Validation of Solar Inverter Testing Procedure for Stand-Alone PV Systems

Currently the use of inverters in stand-alone PV systems has become widespread for rural electrification purposes. This allows the use of PV systems to power conventional AC appliances, which represent advantages in terms of user convenience and satisfaction. However, the standard AC appliances are normally designed to operate under certain conditions of the conventional grid. Therefore, some possibility of the occurrence of malfunction, even damage, on the electrical equipment, should be considered in the design of PV systems. This paper is intended to validate performance testing procedure of inverter for stand-alone PV systems developed at the B2TKE PV system testing laboratory. Several commercially available stand-alone inverters have been tested according to the IEC 61683 standard. The results showed that the highest efficiency of the inverter is mainly achieved at 25% of the resistive load. This efficiency value increases as the load increases, and decreases as the power factor decreases. The test facility can be validated for inverter with maximum of 15 kW. The capacity of the test facility should be improved to improve the wider inverter testing service.