Experimental study on photovoltaic cell emulating system in series connection mode

Abstract

At the present, the grid-tied solar power system is the most promising as a renewable energy technology for replacing the fossil energy sources. The usage efficiency of the power conditioner system (PCS) in the grid-tied solar power system is not high because the electricity generation from solar panels depends on the weather. The utilization rate of the PCS can be improved by adding the small scale wind turbine to the existing grid-tied solar power system because the small scale wind turbine can operate the PCS at night and it also can utilize the remaining capacity of the PCS during the daytime. However, the small wind turbine is not controlled in an optimal way by the PCS in the solar power system because of the difference of the output characteristics between the small wind turbine and the solar panel. Thus, a technical design is investigated in this study by which the small scale wind turbine can be connected to the grid-tied PCS of the solar power system by emulating characteristic of the solar panel. The research results confirm that the photovoltaic (PV) cell emulating system using the small scale wind turbine can connect with the solar array in series and it can operate the PCS of the grid-tied solar power system under real solar irradiation conditions.