Study and simulation of stand-alone PV array- battery charging system with MPPT

Abstract

Energy security and independence is one of the most growing concerns around the globe, combined with the environmental impact of traditional energy sources, renewable energy systems have become of great importance. Photovoltaic (PV) systems are the most popular form of renewable energy, as price has become reasonable, and deployment is scalable. However, in many schemes, Photovoltaic systems require rechargeable batteries for energy storage. For Photovoltaic systems, an excessive energy produced by solar cells during intense sunlight peak conditions could damage the batteries. A battery charging controller is therefore used to maintain the suitable charging voltage to the battery so that, as the input voltage from the PV module rises, the charging controller regulates the process, thus, preventing any overcharging. For fast charging, a Maximum Power Point Tracker (MPPT) is used to extract as much power as possible from Photovoltaic modules. In recent years different Maximum Power Point algorithms are developed for Photovoltaic systems to track the changing irradiance and maintain operation point at maximum power. The aim of this thesis is to design and simulate a Photovoltaic system with Maximum Power Point Tracker combined with battery charging controller to charge the battery properly with Constant Current-Constant Voltage (CC-CV) technique and to avoid charging problems. Also a comparison between Perturb and Observe (P&O) and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithms is done under uniform and non-uniform solar irradiation to find the MPPT algorithm that converges rapidly and obtain the best efficiency.