LabVIEW based emulation of Photovoltaic array to study maximum power point tracking algorithms

Testing, tuning and validation of maximum power point tracking (MPPT) and distributed MPPT (DMPPT) algorithms for Photovoltaic (PV) sources require controllable PV sources in a laboratory environment. Creating PV sources with characteristics corresponding to desired environmental conditions is a challenging task. This paper presents a scheme to generate PV characteristics for any desired environmental conditions with the help of programmable power supplies using National Instrument's LabVIEW platform. The proposed system can emulate photovoltaic modules (connected in series or parallel) under different illumination levels, temperature and with different shading patterns. The emulated sources can be interfaced with power converters and enable the testing of MPPT and distributed MPPT algorithms under any desired conditions of solar radiation, temperature and other environmental factors (or their combination). Such a system can alleviate the constraints in PV research like; initial capital cost and area requirement. The proposed system provides an economical and effective method for testing and tuning the performance of MPPT/DMPPT algorithms for PV systems in a laboratory environment. All the details of this work are presented.