Photovoltaic DC-DC Converter for Telecommunications Energy Systems

E. F. F. Ribeiro 1, A. J. Marques Cardoso 1, C. Boccaletti 2 and A. M. S. Mendes1

University of Coimbra, FCTUC/IT Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Plo II Pinhal de Marrocos, P 3030-290, Coimbra, Portugal Phone/Fax number: +351 239 796 232/247, e-mail: eribeiro@co.it.pt, ajmcardoso@ieee.org, amsmendes@ieee.org 2 Sapienza University of Rome Department of Electrical Engineering Via Eudossiana, 18, 00184 Rome, Italy tel: (+39) -06-44585762, fax: (+39)-06-4883235, e-mail: chiara.boccaletti@ uniroma1.it Abstract--Standalone power systems are becoming a suitable way of supplying telecommunications equipment, since they are being located in remote areas, which seems to be its nowadays and future trend location. Power electronics interfaces play an important role in these systems, because they are responsible for meeting load supply requirements. Photovoltaic (PV) generators are nonlinear sources, and behave mainly as DC current sources. As most telecommunications equipments operate from a DC supply voltage, the ideal power electronics interface to be used is a dc-dc converter. A literature survey showed that typical voltage source DC-DC converters are applied to photovoltaic generators, without many modifications. On the contrary, this paper presents a different DC-DC converter based on its current-source behaviour of a photovoltaic generator. Index TermsDC-DC converter, photovoltaic generator, renewable energies, standalone power system, telecommunications.
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should be the same. Power electronics has an important function in both systems and the subject of this paper is related to the first one.

I. INTRODUCTION In a social and political context characterized by electrical energy dependency and sustainability concerns, renewable energies are getting popular due to their attractive features in electrical energy production, such as pollution-free and naturally replenishment. They seem to fill most needs as sustainable electrical energy sources; on the other hand, they are intermittent and their application is expensive. Due to political incentives and recent advances in renewable energy technologies, their market and reliability seem to be growing, respectively. A lot of investment and research is being done to achieve as much as possible of renewable energy potential, especially in wind and solar applications. Their cost is expected to fall as demand and production increase, becoming more and more competitive with fuel-based generators. There are two different ways of exploiting renewable energies, i.e. in standalone and grid connected systems. Standalone power systems consist of different kinds of renewable energy sources and energy storage equipment combined to get a self-sufficient locally limited generator [1], as exemplified in Fig. 1. Grid coupled systems do not need energy storage [2]. All the energy produced by a wind or a photovoltaic farm is injected in the grid and must be synchronized with it, i.e., voltage and frequency

Fig. 1. Standalone Power System [4].

The technology development appears as cause and result of new challenges for power systems. Telecommunication networks are a good example of this. Some years ago, telecommunications equipments were located at a Central Office and grid supplying was enough [3]. Due to recent developments in this area, at the present time, new challenges rise, because telecommunication equipments are being placed closer to the customers organized in dispersed networks. The telecom equipment location principle is to get a network as small as possible. With the aim of minimising the telecommunication equipments, often their locations are remote areas far away from the electrical grid [3]. In these circumstances, a standalone power system instead of a grid connection can represent an economic and practical option [1, 3]. This kind of power system is suitable for inaccessible areas due to its autonomous operation, low need for

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maintenance and non-polluting characteristics. The main drawbacks are associated with renewable energy sources limitations (such as intermittence and unpredictable nature) and the subsequent need for oversizing leading to a high initial cost. Several configurations of standalone power systems can be applied and should be studied having in mind the location (climatic conditions and alternative energy sources) and the power associated to the telecom equipment [1, 3, 4]. A possible option is represented in Fig. 1, combining a wind turbine, a photovoltaic (PV) generator, a fuel cell, and a battery to supply telecom equipment. Suitable power electronics converters are also represented in Fig. 1. They are indispensable to meet power supply telecommunication equipment requirements, such as establishing dc nominal voltage, keeping voltage at its operating level and assuring a reduced ripple and noise in voltage and current waveforms [5]. This paper proposes a DC-DC converter that allows electronic interface between a PV generator and the telecommunication equipment to be supplied, keeping its supplying requirements and the PV generator intermittence into account. The latter is modelled using a mathematical model already presented in literature. Firstly, this paper will summarize the basic principles related to photovoltaic generators and the most important achievements in DC-DC conversion for this type of generators. Then, the whole simulation system will be explained (including the PV generator model, the DC-DC converter developed and the telecommunication equipment) and the acquired results will be presented. Finally, some conclusions and relevant future work are discussed. II. ELECTRIC FEATURES OF A PHOTOVOLTAIC GENERATOR To develop a power electronics interface for a PV generator, it is crucial to know its electric characteristics. It is important to know and study its electrical behaviour to get the best of it when converting its electrical energy to the load requirements. The chosen reference load is a telecommunication equipment, which requires direct current, that is what is produced by a PV generator. Thus, a DC-DC converter has to be sized to guarantee the load supply requirements. Some different DC-DC converters have been studied and proposed in the literature. They will be presented in the next section and, later, the one proposed as the most suitable for this case will be described. A full understanding of photovoltaic generators characteristics is also important to get a simulation as accurately as possible. The model here used is described in [6] and it is based on the voltage-current relationship of the PV cells, which is graphically represented in Fig. 2. This relationship is not linear. By the blue area of the voltage-current characteristic curve, the PV generator behaves like a current source [7]. Working in this area should result in more flexibility than in the red area,

where PV generator behaves like a voltage source. In between the areas, there is the maximum power point on the curves knee (indicated by MPP in Fig. 2). The PV generator behaves mainly as a nonlinear current source connected in series with the total intrinsic cell resistance as represented in the equivalent circuit of Fig. 3. This circuit includes a diode in parallel with the current source related to the semiconductor behavior (p-n junction) during darkness (when the photovoltaic cell does not produce current) [6].

Fig. 2. Photovoltaic cell current-voltage characteristic curve [4].

Fig. 3. Electric equivalent circuit for a photovoltaic cell [4].

The electric energy provided by a photovoltaic generator depends on its cells parameters and the climatic conditions. The latter has a significant impact. The voltage-current relationship of the Sanyo HIP-200BA3 (200 W) photovoltaic module [8] from the manufacturers datasheet is plotted in Fig. 4 under a radiation of 1000 W/m2 and at a cell temperature of 20C. At the same conditions of solar radiation and cell temperature, the voltage-current relationship obtained from the simulation is plotted in Fig. 5. The simulation results are in good agreement with the manufacturers data.

Fig. 4. Voltage-current curve of HIP-200BA3 (200 W) photovoltaic module [8].

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4.5 4 3.5 3 Current (A) 2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0

10

20

30

40 Voltage (V)

50

60

70

80

Fig. 5. Voltage-current curve of HIP-200BA3 (200 W) photovoltaic module obtained by simulation.

III. DC-DC CONVERTER TOPOLOGIES FOR PHOTOVOLTAIC SYSTEMS From the graph of the PV module voltage-current relationship described in the above section a few basic requirements for the power electronics interface in PV generators can be drawn. To accomplish the objectives of this study, it should work as close as possible to the maximum power point and provide the voltage required by the load (telecommunication equipment). DC-DC converters are an important component as power electronics interfaces for photovoltaic generators, even for grid-coupled systems. To get a higher voltage from a photovoltaic generator, several photovoltaic cells are connected in series. However, this leads also to a lower efficiency, because the weakest cell determines the current provided by all the cells, i. e., if one cell is generating a lower current due to a shadowing effect, all the other cells will generate the same low current [9]. To overcome this drawback, in some power electronics interfaces for grid coupled systems a low voltage provided by the photovoltaic generator is converted to the required one by a DC-DC converter. These interfaces have been an important point for research, especially concerning inverter topologies [10, 11]. Nowadays, standalone power systems should deserve much more attention due to the applications in rural areas and new trends in telecommunications networks. The latter require the specialization of the DC-DC converters. According to the power level, some DC-DC converter topologies can be more suitable than others [10]. Also the galvanic isolation is an important matter, which is typically obtained with isolated DC-DC converters (their topologies include a high frequency transformer). In many cases the isolation has to be ensured according to safety standards, but for instance in the USA it is mandatory [10, 12]. At low power levels, simple, non-isolated topologies are commonly used, such as buck, boost and buck-boost [13]. Their topologies include an electronic switch, an inductor to store energy, and a flywheel diode [14]. The electronic switch commutation is controlled in order to

maintain the required load voltage. The flywheel diode carries the current during that part of switching cycle when the electronic switch is off. Higher levels of power (above 1 kW) require isolated topologies, e. g. flyback, forward, push-pull, half-bridge and fullbridge [10, 12, 14]. These are more complex topologies, but, once again, the load voltage depends on the switching control of the electronic switches [13]. They can assume two different types of control, i. e. dutycycle and phase shift control (characterized by zero voltage switching pulse width modulation and known as ZVS-PWM control) [15]. The first one is much simpler, but is characterized by high losses, which limits the switching frequency and subsequently leads to bigger circuit components [13]. The latter implies an accurate sizing, also of the parasite circuit components, in order to get zero voltage switching [15]. Due to its low losses, switching operating frequencies can assume higher values and smaller circuit components will be used. A loss of zero voltage switching can happen under low load conditions and this can reduce the circuit reliability [16]. Series-parallel resonant converters are another topology currently used to achieve higher frequencies than the ones with phase shift control, despite their difficult sizing [17]. Direct duty-cycle control topologies are the most common in photovoltaic systems [13]. Some efforts have been made to apply resonant topologies and ZVS-PWM control to these systems [18-20]. DC-DC converters applied to photovoltaic systems do not differ much from the typical ones. A new control method has been employed to track the maximum power point locus of the photovoltaic array. This controller is known as MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracking) and there are several algorithms to achieve it: perturb and observe, incremental conductance, parasitic capacitance and constant voltage [21, 22]. As seen before, PV generators behave mainly as current sources. Typical dc-dc converters are not designed with the purpose of using this characteristic. New topologies could be realized and subsequently a better use of the photovoltaic generators could be achieved if this were taken into account. In this paper, the current source characteristic of a PV generator is taken into account to design a DC-DC converter suitable for the system illustrated in Fig. 1 (considering only the PV generator). This power electronics interface should maintain the required voltage at the terminals, meeting all the defined requirements. It is also important to work as closer as possible to the maximum power point. However, a MPPT is not suitable in this case, since voltage should be kept constant at the DC bus. IV. SYSTEM SIMULATION The aim of the simulation has been to analyse the behaviour of the proposed power electronics interface for a PV generator integrated in a telecommunications

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standalone power system. The most important features of the PV generator model and the results of the simulation have been already discussed in Section II. The calculated V-I curve and the manufacturers one are in good agreement, proving the accuracy of the model. The system consists of 26 Sanyo HIP-200BA3 (200 W) PV modules connected in parallel, in order to support a maximum load of 4 kW in a wide range of radiation and temperature values. The model has been implemented in the Matlab-Simulink environment, as shown in Fig. 6. The modeled telecommunication equipment is a Radio Base Station (RBS). The model includes resistances and switches aiming to simulate load variations, as shown in Fig. 7. A typical RBS load has a nominal power of 3 kW and an overload of 4 kW is imposed to study the transient behaviour of the system in case of load variations. Its nominal operating voltage range is 48 V and the operating voltage ranges from 42.75 V to 56.7 V [5].
1 Solar Radiation 1 +

T1 D

T4

Photovoltaic Generator

IGBT T

L o a d

T3

T2

Fig. 8. Studied power system composed by a photovoltaic generator, a telecommunications equipment (load) and the proposed power electronics interface.

Ga

To maintain the required load voltage, the control of this converter includes a low-pass filter filtering the voltage measured at the load, which is compared with the reference voltage. The obtained error is adjusted by a PI regulator and then it is compared with a sawtooth wave to send the required impulses to the IGBT in parallel with the PV generator (IGBT T in Fig. 8). The inverter converts the voltage achieved at the capacitor in a square wave, which is applied to the high frequency transformer. Then it is rectified and filtered. Only capacitors are necessary to filter the load voltage. This can be an economical and sizing advantage, since operating voltages are limited (from 48 V to 60 V) and the currents have very high values, which makes the use of inductances difficult. V. SIMULATION RESULTS When climatic conditions are good, a well sized PV generator is enough to supply the load. The required voltage value can be achieved using a DC-DC converter and maintained with a robust control, even with climatic or load variations. These are the challenging issues that a power electronics interface for a PV generator has to deal with and they were faced by the proposed system. The simulation results are relevant to two possible modes of operation: sufficient and insufficient power generation conditions. The irradiation and temperature values were taken from [22] and are represented in Figs. 9 and 10, respectively. They are average values (for each 5 minutes) measured from 12.00 to 13.00 p.m. of July 1st, 1998, in Austin (USA) [23]. They were concentrated in 1 second to perform the simulation, due to the limitations of the software, therefore the current variations are much more severe than the actual ones.
1000

s
2 Voltage
Vm Im

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Ta

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Fig. 6. Photovoltaic module block of the photovoltaic generator Simulink model.

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Fig. 7. Simulink model of a typical radio base station load.

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The whole system with the proposed power electronics interface is represented in Fig. 8. The power electronics interface is a DC-DC converter based on the PV generator current source characteristics.

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0.5 0.6 Time (s)

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Fig. 9. Irradiation values [23].

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36.5

36

35.5 Temperature (C)

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34.5

34

33.5

0.1

0.2

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Fig. 10. Temperature values [23].

Between 0.3 and 0.6 seconds, a load variation of 33% is applied. A switching frequency of 5000 Hz was adopted and 1mF capacitors were used to get a ripple as small as possible. A. Sufficient power generation conditions Sufficient power generation conditions are achieved with 26 modules connected in parallel and the current produced by this photovoltaic generator is plotted in Fig. 11. The results obtained for the load voltage are quite satisfactory as shown in Fig. 12. The initial transient takes 50 ms and involves an overvoltage of 49.4 V. When load power increases, the voltage reduces to 46.8 V during the 20 ms transient. An overvoltage of 49.1 V is caused by the load power becoming again the nominal value. This transient behaviour also takes 20 ms. All the voltage values are kept inside the defined operating voltage range for telecommunications equipments.
100 95 Photovoltaic Generator Current (A)

B. Insufficient power generation conditions To simulate this case study, four modules were taken out from the PV generator. The resulting PV generator current is plotted in Fig. 13. The produced power is not enough to satisfy the overload. Input and output power are plotted in Figs 14 and 15, respectively. The load voltage is plotted in Fig. 16 and at 0.3 seconds (when an overvoltage is introduced) the DC-DC converter can not maintain the required value. However, in small time periods when there is a sufficient power generation the control quickly achieves the required voltage value. Between 0.5 and 0.56 seconds, the control reacts again and establishes the required DC voltage (48 V), due to extra power suddenly supplied by the PV generator. The behaviour is similar to what described for case A.
85

Photovoltaic Generator Current (A)

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75

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0.1

0.2

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0.5 0.6 Time (s)

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Fig. 13. PV generator current in conditions of insufficient power generation.

4500 4000 3500

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75 500 70 0 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 Time (s) 0.7 0.8 0.9 1

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Fig. 11. PV generator current in conditions of sufficient power generation

50 49.5 49 Load Voltage (V) 48.5 48 47.5 47

Fig. 14. Input power in conditions of insufficient power generation.

4500 4000 3500 3000 2500 2000 1500 1000

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Fig. 12. Load voltage in conditions of sufficient power generation.

0.5 0.6 Time (s)

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Fig. 15. Output power in conditions of insufficient power generation.

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50

[5] [6]

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48 Load Voltage (V)

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[7] [8] [9]

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45

44

43 0

[10]
0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 Time (s) 0.7 0.8 0.9 1

Fig. 16. Load voltage in conditions of insufficient power generation. [11]

VI. CONCLUSIONS Standalone power systems based on renewable energies are nowadays the most suitable power configuration for remote units of a telecommunication network, as a result of technology development, environmental concerns, political incentives and low maintenaince needs. They also represent a reliable solution. Due to their recent expansion, these power supply systems are the object of many studies aiming to improve their reliability, economical feasibility and environmental aspects. This paper is focused on the PV section of a standalone power system, for which an electronics interface was developed. The capability of the proposed DC-DC converter topology to take advantage of the current source behaviour of PV generators was demonstrated. The simulation was performed with Simulink models in conditions as close as possible to the actual ones, for both sufficient and insufficient sizing (in relation to the load) of the PV system. The results for the proposed DC-DC converter are quite satisfactory. It has a robust and simple control and enough flexibility to be suitable for other applications. Directions for future work, include more DC-DC converter topologies based on the described PV generator behaviour. This DC-DC converter will be also implemented in a standalone power system prototype and experimentally tested. REFERENCES
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