Design of a Hardware-in-the-Loop based Grid-connected Photovoltaic System Simulator

The photovoltaic solar energy industry has experienced worldwide rapid growth in recent years. Despite technological advances, many operative challenges still exist in conditioning and connecting PV systems to the grid. For this reason, control techniques that guarantee power quality and system stability under different operating scenarios must be tested before entering into operation. This work describes the design of a Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) based grid-connected photovoltaic system simulator. This simulator facilitates the analysis of multiple scenarios to evaluate control strategies, eliminating the need for a risky physical implementation and reducing the computing time of off-line simulations. In addition, this setup will be used as a training module for electrical engineering students at the Universidad Industrial de Santander in Colombia.