PV energy benefit estimation formulation for PV water pumping system

SPV technology is coming up as promising option of electrification in rural/remote areas, which are still not connected with National Grid. Techno-Economic viability is always of prime importance, however in rural applications economical factor is more dominant. SPV performance deteriorates with partial shading/mismatching and this leads to reduced utilization of installed PV capacity. DMPPT is an alternative to reduce the impact of partial shading on SPV performance, however it results in increased PV set up cost. Further this leads to unwillingness of farmers to adapt DMPPT technology in real time implementations. In this paper, PV energy benefit estimation formulae is proposed. Three PV based water pumping systems namely, single stage, centralized DC-DC converter based and PV module level DMPPT based are considered for PV energy benefit analysis. Developed PV energy benefit estimation is ready to use and does not need complex calculation. So, that farmers can understand direct benefits of adapting centralized DC-DC converter or DMPPT technology in terms of increase in PV energy yield and thus effective savings. Proposed formulation is supported by simulation results.