2017 International Conference on Promising Electronic Technologies

Sizing and Simulation of an Energy Sufficient

Stand-alone PV Pumping System
Wael SAID Hossam A. GABER Abdelkader MAMI
Faculty of sciences of Tunis, Faculty of Energy Systems and Faculty of sciences of Tunis,
Physics Dept. Nuclear Science Physics dept.
University of Tunis el Manar University of Ontario Institute of University of Tunis el Manar
Tunis, Tunisia Technology UOIT Tunis, Tunisia
Oshawa, ON, Canada

Abstract – In this paper, methods for sizing of PV pumping
systems and the simulation of (DTC) Direct Torque Control of
induction motor that is used for piloting a water pump supplied by
a photovoltaic generator are presented. The sizing of the PV
pumping system is based on the calculation of the water needs, the
required hydraulic energy and the estimation of available solar
power. The best sizing of the PV pumping system may further help
in reducing its cost and optimize its efficiency. The proposed
system includes a solar panel, a DC/DC converter with MPPT
control, a voltage inverter with pulse width modulation (PWM).
The Pump is driven by a Three Phase Induction Motor. In order
to control the water flow in the pump, Direct torque control of
induction machine is used. The simulations are carried out in
Matlab/Simulink.
Keywords—MPPT, DTC, PV pumping, photovoltaic, Three phase
induction motor, induction machine (IM), voltage inverter, pulse
width modulation (PWM).
The high initial investment for PV pumping system is due
to the high cost of PV panels and to the use of the DC motor or
brushless motor BLDC that are expensive and need continued
maintenance. The number of PV panels can be reduced by
optimizing the sizing of the system and the use of the induction
motor to drive the pump, which leads to significant reductions
in cost.
In this paper, the sizing of the proposed system is presented,
the pump used is centrifugal type driven by a three-phase
induction motor. The speed of the drive motor is regulated using
the direct torque control method (DTC).
II.
SIZING OF THE SYSTEM
The pumping system is designed for irrigation of a palm tree
plant in the region of Tozeur Tunisia. The system is composed
of a PV generator, a centrifugal pump driven by a three-phase
induction motor and a tank for water storage as shown in Fig. 1

I.
INTRODUCTION
We need energy in all areas of life: for transportation,
Industry, Trade, Household and agriculture. Our society and
infrastructures are driven and governed by fossil fuel which
presents many inconvenient and even dangers to our
environment especially with carbon dioxide emissions that is
leading towards global warming. Moreover, fossil fuel is finite
and will eventually run out. The rapid economic development
in emergent countries is leading to an accelerating climate
change and an increase in resources scarcity. Many rural areas
in emerging countries are facing major problems because of the
lack of water resources and these problems are particularly
accentuated in the desert and semi desert areas where besides
the lack of water, there is a lack of electricity. Since many
emerging countries are located in areas where solar radiation is
highest than most other countries, PV pumping systems may be
the ideal solution to the problems mentioned above. The main
reason holding the popularization of this technology is its initial
investment that is considerably high compared to conventional
diesel-generating systems. Therefore, an optimal sizing of the
PV pumping system is required in order to boost its efficiency
and reliability and reduce the initial cost. Fig. 1. Schematic of the standalone PV Pumping system

978-1-5386-2269-8/17 $31.00 © 2017 IEEE 8

DOI 10.1109/ICPET.2017.8
 In order to optimize the sizing of the system, the following 

 



 

parameters needs to be calculated: 

 
-
Available Solar irradiance at the geographical location 
-
Estimating water requirements 
-
Calculating the required hydraulic energy

-
Selecting the components

A.
Solar irradiance

The study is located in the Region of Tozeur, Tunisia

  
   
  


 
 














(Western south of Tunisia – Semi desert climate) in the northern
edge of the Sahara Desert at a latitude of 33° 55' 6.722" N,
longitude: 8° 7' 22.559" E. The average annual Global
Horizontal Irradiation (GHI) per square meter (kWh/m²) is  


indicated in Fig.2 [1].
The received annual solar irradiation reaches 2375.45
kWh/m²/year. During the summer, the number of sunshine
Fig. 3. Monthly solar irradiance of Tunisia [2]
hours is more than 10 hours per day and the most important
solar radiation of 235.474 kWh/m² is obtained in July where B.
Estimated water requirements
The estimated monthly water supply needed for the
irrigation of a surface 10000 m² of palm trees (135 palm trees)
in Tozeur Palm plants are presented in Table I [3].

Table I. Average water needs per Day [3]

Months Jan. Feb. Mar. Mai - Aug

Water m3/D 52 60 76 72
Months Sep. Oct. Nov. Dec.
Water m3/D 68 58 49 49

C.
Estimating required Hydraulic energy [3]

The required hydraulic energy can be calculated by the
equation:

Fig. 2. Global Horizontal Irradiation (GHI) Tunisia [1]
the least solar radiation is about 146.5 kWh/m² is obtained in
December as shown in Fig. 3 [2].
Eh = (g*ρ*Va*h)/3600 (1)
Where:
Eh: Required Hydraulic Energy/Day (Wh/Day)
Va: Required water volume/Day (m3/Day)
g: Gravity (9.81 m/s²)
h: Total head
ρ: Density of fluid (Kg/m3)
D.
Pump and pipes sizing
When pumping the water out of the well, the water level
decreases with time before regenerating back to the normal
level. Some factors need to be taken into consideration such as
the soil type and permeability. The pump is selected based on
the flow and pressure head [4]. The total head of the pumping
system is equal to the sum of the static head and headloss:

h = hs + hf (2)

The headloss is calculated by the Darcy-Weisbach formula [5]:

9
  ! ηp: Pump Efficiency
$; C 
















































DE
  By substituting equation, the power peak of the generator is
Where: given by:
hf: Headloss (m)
F: Darcy-Weisbach friction factor 02 5
- C
















DE
D: Pipe internal diameter (m) 6 B
0 B 0*723 16 D E ,+
L: Pipe length (m)
V: Flow velocity (m/s) III.
SYSTEM DESIGN
G: Gravitational acceleration Fig. 1 illustrates the structure of the proposed system which is
The Flow Capacity Q(m3/h) is given by:

 
<
 C














































DE
#$

Where:
Ph: Hydraulic power required
g: Gravity (9.81 m/s²)
h: Total head of the pump
The previous formula illustrates the importance of the pipes
sizing and flow velocity v in reducing the energy consumption
[5]. Fig. 4. System block diagram

is composed of PV panels, a DC/DC boost converter that is

E.
Sizing the PV module driven by an MPPT controller, a voltage source inverter and a
The daily electrical energy delivered by the PV generator centrifugal pump driven by an induction motor that is controlled
Ed can be calculated by: by a direct torque control technique.
A.
P&O MPPT control
The PV module IV curve is the find of unique set of
1 C -/ 16 









































DE temperature and irradiance conditions and changes to higher
level if the irradiance or illumination increase. A better
irradiance gives a better IV curve and higher temperature gives
Where: a worst IV curve and vis-versa. At any given moment in time,
ηpv: Daily average efficiency of the PV generator the solar module operates at a particular voltage and current and
for any given temperature or irradiance values, the operating
Gdm: The average daily global irradiation on horizontal plane point on the IV curve corresponds to a unique IV value. In order
(kWh/m2/day) to get the maximum power delivered by the PV module, it is
A: Active surface of the PV module (m²) imperative to force the module to operate at the operating point
corresponding to the maximum power. Since the IV curve
The efficiency ηPV is calculated: changes with changing temperature and irradiance as shown on
Fig. 12, MPPT technique needs to be implemented to help
tracking the maximum power point on the PV curve [7].
-/ C 6 B
D0 B 0*.23 E 4











DE

Where:
Fm: Coupling factor, a metric that describes the fraction of the
maximum PV power transferred to electrical loads [6].

: Temperature coefficient of a pv cell.

Tc: Average daily temperature of the cell during sunny hours
The needed electrical power is related to the hydraulic
energy by the following expression:

5
2 C



















































DE
-
Where: Fig. 5. IV - PV Curve [7]

Eh: Average monthly Hydraulic energy (kWh)

10
 One of the most popular techniques is the Perturb and The estimated torque and flux are given by the following
Observe (P&O) method. The algorithm is based on the nature equations based on the Concordia transformation results:
of the PV curve which have an increasing nature at the left of
the MPP and a decreasing nature at its right. The technique @
involves direct measurements of voltage and current where (?9 C !?9 B ? ?9 "&


































D E
perturbation is provided to the PV module, if an increase in )
voltage leads to an increase in power, the operating point is to @
the left of the MPP and hence for the voltage perturbation is (?> C !?> B ? ?> "&



































D E
)
required towards the right to reach the MPP and vis-versa. The
P&O algorithm is described in Fig. 6.
The torque is estimated based on the flux values:

%

':= C % (?9 ?> B
(?> ?9
































D E

!

#$
#$
After estimating the torque and flux , the obtained values
are compared with the reference values. Hysteresis comparators
are used to maintain real flux and torque very close to their
#$
(
#$

#$ reference values. The direct torque control strategy is

(
#$
"
#"'$
established through the selection of the appropriate stator vector
to be applied by the inverter. A voltage vector Vo is delivered
to the PWM voltage source inverter, the state of the inverters

 
)
&  arms is controlled by 3 Boolean command variables Si(i=a, b,
c) with:
Si=1 : the upper switch is ON and lower switch is OFF.
 #$
"
#"'$
)
& #$
"
#"'$
)
&  Si=0 : the upper switch is OFF and lower switch is ON.
The combination of the three variables (Sa,Sb,Sc) can



generate 8 positions of the vector Vo, with two combinations
 
 
 
 
that represents Zero vectors as shown in shown in Fig7.

 
 
 




#"'$
(
#$
#"'$
(
#$

Fig. 6. P&O Flow Chart

B.
Direct Torque Control (DTC)

TAKASHI, T. NOGUCHI and ASAKAWA [8][9]
proposed the Direct Torque Control (DTC) technique in the
1980’s. This technique is simple to implement, robust and is
characterized by its good performance. The DTC method is
based on the estimation of magnetic flux and electromechanical
torque without using any mechanical sensors. Concordia
transformation for voltages and currents is required to compare
the values with the model vector of the motor.
Fig. 7. Voltage vectors obtained from the VSI
The stator voltage is defined by:
Based on the hysteresis comparison between the estimated
torque and flux and their respective reference values a
"(? switching table is established as shown in table II [10].
!? C 8  ? A













































DE
& Table II. DTC switching table

And Flux Torque 1 2 3 4 5 6

Γ=1 V2 V3 V4 V5 V6 V1
(? C !? B ?  ? "&







































D E
Φ=1 Γ=0 V7 V0 V7 V0 V7 V0
Γ = -1 V6 V1 V2 V3 V4 V5
Where
Γ=1 V3 V4 V5 V6 V1 V2
Vs:Stator voltage , Is: Stator current
Rs:Stator resistance , φs: Stator flux Φ=0 Γ=0 V0 V7 V0 V7 V0 V7
Γ = -1 V5 V6 V1 V2 V3 V4

11
Fig.8 shows the DTC Simulink model. Fig. 9 and Fig. 10 Show that the hysteresis band is limited
to ± 0.02 Wb for flux and to ±0.01 for torque.

Fig. 8. Functional block diagram of Direct Torque Control

Module

IV.
Simulation under Matlab/Simulink Fig. 11. Electromagnetic Torque

The simulations are carried out in MATLAB/Simulink. The
induction motor has the following specifications: 2 poles, 10 It can be noticed how the actual torque is following its
HP, 400V, 50Hz, 1440 RPM, 7.5Kw, Rs = 0.0241, reference values. The torque is matching with the reference
Ls=Lr=0.05518, Lm= 0.1975H. values of 20 N/m, 50 N/m and 5 N/m.
In this simulation we started with flux reference of 1 Wb

and a torque reference of 20 N/m. at t=0.2s, we changed the
reference torque to 40 N/m, and at t = 0.3s we took the value of
5N/m as the torque reference to observe how the torque follows
its reference values. The value of irradiance is 1Kw/m² and the
temperature 25°C.
The following figures illustrates the simulation results:

Fig. 12. Stator current dq Axis

Even with a small variation of starting flux, it is causing a

significant starting stator current as shown in Fig. 12. Some
techniques can be applied to overcome this problem.

Fig. 9. Band hysteresis of flux

Fig. 10. Statoric Flux evolution Fig. 13. The motor speed

12
 The overall simulation results are satisfactory. Fig. 13
shows that the motor reaches the rated speed in a time of 0.05s.
The torque is very close to the reference value, and the
oscillations shown in Fig. 11 are due to the switching
frequency. The oscillation in the flux are also due to the
switching frequency and to the stator resistance.

V.
CONCLUSION
In this paper, a case study of stand-alone PV pumping
system designed for irrigation needs in a remote site in Tunisia.
The sizing method for the structure was presented. MPPT
technique was used to optimize the power delivered by the
photovoltaic module. Direct torque control technique served to
control the induction machine speed and therefore the flow of
the centrifugal pump. The paper presented the system block
diagram, the MPPT control algorithm, the DTC block diagram
and design. The main objective of this work is to maximize
savings in energy consumption by ensuring that pipelines and
networks are sized and designed accurately. The use of DTC
technique ensures better efficiency of the motor. The
experimental results are satisfactory and suggest that the
proposed solution can be a reliable option to overcome the lack
of electricity at remote locations and rural areas. More
reliability test and studies needs to be performed to guarantee
its robustness, efficiency and cost effectiveness.

REFERENCES
[1] “Solar resource maps for Tunisia”, Solargis S.R.O Slovakia,
Maps.
[2] Chaabane. M, Ben Djemaa. A. and Kossentini, “A daily and
hourly global irradiations in Tunisia extracted from Meteosat
Wedax images”, Solar Energy, vol. 57, issue 6, pp. 449-457.
[3] Information obtained from the direction of the bureau of
organic farming, CRDA Tozeur.
[4] T. Augustyn. “Energy efficiency and savings in pumping
systems, The holistic approach”, Energy Efficiency Convention
(SAEEC), 2012 Southern African.
[5] Jim McGovern, “Technical Note: Friction Factor Diagrams
for Pipe Flow”, Dublin Institute of Technology, 2011.
[6] Nelson A. Kelly, “The coupling factor: A new metric for
determining and controlling the efficiency of solar photovoltaic
power utilization”, International journal of Hydrogen energy 38
, 2013, P. 2079-2094
[7] Alex LATHAM, “Current sensing for renewable energy”,
http://www.electronicproducts.com/Sensors_and_Transducers/
Sensors/Current_sensing_for_renewable_energy-v2.aspx.
[8] I. TAKAHSHI and T. NOGUCHI, “A new quick response
and high efficiency control strategy of induction motor”, IEEE
Trans. Ind. Electron, IE-22, Sept 1986.
[9] I. TAKAHSHI and S. ASAKAWA, “Ultra wide speed
control of induction motor covered 10A6 range”, IEEE Trans.
Ind. Applic., IA-25:227-232, 1987.
[10] Moulay Tahar Lamchich and Nora Lachguer, “Matlab
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