PROCEEDINGS OF ICETECT 2011

Modelling and Control of Standalone Solar

Photovoltaic Charging System
B. Sree Manju1, R.Ramaprabha2, Dr.B.L.Mathur3
P.G. Student (Power Electronics & Drives), Assistant Professor, Professor
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering
SSN College of Engineering, Rajiv Gandhi Salai, Kalavakkam-603110, Chennai, Tamilnadu, India.
1
srimanju.87@gmail.com(corresponding author)
2
ramaprabhar@ssn.edu.in
3
blmathur@ssn.edu.in

Abstract— The photovoltaic (PV) stand-alone system requires a II. INTRODUCTION

battery charger for energy storage. This paper presents the Solar energy is the most readily available energy resources.
modelling and control design of the PV charger system using It is non-polluting and maintenance free. Photovoltaic panels
Buck-Boost converter. The voltage command is determined by are used to convert the solar energy into electrical energy.
both the PV module maximum power point tracking (MPPT) Now a day the shortage of conventional energy moves on to
control loop and the battery charging loop. Here the controller is renewable energy. Particularly Solar energy supplied by the
designed so as to balance the power flow from PV module to the sun in one hour is almost equal to the amount energy required
battery and the load such that the PV power is utilized effectively by the human population in one year. So many research works
and the battery charged with three charging stages. This paper have addressed the development of solar power system in
discusses the design and simulation of buck-boost converter with
recent years. Solar Photovoltaic (SPV) technique is most
battery charge controller and MPPT controller using MATLAB.
popular way of utilizing solar energy. SPV has nonlinear
internal characteristics. Most popular standalone SPV system
Keywords— PV stand-alone system, Power balance control, requires battery for energy storage to supply the load power
MPPT, Battery Charger, MATLAB. when solar power is not available [1]. The power-voltage
characteristics of the PV module is varied depends upon
atmospheric conditions [2] and has unique peak on it.
1. I. NOMENCLATURE Considering the investment cost of the PV system, it is always
I pv, Vpv - Solar cell current and voltage requisite to operate PV at its Maximum Power Point (MPP).
ID, VD - Diode current and voltage For this purpose dc-dc converter interface is required between
Iph - Light generated current SPV and battery [3]. In addition, for longer life of battery, the
battery charging controller is essential [5]. Rechargeable
G - Irradiance batteries are widely used in stand-alone photovoltaic systems
T - Temperature to store the energy. The most common type used is the sealed
n - Diode ideality factor maintenance free lead acid battery, because the battery unit is
K - Boltzman’s constant completely sealed, all of the acid is absorbed in the special
q - Electron charge plates and separators – there is no need to worry about acid
IR - Reverse saturation current leaks, or refilling the battery with distilled water. Even after
Rsh, Rse - Shunt and series resistance months of normal use, there would be enough electrolytes to
keep the plates covered because of the amount of free-
M - Voltage gain ratio
standing electrolytes that are above the plates.
V, I - Ripple voltage and current In this paper the battery charging system is implemented
L,C - Converter inductance and capacitance with Buck-Boost converter. The boost converter has higher
fs - Switching frequency efficiency compare to buck-boost converter. But it is only
D - Duty ratio applicable for where the battery voltage is higher than the PV
Vmref - Reference Voltage module voltage. Hence buck-boost converter is used in this
Ib* - Battery current command work. The purpose of the buck-boost converter is to control
Vp* - Voltage command the power flow from the PV module to battery and load which
Vbl* - Battery lower limit voltage requires MPPT control algorithm to find out the peak power
Vb* - Batter floating voltage of the PV module. In this paper P&O (Perturb and Observe)
algorithm is used [6]. Moreover to increase the battery life
Vmax ,Imax - Maximum voltage and current
batter charge controller is also presented in this paper. The

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complete system is simulated using MATLAB-SIMULINK
and the results are presented.
III. MODELLING AND SIMULATION OF MPPT ALGORITHM FOR
SOLAR PV SYSTEM
In this section, the modelling methodology of solar PV
system is described. Then the MPPT algorithm is presented.
Fig. 1 shows the well known one diode model of solar PV
module [7].
Fig. 1 One diode model of SPV module
The modelling equations are given from (1) to (4).
IPV IP (G, T) ID V /R
⁄VT
ID IR (eV 1)
VT nkt⁄q
V VPV IPV R
The current-voltage and power-voltage characteristics
shown in Fig.2 have been obtained by simulating (1) to (4)
through MATLAB M-file coding.
Fig. 2 Simulated Characteristics of SPV module
Perturb and observe algorithm is used for MPP tracking.
P&O algorithm is easy to implement compare to other
algorithms[6].The operating voltage of the PV array is
perturbed in a given direction and if the power drawn from the
PV array increases, this means that the operating point has
moved toward the MPP and, therefore, the operating voltage
must be further perturbed in the same direction. Otherwise, if
the power drawn from the PV array decreases, the operating
point has moved away from the MPP and, therefore, the
direction of the operating voltage perturbation must be
reversed. P&O The algorithm is simulated by writing the
algorithm in M-file. The flowchart is shown in Fig.3 and the
simulated characteristics are shown in Fig.4.
(1)
(2)
`Fig. 3 Flowchart for P&O algorithm
(3)
(4)
Fig. 4 Simulation of P&O algorithm
From Fig.4 it is observed that the P & O algorithm tracks
the MPP for varying environmental conditions. With the use
of the MPP algorithm Vmref has been found.
2. IV.DESIGN AND SIMULATION OF POWER BUCK-BOOST
CONVERTER
In this paper Buck-Boost converter is chosen for resistance
matching to achieve MPP tracking. The design equations of
the converter are given from (5) to (9).
Buck-boost converter gain ratio is given by
D
M (5)
D
In buck-boost converter the inductor and capacitor values
are obtained with the use of (6) and (7).
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 V. POWER BALANCE CONTROL AND BATTERY CHARGING
CONTROL
DVPV Fig. 7 shows the block diagram of the proposed system
L (6)
∆I with Power balance and Battery charging controllers. It
consists of PV array the buck-boost converter, Battery charge
controller, current controller, MPPT controller and Load.
DVB
C (7)
∆V

The SIMULINK model of Buck-Boost converter is shown in

Fig. 5.

Fig. 5 Buck-Boost Converter-Simulation Model

Fig. 7 Proposed system with controller
The design parameters used in simulation are L=200µH,
C=350µF and fs=10 kHz. The voltage command Vp* is generated by the combining
The design parameters are chosen based on the PV module MPPT control and the battery charging control loop. To
specifications and battery. improve the efficiency of the battery, the stages of the battery
Specifications: charging increases. Battery charging is achieved through three
The PV module specifications are: Isc=2.55A, Voc=21.25, stages: constant voltage, constant current and floating voltage.
Pmax=37.08W, Vmax=16.54 and Imax=2.25A. When the available PV power is greater than the load
power and the excessive power will charge the battery. But the
The specifications used for the battery are given below. charging current is less than the preset charge current (Fig.7),
Battery type: Exide (SMF) then it cannot reach its current command (Ib*), so the signal
Nominal Voltage: 12 V generated by the battery current controller is a proportional
Standby use: 13.6 V~ 13.8V
and integral (PI) controller will go positive and limited to zero.
Cycle use: 14.6V~14.8V
It results that the voltage command (Vp*) is determined
Maximum initial current: 20A
Nominal capacity: 100Ah completely by the MPPT controller.When the available
peakpower of the PV module is larger than the battery
Fig. 6 shows the output voltage and power of the Buck- charging and load requirement,the battery current will reach
Boost converter its command(Ib*) and the signal generated by the battery
current controller will go negative .It will add voltage with
MPPT generated voltage reference(Vmref) and increase the
voltage command(Vp*) value. In Fig1 the charging controller
will set the charging current (Ib*) command to be maximum
charging current until the battery voltage is reaches its
nominal voltage. When the power condition is sufficient the
system will operate in constant current stage. That period the
battery voltage reaches the voltage command, the limiter will
enter the linear region, and the charging current command will
reduce. This stage is called constant voltage charge state. The
battery voltage reaches its voltage command the limiter output
Fig. 6 Simulated Characteristics of the Buck-Boost Converter
is reduced to zero and the battery is in floating stage, that is
the full State of Charge (SOC)[9]-[13].
Load Switch Controller

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 When the PV power is not sufficient to satisfy the load
at that time the battery is also act as a source to satisfy the
load requirement. To control the deep discharge of the battery
with the use of load switch controller. The load switch
controller function is as follows when the battery voltage is
reduced less than the lower limit of the battery the load is
disconnected from the system with the use of the switch
controller. The switch controller voltage and current
waveform are shown in Fig. 8.
Fig. 8 Load Switch controller output
Fig. 9 shows the charging and discharging currents
(~ 8.37 A) of the battery with both power and battery charge
controllers. From Fig. 9 it is understood that floating state of
the battery is achieved.
Fig.9 .Charging and discharging currents of the battery
VI .CONCLUSION
In this paper, the standalone PV system with power flow
controller and battery charging controller has been presented.
The proposed system has been simulated in MATLAB-
SIMULINK environment. From the simulated results, the
effectiveness of the proposed controller scheme has been
proved. In future work, the same work will be proved through
the hardware.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors wish to thank the management of SSN college
of Engineering, Chennai for providing all the computational
facilities to carry out this work.
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BIOGRAPHIES
Ms. B. Sree Manju is a final year P.G. (Power Electronics and Drives)
student in the department of EEE at SSN College of Engineering, Chennai.
Mrs. R.Ramaprabha received her B.E. in Electronics & Communication
Engineering from Periyar Maniammai College of Engineering & Technology,
Thanjavur in 1997 and M.E in Power Electronics & Drives from Shanmugha
College of Engineering, Thanjavur in 2000. Currently she is pursuing Ph.D.
degree in Anna University in the area of solar photo voltaic. She has been
working in the teaching field for about 10 Years. She has published 18 papers
in National conferences, 11 papers in referred International conferences and 3
papers in international journal in the area of solar photovoltaic and power
electronics & drives. She is a life member in ISTE and member in IEEE.
Dr.B.L.Mathur is a Professor in SSN College of Engineering, Chennai. His
Ph.D. work was awarded Sir Vitthal N. Chandavarkar Memorial Gold Medal
on Ph.D. thesis adjudged to be the best for application to industries in the year
1979 at I.I.Sc. Bangalore. He has published around 90 papers in referred
journals and international conferences. He has 42 years of teaching and R&D
experience. His area of interest includes Power systems, Power Electronics &
Renewable energy sources.
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