Low cost and high eciency of single phase photovoltaic system

based on microcontroller
Lot Khemissi
a,
, Brahim Khiari
a
, Ridha Andoulsi
a
, Adnane Cherif
b
a
Research Center of Energy (CRTEn), Borj Cedria Science and Technology Park, Hammam Lif 2050, Tunisia
b
Faculty of Sciences of Tunis, Tunis El Manar University, 2092 Tunis, Tunisia
Received 18 June 2010; received in revised form 3 December 2011; accepted 21 December 2011
Available online 2 February 2012
Communicated by: Associate Editor Arturo Morales Acevedo
Abstract
This paper presents a theoretical and practical study of a single phase photovoltaic conversion system. It consists of a step down con-
verter to charge a battery with the maximum power available from photovoltaic generator (PVG) and a single phase voltage source inver-
ter (VSI) to produce a stable AC voltage (220 V/50 Hz) with lower total harmonic distortion (THD). A new perturb and observe
algorithm is designed and implemented in a cheaper microcontroller PIC 16F876 where the duty cycle perturbation and the sampling
period are selected to insure the stability of the PV system around the maximum power. The control strategy adopted for the inverter
is the Selective Harmonic Eliminated Pulse Width Modulation (SHE PWM). The pulses are calculated and transferred on the PIC
16F876 memory. With this technique, inverter losses are decreased and the output voltage is easily ltered with a simple low pass lter
producing a perfectly sine wave form voltage. The battery is sized to supply loads in non-sunny times.
With optimization of its various components, the conventional single phase PV system has a low cost, high eciency but also good
power quality which represents a good opportunity to use it in many stand alone photovoltaic applications such as houses lighting. An
experimental system has been made to demonstrate the eciency of the photovoltaic system and to validate simulations done by Matlab
Simulink environment.
2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Photovoltaic generator; Buck converter; Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT); Single phase inverter; Selective Harmonic Pulse Width
Modulation; Filter
1. Introduction
Due to rising costs of conventional energy and their lim-
ited resources, photovoltaic energy becomes a promising
energy with advantages such as the absence of any pollu-
tion and the availability with more or less large quantities
anywhere in the world. Currently, there is a big interest
in solar energy applications especially in regions with
favorable climatic conditions. Among these applications
we mention water pumping and lighting especially in iso-
lated sites.
The aim of this paper is to develop a photovoltaic appli-
cation that provides a stable AC voltage (220 V/50 Hz)
from non-linear photovoltaic generator (PVG) with high
eciency and low cost.
Firstly, the photovoltaic generator recharges a battery
through a buck converter controlled by a microcontroller
16F876 to track the maximum power from the PVG with
a new perturb and observe algorithm, then a single-phase
voltage source inverter (VSI) converts the battery voltage
(24 V) to a stable AC voltage (220 V/50 Hz) after associa-
tion with a simple low pass lter and a step-up transformer.
The inverter pulses are calculated to eliminate 5th9th order
0038-092X/$ - see front matter 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.solener.2011.12.019

Corresponding author. Address: Research Center of Energy, Borj

Cedria Science and Technology Park, BP 95, Hammam Lif 2050, Tunisia.
Tel.: +216 79 325 811/215, +966 540312400; fax: +216 79 325 934/825.
E-mail address: lot8000@yahoo.fr (L. Khemissi).
www.elsevier.com/locate/solener
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
Solar Energy 86 (2012) 11291141
harmonics and then saved in the PIC 16F876 memory. The
AC photovoltaic system as designed can be a best solution
for domestic applications since their components are well
sized to decrease losses and thus decreasing the overall price
of the system.
In (Akkaya and Kulaksiz, 2004), authors have developed
a high eciency AC photovoltaic systembut they have used
a solar tracker based on a stepper motor to increase the e-
ciency of the system, however this solution increases the
overall price comparing with the uses of maximum power
point tracking (MPPT) algorithms to match the maximum
power of the PVG independently of the climatic conditions.
In literature, several algorithms are developed to extract
the maximum power point (MPP) from the PVG such as
the incremental conductance (INC), Perturb and Observe
(PO) and Fuzzy Logic (FL) programs dier in the stability
of the operating point around the optimal point. (Lalouni
et al., 2009) proposes a method based on a fuzzy controller
to extract the MPP and signicantly decreases the oscilla-
tion around the operating point however this method
requires an advanced control platform. The INC and the
PO are the two most used algorithms in practice, the rst
is more adapted to abrupt climatic changes, but it requires
a longer calculation time.
In the PO algorithm The PVG current and voltage are
sensed, then PVGpower is computed, depending on the sign
of the dierence between PVG output power at k sampling
and k + 1 sampling, the duty cycle is changed, then a PI con-
troller regulates the output voltage or current to reach its
reference. This method can be improved by using a micro-
controller with PWM outputs, in this case the controller is
omitted and the control output variable is the duty cycle.
Nomenclature
PVG photovoltaic generator
VSI voltage source inverter
THD total harmonic distortion
SHE PWM selective harmonic eliminated pulse width
modulation
MPPT maximum power point tracking
PO perturb and observe algorithm
I
ph
photocurrent of the photovoltaic generator (A)
I
s
cell reverse saturation current (A)
K Boltzmans constant (1.38 10
23
J K
1
)
K
T
temperature coecient of the cell (55 e4 K
1
)
T temperature of the cell in Kelvin (K),
G irradiation (W/m
2
)
A constant with respect to the temperature
(0.06 A K
3
)
q charge of the electron (1.6 10
19
C)
E
g
band gap (V)
B ideality factor of the junction
n
s
number of cells in series
n
p
number of cells in parallel
R
s
cell series resistance (X)
R
sh
cell shunt resistance (X)
V
array
voltage of the array (V)
I
array
array current (A)
V
oc
open circuit voltage of the PVG (V)
I
sc
short circuit current of the PVG (A)
V
mp
voltage at maximum power of the PVG (V)
I
mp
PVG current at maximum power (A)
D(k) duty cycle of the DC/DC converter at k sam-
pling
D0 duty cycle initialization
I(k) PVG output current at k sampling
V(k) PVG voltage at k sampling
P(k) PVG power at k sampling
Dd duty cycle perturbation
CCM continuous conduction mode
L inductance of the DC/DC converter (H)
C Capacitor of the DC/DC converter (F)
Di
Lmax
maximum peak to peak ripple of the inductor
current (A)
DV
smax
maximum value of the peak-to-peak ripple out-
put voltage of the DCDC converter (V)
f
s
switching frequency (Hz)
C
pv
input capacitor (F)
D
m
duty cycle at maximum converter output power
I
om
DC component of the DC/DC output current at
maximum output power (A)
R
pm
PV array internal resistance at the maximum
power point (X)
R
pv
equivalent resistance of the simplied PVG
model (X)
D duty cycle
v
pv
;

i
pv
;
^
d small variation of PVG voltage, PVG cur-
rent and the duty cycle of the converter
i
o
small variation of the DC/DC converter output
current (A)
C
f
lter capacitor (H)
L
f
lter inductance
g
MPPT
MPPT eciency
P
actual
measured power of the PV generator (W)
P
max
maximum power that the PV generator can pro-
duce under given irradiance and temperature
(W)
R
ds
on resistance of the Mosfet (X)
P
Mosfet,loss
Mosfet losses (W)
t
r
rise time (s)
t
f
fall time (s)
Q
gate
reverse recovery charge (C)
V
d
forward voltage drop of the diode (V)
R
cu
inductor resistance (X)
P
core
inductor core losses (W)
1130 L. Khemissi et al. / Solar Energy 86 (2012) 11291141
(Koutroulis et al., 2001) used the PO algorithm on the
cheaper microcontroller for battery charging application
instead of Hua et al. (1998) where a DSP platform was used
to develop the converter; the PV output power is increased
by 15%. In (Alberto et al., 2009) a new battery charging
based on microcontroller is developed, the output power is
increased by 25% and the MPPT eciency reached 95%.
However this method used an analog control to reach the
optimal current reference which aects the rapidity of the
system to track the MPP in the case of sudden climatic vari-
ations. In (Salas et al., 2005) authors presented a battery
charging application with a microcontroller, only the PVG
current was sensed thus decreasing the overall price, the e-
ciency was increased by 18.5% but the duty cycle perturba-
tion needs to be quantied depending on the dynamic of
the system to improve eciency and to ensure a system sta-
bility. (Feimia et al., 2005) presented an optimization
method of PO in terms of variation of duty cycle and sam-
pling period and thus ensured a good MPP tracking even a
sudden change of irradiation occurred (50 W/m
2
). In Tarik
Duru, 2006 a maximum power tracking based on
I
mpp
= f(P
max
) function was implemented. This approach
needs predetermined experimental values of P
max
and I
mpp
of the PVG for dierent irradiances. With this method the
implemented circuit must be changed once the PVGmodules
conguration changes, the oscillations around the maximum
power point are considerable.
In this paper a new PO algorithm is used. The duty cycle
perturbation and the sampling period of PVG voltage and
current are selected depending on the system stability while
a new test on the output power forces the system to operate
near the MPP if a sudden irradiation occur (100 W/m
2
/s)
thus decreasing losses and improve eciency of the system.
The use of the microcontroller to control the DCDC con-
verter presents a technical and an economic solution suit-
able for photovoltaic users to overcome the high cost of
PV panels. Indeed, the microcontroller brings the exibility
to change the real-time maximum power control algorithm
without further changes in hardware and switches the con-
verter through its PWM outputs. The experimental system
is described in Section 2. The DCDC converter is oper-
ated unless the battery is full charged.
The DCAC stage is based on the SHE PWM method.
With this technique, the power Mosfets are less switched
which decreasing the switching losses. This VSI inverter
can be extended to grid connected application as described
in Maris et al. (2007) since the phase shift between inverter
voltage and grid is fulll by switching pulses and the real
power ow becomes fully controlled.
2. Description of the photovoltaic conversion system
2.1. Presentation of the photovoltaic generator
A photovoltaic cell consists of semiconductor materials
that convert sunlight directly into electricity. Its equivalent
circuit is presented in Fig. 1.
The electrical model of the photovoltaic cell includes a
series resistance (R
s
) and a shunt resistor R
sh
. These resis-
tors have some eects on the IV characteristics of the cell.
The series resistance is the internal resistance of the cell, it
depends on the resistance of the semiconductor. The shunt
resistance is due to leakage at the junction. The IV char-
acteristics of a PV cell are governed by the following
equations:
I I
ph
I
D
I
sh
1
I I
ph
I
s
exp
qV
cell
R
s
I
BKT
_ _
1
_ _

V
cell
R
s
I
R
sh
2
Where I
ph
is the light current I
s
is the reverse saturation cur-
rent of the diode, K the Boltzmann constant (1.38
10
23
J/K), q the charge of an electron (1.6 10
19
C), B
the ideality factor of the junction, and T is the temperature
in Kelvin. The light current I
ph
depends on temperature and
irradiation while the reverse saturation current of the diode
depends only on the temperature.
I
ph

G
1000
I
sc
K
T
T 298 3
I
s
AT
3
exp
qE
g
BKT
_ _
4
where G, I
sc
, K
T
, E
g
, A, represent respectively the irradia-
tion, the short-circuit current of the PV cell, the tempera-
ture coecient, the band gap and constant with respect
to temperature (Rosell and Ibanez, 2006).
The PV modules are the basic components of all PV sys-
tem; they can be connected in series to increase their oper-
ating voltage and in parallel to increase their current. This
set is called photovoltaic generator (PVG). The equivalent
circuit of a PV module (Fig. 2) is deduced from that of
Fig. 1. The currentvoltage equation of a PV module is
written as:
I
ph
R
sh
I
sh
I
D
V
D
R
s I
V
cell
Fig. 1. Equivalent circuit of a photovoltaic cell.
(n
s
/n
p
)R
s
n
p
I
ph
n
p
I
n
s
V
cell
I
D
(n
s
-1)V
D
(n
p
-1)I
D n
p
I
sh
(n
s
/n
p
)R
sh
V
D
Fig. 2. Equivalent circuit of a PV module.
L. Khemissi et al. / Solar Energy 86 (2012) 11291141 1131
I
array
n
p
I
ph
n
p
I
s
exp
q
n
s
BKT
V
array
I
array
R
s
n
s
n
p
_ _
1
_ _

V
array
np
ns
R
s
I
array
R
sh
5
where n
s
is the number of cells in series and n
p
is the num-
ber of cells in parallel.
2.2. Study of the buck converter
The AC photovoltaic system under study consists of a
photovoltaic generator with a maximum power of 277 W
at 1000 W/m
2
and 25 C, a buck converter is used to charge
the battery with the maximum power of the PVG and to
prevent it against overcharge.
The choice of step down converter is justied because
the battery voltage (24 V) is less than the PVG voltage at
maximum power 57 V. In other cases, when the load is a
pure resistor (R
L
), the DC/DC converter topology must
be selected depending on the sign of R
L
R
PM
where R
PM
represents the internal PVG resistance at maximum power
(Enrique et al., 2007).
The voltage source inverter which assuring the interface
between the DC bus and the AC bus is controlled by SHE
PWM. The inverter is then associated to a low pass lter to
remove higher harmonics and a step-up transformer to feed
loads. The simulation of the system of Fig. 3 was done by
MatlabSimulink.
The goal of the MPPT control method is to extract the
maximum power from the photovoltaic generator under
any climatic condition. To explain this fact, we compare
two PV battery charging application, the rst system is a
well design PV system without MPPT algorithm and the
second system is equipped with MPPT tracking algorithm
(Fig. 5). Assuming that the two systems have the same
power at 25 C (point A
1
), when the temperature moves
to 40 C, the rst system operates at point B
1
while the sec-
ond system operates at point B
2
and nally when the tem-
perature reaches 50 C, the rst system operates at point C
1
while the second is at point C
2
, the extracted power from
the PVG by the second system is greater by 4% and 17%
respectively (Figs. 6 and 7).
In this paper a new perturb and observe (PO) algorithm
is used (Fig. 8). The sampling period and the duty cycle
variation (Dd) are selected to decrease the number and
the amplitude of oscillations around the maximum power
point (MPP).
In order to perform this algorithm in face of sudden cli-
matic variations (100 W/m
2
/s) a new test is used after each
duty cycle variation. Based on Fig. 4, a sudden variation of
irradiation makes PO less precise because the DP =
P
B
P
A
is computed on two dierent level of irradiation
and the operating point moves far from MPP (g. 4b). If
DP is greater than a proper threshold, this means that a
sudden variation of irradiation occurred, in this case, and
based on the assumption that the operating voltage at max-
imum power points is independent of irradiation, the DC/
DC converter is reinitialized with the duty cycle D
0
= V
mp
/
V
battery
which moves the system to operate near the MPP
thus decreasing power losses.
The PV array used in this paper has the characteristics
shown in Table 1 in standard conditions (G = 1000 W/m
2
and T = 25 C).
The DCDC converter is chosen to operate in continu-
ous conduction mode (CCM), the inductance is selected to
limit the ripple output current below 10% of its mean value,
PV Generator
Pic
16F876
I
PV
V
PV
D
C
PV
C
Battery
R
1
R
2
R
4
+
-
R
3
R
4
R
3
R
series
V
bat
R
5
R
6
L
Fig. 3. MPPT control of the buck converter.
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Voltage (V)
C
u
r
r
e
n
t

(
A
)
E=1000 W/m2;T=25 C
E=800 W/m2;T=25 C
E=600 W/m2;T=25 C
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
Voltage (V)
P
o
w
e
r

(
W
)
E=1000 W/m2; T=25 C
E=800 W/m2; T=25 C
E=600 W/m2; T=25 C
(a) (b)
A
B
C
D
Fig. 4. Eect of irradiation on the: (a) PVG currentvoltage characteristics. (b) PVG powervoltage characteristics.
1132 L. Khemissi et al. / Solar Energy 86 (2012) 11291141
and the output capacitor is selected to limit the output volt-
age variation at 1%.
The inductor and the capacitor can be evaluated as:
L
V
pv
4 f
s
Di
Lmax

V
mp
4 f
s
Di
Lmax

57
4 10; 000 1:317
1:08 mH
C
V
pv
32 L f
2
s
DV
smax

V
mp
32 L f
2
s
DV
smax

57
32 1:2 10
3
10; 000
2
0:28
53 lF
The selected values are: L = 1.2 mH and C = 60 lF.
Where V
pv
is the PVG output voltage, V
mp
the PVG
output voltage at maximum power; Di
Lmax
the maximum
peak-to-peak ripple of the inductor current; f
s
the switching
frequency and DV
smax
is the maximum value of the peak-
to-peak ripple output voltage of the DCDC converter.
Taking into account that the ripple of the PV output
current must be less than 2% of its mean value, the input
capacitor is calculated as given in Koutroulis et al. (2001).
C
pv
P
1 D
m
I
om
D
m
0:02 I
pm
R
pm
f
s
; C
pv
250 lF:
where D
m
is the duty cycle at maximum converter output
power, I
om
the DC component of the DC/DC converter
output current at maximum output power, I
pm
the con-
verter input current at maximum output power of PVG
and R
pm
is the PV array internal resistance at the maximum
power point.
The disadvantage of the PO algorithm is its oscillation
around the maximum power point (MPP). In this paper a
linearization around the MPP leads to a good selection
of the sampling period T. The choice of T is a compromise
between the number of oscillation around the maximum
power, stability of the system and the rapidity of the algo-
rithm. To do this the PVG can be modeled by a voltage
source V
pv
in series with R
pv
as mentioned in Koutroulis
et al. (2001) and Villalva and Filho, 2008.
A small variation around the MPP leads to write the two
transfer functions from which the sampling period is
selected. These functions are the duty-to-control transfer
function (G
vd
) and duty-to-current transfer function (G
id
).
G
vd

v
pv

R
pv
I
om
Ls V
mp
D
m

LC
pv
R
pv
s
2
Ls R
pv
D
2
m
R
pv

i
pv

d
6
G
id

i
o

V
mp
1 R
pv
C
pv
s R
pv
D
m
I
om
LC
pv
R
pv
s
2
Ls R
pv
D
2
m
7
Where v
pv
,

i
pv
,

d and

i
o
represent a small variation of GPV
voltage, current, duty cycle and the DC/DC converter out-
put current around the MPP respectively.
G
id
has an opposite sign of G
vd
since an increasing of
PVG voltage is accompanied by a decreasing of PVG cur-
rent (Villalva and Filho, 2008).
The two transfer functions describe the behavior of a
second order system (Fig. 9) with a damper of:
n
1
2 R
pv
D
m

L
C
PV
_
> 0
where L P
V pv
4f
s
Di
Lmax
and C
pv
P
1D
m
I
om
D
m
0:02I
pm
R
pm
f
s
Fig. 9 shows the step response of (6) and (7) for a four
values of n. The smallest time response of the second order
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
Voltage (V)
P
o
w
e
r

(
W
)
E=1000 W/m2; T=25 C
E=1000 W/m2; T=40 C
E=1000 W/m2; T=55 C
A
1
B
1
C
1
B
2
C
2
Excess of
power
Fig. 5. Eect of temperature on the PVG output power.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
100
105
110
115
120
125
130
Time (s)
1
0
0
*

(
P
o
w
e
r

w
i
t
h

M
P
P
T
/
P
o
w
e
r

w
i
t
h
o
u
t

M
P
P
T
)
Fig. 7. Excess of power
PVG
with MPPT algorithm
PVG
without MPPT algorithm
.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
Time (s)
P
o
w
e
r

(
W
)
PV system with MPPT
well design PV system without MPPT
Fig. 6. PVG output power with and without MPPT.
L. Khemissi et al. / Solar Energy 86 (2012) 11291141 1133
system is reached when n = 0.7. With the precalculated val-
ues of L and C in the manuscript (n = 0.62), the time
response is 10 ms and it is close to time response with
n = 0.7 but contrary there is an over size of the inductance
when n = 0.7. We have conclude that the precalculated
L = 1.2 mH and C
pv
= 250 lF are the most appropriate
values in our design.
Fig. 10ac shows PVG current, voltage and power for
two values of sampling period (1 ms and 50 ms). It is obvi-
ous that for T = 1 ms (blue line) the system presents more
oscillation around the maximum power than for T = 50 ms
(red line) because the system (PV, DCDC, battery)
does not reach his steady state before the second pertur-
bation of duty cycle occur. We conclude that a good
selection of the sampling period is a compromise between
stability of the PV system and rapidity of the MPP tracking
algorithm.
Tacking into account the delay caused by the microcon-
troller to compute the PVG power, it is suitable to choose
T twice the time during it the system reaches his steady
state. By using this method, we avoid power losses due to
the oscillation around the MPP.
Fig. 8. Flowchart of the MPP tracking algorithm.
Table 1
Parameters of the PVG.
Characteristics of the photovoltaic generator (1000 W/m
2
; T = 25 C)
Open-voltage circuit (V
oc
) 77 V
Short-circuit current (I
sc
) 5.6 A
Voltage at maximum power (V
mp
) 57 V
Current at maximum power (I
mp
) 4.85 A
Maximum power (W) 277 W
1134 L. Khemissi et al. / Solar Energy 86 (2012) 11291141
The parameters of the proposed MPPT algorithm are
selected depending on the stability of the system to
decrease the number of oscillations around the MPP
(T = 50 ms) and to limit the amplitude variation of the
power around the MPP (duty cycle perturbation = 1%)
the algorithm is also optimized against a sudden variation
of irradiation as mentioned in the owchart of Fig. 8. In
Fig. 12, we compare the performances of three perturb
and observe algorithms for the irradiation prole of
Fig. 11: the rst algorithm is a classical PO algorithm,
the second algorithm is an optimized PO without taking
account the sudden climatic variations and the last one is
the proposed algorithm which is optimized in terms of sam-
pling period, duty cycle and also against a sudden irradia-
tion variations (100 W/m
2
/s). It is clear that the MPP is
well tracking with the proposed algorithm.
2.3. Study of the voltage source inverter
The structure used of the voltage source inverter (VSI) is
the full bridge consisting of four Mosfets IRFP250N
(Fig. 13). This topology is chosen with consideration that
it is capable to deliver a high current at low voltage (Ismail
et al., 2006). The unipolar Selective Harmonic Pulse width
Modulation is adopted where switching angles are calcu-
lated to eliminate from 5th to 9th order harmonics for dif-
ferent modulation index ratio. The output voltage is
0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02 0.025 0.03 0.035 0.04 0.045 0.05
-0.5
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
Time (s)
G
v
d
,

G
i
p
v
d
z=0.7
z=1
z=0.626
z=0.313
Fig. 9. Step response of the G
Vd
and G
id
.
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Time (s)
P
V
G

V
o
l
t
a
g
e

(
V
)
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4
-6
-4
-2
0
2
4
6
Time (s)
P
V
G

C
u
r
r
e
n
t

(
A
)
(a)
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4
-600
-500
-400
-300
-200
-100
0
100
200
300
Time (s)
P
V
G

P
o
w
e
r

(
W
)
(c)
(b)
Fig. 10. (a) PVG voltage; (b) PVG current; (c) PVG power for two sampling period values; T = 1 ms (blue line) and T = 50 ms (red line). (For
interpretation of the references to color in this gure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
L. Khemissi et al. / Solar Energy 86 (2012) 11291141 1135
composed of a low number of switching comparing with
traditional PWM output voltage. An LC lter is required
to reduce its harmonic content and to produce a pure sinu-
soidal output voltage.
Because of odd quarter-wave symmetry (Fig. 15), the dc
component and the even harmonics are equal to zero.
V
out
t

1
n1
v
n
sinnxt where V
n

4V
dc
np

N
k1
1
k1
cosna
k
for odd n.
Where N is the number of the switching angles per quar-
ter and ak is the switching angles which must satisfy:
0 < a
1
< <a
N
< p/2 and n is the harmonic order.
The non-linear system of SHE PWM waveform can be
written as follows:
cosa
1
cosa
2
cosa
3
cosa
4
cosa
5

p
4
M
cos3a
1
cos3a
2
cos3a
3
cos3a
4
cos3a
5

3p
4V
dc
h
3
cos5a
1
cos5a
2
cos5a
3
cos5a
4
cos5a
5

5p
4V
dc
h
5
cos7a
1
cos7a
2
cos7a
3
cos7a
4
cos7a
5

7p
4V
dc
h
7
cos9a
1
cos9a
2
cos9a
3
cos9a
4
cos9a
5

9p
4V
dc
h
9
where M
h
1
V
dc
is the modulation index which controls the
amplitude of the fundamental component h
1
. To eliminate
the harmonics 3, 5, 7 and 9 we put h
3
= h
5
= h
7
= h
9
= 0
To solve the switching angles, the NewtonRaphson
method is applied. Fig. 14 gives these angles versus modu-
lation index.
Fig. 16 shows the frequency spectrum of the output volt-
age. The harmonics from3th to 9th are removed. The output
voltage of the VSI shown in the g. 15 has a THD = 15.5%.
A simple LC lter reduces the other harmonics and the l-
tered output voltage has a THD = 1.02%. Fig. 17 shows
the output voltage of the PV system.
To compute the low pass lter parameters and based on
Fig. 18, we can write:
V
sn
V
en

1
j1 L
f
C
f
n
2
x
2
j

1
1
nx
x
0
_ _
2

where
x
0

1

L
f
C
f
p and n is the harmonic order
0.9 1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8
500
600
700
800
900
1000
1100
Time (s)
I
r
r
a
d
i
a
t
i
o
n

(
W
/
m
2
)
Fig. 11. Irradiation variation.
0.9 1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8
100
120
140
160
180
200
220
240
260
280
Time (s)
P
V
G

p
o
w
e
r

(
W
)
Classical PO Algorithm
Optimised PO Algorithm
Proposed PO Algorithm
Fig. 12. Maximum power point tracking with three MPPT algorithms.
Fig. 13. Structure of the voltage source inverter.
0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
Modulation Index (M)
F
i
r
i
n
g

a
n
g
l
e
s

(
a
l
p
h
a
1
.
.
.
.
a
l
p
h
a
5
)
Fig. 14. Switching angles versus modulation index for the SHE PWM
inverter.
1136 L. Khemissi et al. / Solar Energy 86 (2012) 11291141
The resonance frequency of the LC lter is written as
F
0
= pF where F is the fundamental frequency (50 Hz)
and p is non-integer to avoid harmonic amplication. If,
for example, the 11th harmonic is decreased at 1/10 of its
amplitude:
V
s11
V
e11

1
1
11x
x
0
_ _
2

1
10
;
F
0
F

11
p
3:31 p L
f
C
f

1
3:31
2
100000
9:24 10
7
The selected values in this case are: C
f
= 450 lF and
L
f
= 2 mH. For the same value of the lter inductance, to
attenuate the 11th harmonic about 1/20 of its amplitude,
a larger capacitor is used (900 lF) (Fig. 16b). The ltered
VSI output voltage is shown in Fig. 15.
3. Eciency of the PV system
3.1. MPPT eciency
The MPPT eciency can be evaluated as (Hohm and
Ropp, 2003):
g
MPPT

_
t
0
P
actual
tdt
_
t
0
P
max
tdt
where P
actual
(t) is the measured power of the PV generator
and P
max
(t) is the maximum power that the PV generator
can produce under given irradiance and temperature.
MPPT efficiency
0.9
0.92
0.94
0.96
0.98
1
1.02
1.04
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Time (s)
E
f
f
i
c
i
e
n
c
y
Srie1
Fig. 19. Eciency of the proposed MPPT algorithm.
Fig. 16. Frequency spectrum of the VSI output voltage. (a) Before LC lter. (b) After LC lter.
0.04 0.045 0.05 0.055 0.06 0.065 0.07 0.075 0.08
-30
-20
-10
0
10
20
30
Time (s)
V
o
l
t
a
g
e

(
V
)
Fig. 15. Output voltage of the VSI with SHE PWM.
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4
-400
-300
-200
-100
0
100
200
300
400
Time (s)
O
u
t
p
u
t

V
o
l
t
a
g
e
Fig. 17. Output voltage.
L
f
Isn
Ien
C
f
t
t
V
V
Icn
V
sn
V
en
Fig. 18. Low pass lter for higher harmonics reduction.
L. Khemissi et al. / Solar Energy 86 (2012) 11291141 1137
Fig. 19 presents practical results of the PVG output
power during a period of 20 s when irradiation is 900 W/
m
2
and the temperature is 41 C. FromFig. 22 the maximum
power is 250 W. The PVG power is averaged by one second.
The average MPPT eciency during this time is 97.3%.
3.2. DCDC converter eciency
The eciency of the DCDC converter is estimated as:
g
P
in
P
loss
P
in
; where P
in
is the input power and P
loss
is the
power losses. We sort them as the resistance power losses,
passive element power losses and device power losses (Lin
Luo and Hong, 2007).
The maximum Mosfets (IRFP250N) losses are calcu-
lated as:
P
MOSFET;loss
P
Conduction;loss
P
Switching;loss
I
2
om
R
DS
D
m
V
mp
I
om
t
r
t
f
f
s
Q
Gate
V
mp
f
s
4:35 W:
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85
0.0
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
3.0
3.5
4.0
4.5
5.0
5.5
6.0
C
u
r
r
e
n
t

(
A
)
Voltage (V)
397.5 W/m2; T=32.58 C
552.27 W/m2; T=36.76 C
656.32 W/m2; T=37.85 C
E=768.15 W/m2; T=40.27 C
E=907.97 W/m2; T=41.7 C
E=962.5 W/m2; T=41.88 C
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
P
o
w
e
r

(
W
)
Voltage (V)
E=397.5 W/m2 ; T=32.58 C
E=552.27 W/m2 ; T=36.76 C
E=656.332 W/m2 ; T=37.85 C
E=768.15 W/m2; T=40.27 C
E=907.97 W/m2 ; T=41.7 C
E=962.5 W/m2 ; T=41.88 C
(a) (b)
Fig. 22. (a) Experimental currentvoltage curves of the PVG. (b) Experimental powervoltage curves of the PVG.
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3
-10
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
Time (s)
P
o
w
e
r

(
W
)
DC input power
Inverter output power
Load power
Fig. 20. DC and PV inverter output power for 70 W power load.
T
1 >
1) Ref B: 5 Volt 50 us
Fig. 23. Control signal of the buck converter.
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3
0.6
0.65
0.7
0.75
0.8
0.85
0.9
0.95
1
Time (s)
E
f
f
i
c
i
e
n
c
y
Inverter Efficiency
DC/AC stage efficiency
Fig. 21. Inverter and DCAC stage eciency.
1138 L. Khemissi et al. / Solar Energy 86 (2012) 11291141
P
switching
= 0.023 W are very low regarding to conduction
losses. When switching losses exceeds some limits a non-
dissipative turn-on turn-o snubber is used which improves
the converter eciency due to additional energy transferred
to the load as detailed in LSanots et al. (2006).
The Shottcky diode power losses are estimated as:
P
diode;loss
V
d
I
om
1 D
m
4:64 W :
The inductor losses are:
P
Inductor;loss
I
2
om
R
cu
P
Core
0:7837 W:
g
P
in
P
loss
P
in

277 4:35 4:64 0:7837

277
96:46%
3.3. DCAC stage eciency
The eciency of the SHE PWM inverter and the DC
AC stage is done by simulation using MatlabSimulink
environment. For a load power of 70 W the eciency of
the inverter is 96% while the eciency of the DCAC con-
version stage (inverter + lter + transformer) is 86%. The
signicant losses in DCAC conversion stage are located
on the single phase transformer (Figs. 20 and 21).
3.4. Eciency of the whole system
The overall eciency of charging and discharging of a
leadacid battery is about 90% (Messenger and Ventre,
2004).
The eciency of the whole system is then:
g
System
g
MPPT
g
DCDC
g
Battery
g
DCAC
0:973 0:965 0:9 0:86 72:67%:
4. Experimental results
A series of measurements with the photovoltaic genera-
tor, available in our site, are used to plot the experimental
Fig. 24. Output voltage and current of the PVG.
T
T
2
2 >
3 >
2) Ref A: 5 Volt 5 ms
3) Ref B: 5 Volt 5 ms
(a)
(b)
T
T
1
1 >
2 >
1) Ref A: 5 Volt 10 us
2) Ref B: 5 Volt 10 us
(c)
T
T
1
1 >
2 >
1) Ref A: 5 Volt 5 ms
2) Ref B: 5 Volt 5 ms
Fig. 25. Control signals of the VSI: (a) switches state of leg 1; (b) switches state of leg 2; (c) dead time for VSI protection.
L. Khemissi et al. / Solar Energy 86 (2012) 11291141 1139
IV and PV characteristics as shown in Fig. 22a and b.
From these curves the optimal PVG voltage is 57 V and
the maximum power is 277 W.
A Microcontroller PIC 16F876 controls the duty cycle
of the DC/DC converter. It generates a 10 kHz PWM sig-
nal with its internal PWM circuit (Fig. 23). The PWM duty
cycle is controlled by the PIC program, described later, to
optimize the power output from the photovoltaic genera-
tor. The buck converter forces PVG to operate around its
MPP as illustrated in Fig. 24.
The input power from the PVG is calculated by measur-
ing the voltage and current with the PICs A/D inputs. The
PVG voltage is sensed through a resistor divider and the
PVG current is measured by a current sense resistor
(1.5 mX) and a dierence amplier. The battery voltage is
sensed with another resistor divider and it is used to inform
about the state of charge of the battery. The microcontrol-
ler stops charging the battery when its voltage exceeds 28 V
to prevent its overcharge. The battery is sized to supply a
load of 70 W during a period of 8 h per day for three con-
secutive cloudy days with a capacity of 200 Ah.
The VSI power topology consists of four N channel
Mosfets (IRFP250N) with low on-resistance (0.075 X)
which decreases resistive losses in the VSI. The control cir-
cuit of the VSI is based on a PIC 16F876 microcontroller in
which pulses are programmed to eliminate from 3th to 9th
order harmonics for dierent modulation index ratio. The
inverter stops feeding the load if the battery voltage became
below 21 V (M = 0.8). An isolation circuit is used to isolate
pulses for protection and safety between a safe and a
potentially hazardous environment. An IR2110 driver is
used to control a pair of MOSFETs connected in the same
leg using the bootstrap technique.
The control signals of the VSI are shown in Fig. 25a and
b. The switching losses are decreased since the two Mos-
fets of the leg no. 2 are switched only one time per period.
To prevent the simultaneous conduction of two transistors
of the same leg, a dead time of 2 ls is used as shown in
Fig. 25c.
Figs. 26 and 27 present the VSI output voltage before
and after an LC lter. The output voltage has a perfectly
sine wave form, 50 Hz frequency with low harmonics.
The output voltage is fed to step up transformer to amplify
it to a 220 V level. The resulting photovoltaic application
can feed domestic appliances and can be extended to be
connected to a single phase supply network.
5. Conclusion
In this work, a single phase photovoltaic system is sim-
ulated and tested. The buck converter is used to charge a
battery with new maximum power algorithm ensuring a
low cost implementation, good eciency and a stable
dynamic behavior.
The VSI is controlled by a Selective Harmonic Elimi-
nated PWM method which decrease inverter losses and
improve the eciency of the overall system. The output
voltage is easily ltered and a stable 220 V/50 Hz voltage
is obtained to feed AC loads. The two converters are digi-
tally controlled with a cheaper micro-controller which per-
mits easy program modication of the MPP Tracking
algorithm or inverter switches. This application can be
used to cover home appliances in isolated sites and can
be extended to grid connected applications.
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