Published in:
01-11-2022 | AUTOMATION AND HEAT CONTROL
IN POWER ENGINEERING
A Device for Optimal Control of an Autonomous Photovoltaic Power Supply Source: Development and Test Results
Authors:
Ya. A. Men’shikov, A. B. Tarasenko, M. Zh. Suleimanov
Published in:
Thermal Engineering
|
Issue 11/2022
Login to get access
Abstract—
The article describes a new method and device for automatically controlling the charge of a storage battery (SB) for an autonomous power supply source with the function of the photovoltaic array (PVA) maximum power point tracking control (an MPPT controller). The controller is intended for charging Li-ion batteries and can be used to operate with both lithium iron phosphate (LiPePO4, 3.2 V) and lithium-ion (NiCoMnO, 3.7 V) batteries. The controller is constructed on the basis of a high-frequency synchronous buck converter. The controller’s distinctive features are that it equalizes the voltages across the storage battery sections and controls its heater prior to perform the battery charging. Owing to the SB preheating, it becomes possible to discard the use of lead storage batteries, which are heavy-weight devices with a rather short service life, and make a shift to the use of reliable, compact, and durable Li-ion batteries, also under low temperature conditions, in which the use of such batteries is difficult or even impossible in view of a drop of their energy-storage capacity. An important feature of the developed controller is that its auxiliaries take power supply from a photovoltaic array and not only from the storage battery, as is the case in the absolute majority of the commercially available controllers, due to which it has a broader field of practical applications. The controller is equipped with the necessary set of protections, including those from photovoltaic array connection in inverse polarity, from SB overcharging and deep discharge, overcooling or overheating, and load overcurrent. The operating range of voltage across the photovoltaic array varies from 15 to 45 V. The storage battery maximal charging, as well as load current, is 20 A. The entire set of controller functions has been implemented on a single-sided printed-circuit board. A set of experimental studies of the device operation modes was carried out, which has confirmed the efficiency of built-in control algorithms. The proposed controller can be used in various fields of activity, in particular, for supplying power to remote telecommunication equipment, offence recording cameras, in agriculture (primarily in livestock farming), in tourism industry, etc.