Developing a Laptop Power Adaptor for 12 V and 24 V Solar PV Source

Rural and urban areas of developing countries such as Tanzania suffer from lack of reliable electricity supply. This situation limits the usage of portable electronic gadgets such as laptops, and mobile phones. This paper designs and simulates a laptop charger adapter using a DC-DC single ended primary inductor converter (SEPIC). This charging adapter accepts two voltage levels of varying sources of solar photovoltaic (PV) power. Its output is constant DC at 19.5 V and maximum 100 W power while input is either the variable 12 V or 24 V solar PV power source. The maximum power point (MPPT) algorithm is integrated with proportional integral (PI) controller to achieve the desired output. This design was validated numerically using the MATLAB/Simulink environment. Several results are presented showing the performance with the cases of varying solar irradiation from 800 W/m
²
to 1000 W/m
²
or vice versa. These simulation results indicate possibility of future work of the viability to fabricate the adaptor and test it in laboratory and in field.