APPLICATION OF INDUCTION MOTOR

FOR SOLAR WATER PUMPING

J.L.Davies M.Malengret

ABSTRACT
reduction of solar panels
This paper describes the over the past few years have
design and evaluation of an made such systems highly
induction motor driven water competitive against diesel
pumping system which is and windmil1 energy
powered by solar panels. The generation.
reason that an induction
motor has been chosen for The most popular commercial
the project is that these system in South Africa is
motors are cheaper and more the positive displacement
robust than the more pump by Mono Pumps, which
conventional DC motors. It uses a DC motor. The
is expected that by using an disadvantage of using a DC
induction motor, the system motor is the high cost and
performance will improve periodic maintenance
significantly for the same requirement of replacing
investment. brushes. AC systems offer
the advantage of being both
INTRODUCTION inexpensive and more robust
than their DC counterparts,
Photovoltaic power is the but the drawback of these
quintessential energy systems has been their low
source, creating electricity efficiency.
with no pollution, no noise
and often no moving parts. The low efficiency of small
Photovoltaic systems are induction motors is not
well suited to remote or caused, by physical con-
arid regions and they can straints on the motor, but
also operate on any scalel. rather by manufacturers
believing there is only a
Solar powered water pumping limited market for highly
is fast becoming an accepted efficient small motors.
means of obtaining water in Recently a motor
remote areas where national manufacturing firm has
grid connection is not designed a small induction
viable. The low maintenance motor which has an
requirements and the cost efficiency similar to that

209 0-7803-0835-2/92 $3.00 Q 1992 IEEE

of a DC motor. It is this The positive displacement
motor which was used for the pump can be used with a wide
project. range of heads and power
requirements. The character-
By using the high efficiency istics of the pump are such
motor, a system could be that the torque can be
developed which has a assumed constant at a given
comparable efficiency to head for all speeds of
that of DC systems. The operation. For experimental
system efficiency was purposes a pump was obtained
optimized by a self-adaptive and mounted in a closed
control method which uses circuit configuration so
the speed of the motor as that the water was
one of its input variables. continually recycled. The
The controller also monitors head was simulated with a
the panel voltage. valve and measured with a
pressure gauge.
In this paper the method of
controlling the system is The motor is rated at 0 . 7 5
discussed and the overall kW and has an efficiency of
performance of the system is 80% at full load. The
presented. inverter is a fully
controlled bridge which
SYSTEM DESCRIPTION converts the panel DC
voltage to three-phase AC by
The main components of the
means of pulse width
pumping system are the solar
modulation. The
panels, positive displace-
microcontroller is the 8031
ment pump, induction motor,
from Intel and it both
three-phase inverter and
monitors the speed of the
microcontroller. The system
pump to operate the panels
is illustrated below and the
close to the peak power
components are discussed
point and supplies the PWM
further.
signals to switch the
inverter MOSFETs.

CONTROL METHOD FOR WATER

MAXIMIZATION

The main function of the

controller is to ensure that
the water delivery of the
pump is maximized. In many
I f solar systems this is
attempted by maintaining the
array voltage at a fiFed
Figure 1: Induction Motor reference value. This is not
Solar Pumping System an effective method of

210
control as variations to the Combination of voltage and
panel voltage are caused by speed control
solar radiation (10%),
temperature (10%) and By introducing the voltage
ageing2. Another factor as a control variable, the
which affects the panels is problem of pump inertia was
the scattering effect of the eliminated. Operation of
electrical characteristics this controller combines
of the solar cells. This is constant voltage control
due to the imperfect with speed monitoring. The
repeatability of the controller maintains the
technical processes of solar panel voltage at a reference
cell fabrication3. value and this value is
slowly adjusted until
In feedback control systems, maximum speed is obtained.
it is advisable wherever Although there is
possible to use the final interaction between the two
output variabZe in the control loops, this can be
feedback path. This ensures neglected due to a large
that if there are any difference between the speed
parameter variations to the and voltage sampling times.
transfer function, these do This controller proved to be
not significantly affect the very effective as it ensured
output. The primary task of operation to within lv of
the controller is to the voltage corresponding to
maximize the delivery, and the peak power point. A fast
although this is dynamic response was also
coincidental with operating obtained and correct
on the peak power point, a operation could be
more robust controller can maintained during shading of
be developed by rnoni-toring the array.
the speed of the motor.
SYSTEX EFFICIENCY
Pure Speed Control
The graph in figure 2 shows
Initially a method of pure the efficiencies of the
speed control was
motor, inverter and their
implemented, but this did combined' efficiency. At
not prove to be acceptable frequencies above 5 0 Hz, the
because of the high inertia inverter efficiency is 87%,
of the pump. If the peak which compares favourably
power point of the panels with a typical inverter
was exceeded. the panel efficiency of 85% as quoted
voltage would collapse by Lasnier4. The motor
before the speed of the pump efficiency was found to be
was affected. 7 7 % , which is slightly less
than that at rated power,

21 1
but it still compares REFERENCES
favourably with DC systems.
1: Weinberg C J and Williams
R H. Energy from the Sun.
Efficiencies (Motor, Inverter, System) Scientific American, Vol
2 6 3 , No 3 , September 1990,
pl0l.

2: Lasnier F, Ang T G and

Lwin K S. Solar Photovoltaic
Handbook. 1st Edition,
Thailand, 1988, p151.

3: Lasnier F, Ang T G and

Lwin K S . Solar Photovoltaic
Handbook. 1st Edition,
Figure 2: Motor, Inverter
Thailand, 1988, p71.
and System Efficiency
4: Lasnier F, Ang T G, Lwin
CONCLUSIONS K S and Hemasuk T.
Photovoltaic Tests and
An induction motor system
Instrumentation: Pumping
offers significant advan-
System. 1st edition, Asian
tages over a DC system,
Institute of Technology,
especially in terms of cost
Thailand, 1988, p23.
and reliability. The effic-
iency of t h e AC drive for a
350Wp system was found to be
6 7 % , which is similar to
that of DC systems. For the
seven panel system that was
developed, the cost saving
of the AC system more than
covers the cost of an extra
solar panel. t h i s represents
a 15% increase in the system
input power and hence for
the same investment the AC
system provides a far better
performance.

By monitoring the array

voltage and motor speed, a
robust controller has been
developed which ensures that
the panels are utilized to
their full potential despite
variations in temperature
and irradiance levels.

212