7. Modeling, Simulation and Control of a Standalone Photovoltaic System

Due to the increasing demand of power supply, depletion of fossil fuel sources and expanding environmental pollution concerns, renewable energy sources such as solar energy seems to be a good solution especially for remote areas, where connection to the utility grid is impossible or would require very high costs. This paper presents modeling, control and simulation of a standalone solar system, which consists of a photovoltaic generator connected to a storage battery through a DC-DC boost converter plus a DC-AC inverter to feed AC charges. Firstly, a mathematical modeling of the equivalent electric circuit for each of the system’s components is performed, and then a maximum power point tracker is developed to control the DC-DC boost converter and extract the optimal power from the photovoltaic generator to charge the batteries. Next, a three phase DC/AC inverter is modeled and controlled using pulse width modulation technique. Finally, and in order to show the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed system, simulation tests under MATLAB Simulink software are performed and discussed.