Solar array fed water pumping system using induction motor drive

This paper presents a solar PV array fed water pumping system using an induction motor drive (IMD). There are two stages in the solar array fed water pumping system, its first stage extracts the maximum power from the solar PV (Photo Voltaic) array by controlling the duty ratio of the DC-DC boost converter. To control the duty ratio, an INC (Incremental Conductance) based MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracking) control technique is utilized. In the second stage, V/f(Voltage/ Frequency) controller based on sinusoidal pulse width modulation (SPWM) is utilized to control the switching pulses of the VSI (Voltage Source Inverter). The stator frequency of the IMD is controlled by controlling the frequency of SPWM. The prototype of SPV powered IMD coupled with a pump is developed in the laboratory to examine the performance under different operating conditions.