This paper proposes a solar photovoltaic (SPV) array fed water pumping system utilizing a zeta converter as an intermediate DC-DC converter in order to extract the maximum available power from the SPV array. Controlling the zeta converter in an intelligent manner through the incremental conductance maximum power point tracking (INC-MPPT) algorithm offers the soft starting of the brushless DC (BLDC) motor employed to drive a centrifugal water pump coupled to its shaft. Soft starting i.e. the reduced current starting inhibits the harmful effect of the high starting current on the windings of the BLDC motor. A fundamental frequency switching of the voltage source inverter (VSI) is accomplished by the electronic commutation of the BLDC motor, thereby avoiding the VSI losses occurred owing to the high frequency switching. A new design approach for the low valued DC link capacitor of VSI is proposed. The proposed water pumping system is designed and modeled such that the performance is not affected even under the dynamic conditions. Suitability of the proposed system under dynamic conditions is demonstrated by the simulation results using MATLAB/Simulink software.
A solar photovoltaic (SPV) powered brushless DC (BLDC) motor drive for water pumping is presented in this study. The current sensors of BLDC motor and the voltage sensor at the DC bus of voltage-source inverter (VSI) are eliminated completely. Instead, the speed is controlled by adjusting the DC bus voltage of VSI. The fundamental frequency switching pulses are generated to operate the VSI in order to minimise the switching losses and to enhance the efficiency of proposed system. A DC-DC Cuk converter is utilised to operate the SPV array at its maximum power. The starting current of BLDC motor is bounded by an optimal initialisation and selection of the control parameters, perturbation size and frequency while tracking the peak power of SPV array. The performance of proposed BLDC motor drive is thoroughly evaluated and its potential is demonstrated under realistic operating conditions. The simulated results and an experimental validation along with a comprehensive comparison with the existing techniques demonstrate prominence of the proposed drive for SPV-based water pumping.
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