Automatic measurement system for testing photovoltaic conversion chains

This paper presents a computer-based instrumentation system suitable fur the characterization of photovoltaic conversion structures. Consisting of a data acquisition stage, a data processor, twelve photovoltaic generators and several power conditioners, the system automatically evaluates the respective efficiency of maximum power point tracking (MPPT) and power conditioning. The efficiency of unknown MPPT functions is estimated with great accuracy by means of an extremum control-based MPPT used as a reference. Evaluating the efficiency of three photovoltaic battery chargers during a 8-hours day of solar irradiation illustrates the estimation procedure and the system test facilities.