Design and Evaluation of Solar Inverter for Different Power Factor Loads

Mohammad Ahmad, B. H. Khan

M. Tech Student, Department of Electrical Engineering, Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), Aligarh, India.
Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), Aligarh, India.

DOI: 10.4236/epe.2012.45042                

Abstract

This paper analyzes and compares the performance of a new inverter topology with two types of input sources: 1) Solar PV source and 2) Ideal dc source (battery). The simulation is done in SIMULINK/MATLAB Software. It is shown that when the solar panel is connected, spikes are obtained in output voltage waveforms. These spikes are eliminated by inserting a capacitor. The capacitor is chosen for a particular power factor which is optimum with respect to cost, size and power quality. Total Harmonic Distortion, Active Power, Reactive Power, RMS Voltage and RMS Current are measured for different load power factor. Finally these results are compared with those obtained using battery with same input voltage magnitude. This Paper shows that for Solar Panel Circuit, THD, P and Q are less for 0.8 and above power factor, however below 0.8 PF, the THD, active and reactive power transfer are more. This means that the performance of Solar Panel in the proposed circuit topology is seen to be better as compared to the same circuit with battery within a range of power factor.

Keywords

H-Bridge Inverter; Level Module (LM); Power Quality; Power Factor; Total Harmonic Distortion (THD)

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1]	E. Beser, S. Camur, B. Arifoglu and E. Kandemir Beser, “A Grid Connected Photovoltaic Power Conversion System with Single Phase Multilevel Inverter,” Solar Energy, Vol. 84, No. 12, 2010, pp. 2056-2067. doi:10.1016/j.solener.2010.09.011
[2]	E. Kandemir Beser, B. Arifoglu, S. Camur and E. Beser, “Design and Application of a Single Phase Multilevel Inverter Suitable for using as a Voltage Harmonic Source,” Journal of Power Electronics, Vol. 10, No. 2, 2010, pp. 138-145.
[3]	E. Beser, S. Camur, B. Arifoglu and E. Kandemir Beser, “Design and Application of a Novel Structure and Topology for Multilevel Inverter,” 2008 International Symposium on Power Electronics, Electrical Drives, Automation and Motion, Ischia, 11-13 June 2008, pp. 969-974. doi:10.1109/SPEEDHAM.2008.4581249
[4]	M. Ahmad and B. H. Khan, “New Approaches for Har- monic Reduction in Solar Inverter,” IEEE Conference on Students Conference on Engineering and Systems, Allahabad, 16-18 March 2012, pp. 1-6.
[5]	I. H. Altas and A. M. Sharaf, “A Photovoltaic Array Simulation Model for Matlab-Simulink GUI Environment,” International Conference on Clean Electrical Power, Capri, 21-23 May 2007, pp. 341-345.
[6]	http://www.mathworks.com