A low-cost photovoltaic emulator for static and dynamic evaluation of photovoltaic power converters and facilities

González-Medina, Raúl; Patrao, Iván; Garcerá, G.; Figueres, E.

doi:10.1002/pip.2243

Cited by 31 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Finally, in the photovoltaic domain, there are a plethora of emulators for high power (up to 3000 W) solar panels such as [20,21] which are basically designed for industrial applications.…”

Section: Emulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

A fast and accurate energy source emulator for wireless sensor networks

et al. 2016

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The capability to either minimize energy consumption in battery-operated devices, or to adequately exploit energy harvesting from various ambient sources, is central to the development and engineering of energy-neutral wireless sensor networks. However, the design of effective networked embedded systems targeting unlimited lifetime poses several challenges at different architectural levels. In particular, the heterogeneity, the variability, and the unpredictability of many energy sources, combined to changes in energy required by powered devices, make it difficult to obtain reproducible testing conditions, thus prompting the need of novel solutions addressing these issues. This paper introduces a novel embedded hardware-software solution aimed at emulating a wide spectrum of energy sources usually exploited to power sensor networks motes. The proposed system consists of a modular architecture featuring small factor form, low power requirements, and limited cost. An extensive experimental characterization confirms the validity of the embedded emulator in terms of flexibility, accuracy, and latency while a case study about the emulation of a lithium battery shows that the hardware-software platform does not introduce any measurable reduction of the accuracy of the model. The presented solution represents therefore a convenient solution for testing large-scale testbeds under realistic energy supply scenarios for wireless sensor networks.

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“…Finally, in the photovoltaic domain, there are a plethora of emulators for high power (up to 3000 W) solar panels such as [20,21] which are basically designed for industrial applications.…”

Section: Emulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

A fast and accurate energy source emulator for wireless sensor networks

et al. 2016

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“…With respect to solar energy harvesting, it is also worthwhile to mention a line of works targeting power electronics applications (up to 3000 W) [12,13]. It is however worth noticing that these studies refer to systems not compatible with the embedded platforms targeted by our work (characterized by significantly lower power levels).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tuning the Complexity of Photovoltaic Array Models to Meet Real-time Constraints of Embedded Energy Emulators

et al. 2017

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Abstract:Reproducibility of experimental conditions is a fundamental requirement for designing energy efficient, self-sustainable wireless sensor networks (WSNs). At the same time, it represents a significant challenge because of the variability and the unpredictability of many energy harvesting sources, and because of the dynamic operating conditions of the devices to which energy is supplied. Energy source emulation is considered a suitable solution to enable the exploration of the design space of networked embedded systems. However, in order to guarantee the compatibility with real-time performance of resource-constrained embedded platforms, particular attention has to be paid to the complexity of the models. In this paper, we propose an approach aimed at tuning the complexity of models of photovoltaic (PV) arrays implemented on a target embedded emulator, featuring low cost and small form factor. Experimental results performed on different models of PV array, show that the proposed solution is flexible and accurate enough to meet the real-time constraints of typical sensor networks applications without impairing the precision in the emulation of the energy sources.

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“…Moreover, the repetitive testing conditions are difficult to achieve. Due to these drawbacks, the MPPT device tested using the PV emulator would be more cost effective and time-saving.The common PV emulator consists of a conventional buck converter with the proportional-integral (PI) controller and a reference input from the PV model [1][2][3]. Although the conventional buck converter is simple and requires a low number of components, the dynamic response is slow due to a large capacitance in order to maintain a small voltage ripple.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

An Adaptive Controller for Photovoltaic Emulator using Artificial Neural Network

Ayop

Tan

2017

IJEECS

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The photovoltaic (PV) Keywords: PV, PI Controller, Interleaved Buck Converter, Multiple Stage FilterCopyright © 2017 Institute of Advanced Engineering and Science. All rights reserved. IntroductionThe uses of renewable energy become more popular especially the solar energy due to the increases in the performance of the photovoltaic (PV) module and the power converter. The power produces by the PV module is affected by the weather condition and requires the maximum power point tracking (MPPT) devices and power conditioning system to retrieve the maximum power from the PV module. However, the development of MPPT requires a full control of the factor that affecting the PV module which is the irradiance and module temperature. However, this experimental setup is complex, which requires a large space for the PV module. Moreover, the repetitive testing conditions are difficult to achieve. Due to these drawbacks, the MPPT device tested using the PV emulator would be more cost effective and time-saving.The common PV emulator consists of a conventional buck converter with the proportional-integral (PI) controller and a reference input from the PV model [1][2][3]. Although the conventional buck converter is simple and requires a low number of components, the dynamic response is slow due to a large capacitance in order to maintain a small voltage ripple. The multiple-stage interleaved buck converter improves the reliability, efficiency, and transient response of the PV emulator [4]. The interleaved converter produces a lower inductor current ripple. As a result, a smaller capacitance is required to maintain similar ripple factor thus producing a faster transient response. The two-stage LC filter (TSLCF) is also introduced in the PV emulator application to improve the bandwidth of the PV emulator system [5].The dynamic response of the PV emulator varies depending on output resistance [3], [6][7]. A low load resistance causes the overshoot at the output voltage and output current of the PV emulator. On the other hand, a large load resistance causes the PV emulator to response slower. This problem is overcome by implementing the fuzzy PI controller that adapts to the output resistance [8]. However, the nonlinear characteristic of the PV module also affects the dynamic response of the PV emulator [6]. The overdamped PV emulator output is required to prevent instability of the PV emulator output. Therefore, the dynamic response of the PV emulator becomes slow. To overcome this problem, the control system for the PV emulator not only considers the output resistance, but also the irradiance and temperature. However, by consideration these factors into the controller of the PV emulator, the controller for the PV

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A low-cost photovoltaic emulator for static and dynamic evaluation of photovoltaic power converters and facilities

Cited by 31 publications

References 20 publications

A fast and accurate energy source emulator for wireless sensor networks

A fast and accurate energy source emulator for wireless sensor networks

Tuning the Complexity of Photovoltaic Array Models to Meet Real-time Constraints of Embedded Energy Emulators

An Adaptive Controller for Photovoltaic Emulator using Artificial Neural Network

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