH RESPECT TO THE uncontrolled PV system. Also, the proposed system is much
VARYING INPUT VOLTAGE
simpler to understand and easy to implement, when compared
S.No. INPUT VOLTAGE DC LINK VOLTAGE
with the other input loop controlling techniques. The
(in Volts) (in Volts) simulation results verify the system stability, with change in
1
the load as well as input parameters. For load variations,
30 64.67
constant value of dc link voltage is obtained having ripple of 1
2 32 65.98 V within 0.6 sec. It has been concluded from the table that the
3 34 67.34 variation in the input parameters also leads to the constant dc
4 36 68.88 link voltage. Thus, the results shown above, gives the required
5 dc link voltage as well as the output voltage, which can be
38 69.24
further used to feed various ac and dc loads.
The above results were for the loops operating individually. REFERENCES
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Power generated by solar PV panel always fluctuates
due to the fluctuation in panel voltage and current which

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