Efficiency Assessment of BLDC type Solar Water Pumping System fed by Photovoltaic and Grid

This paper optimizes the operation of Brushless DC motor (BLDC) operated solar water pumping system. The proposed system is assisted with single phase supply to ensure the system operation in the high efficiency zone which is governed by the pump. In conventional systems consisting of either AC supply or PV leads to low reliable and inconsistent operation of the motor for water pumping applications. The proposed system consists of Power Factor Correction (PFC) converter for grid input, DC-DC converter as MPPT channel for PV, and three phase inverter to control BLDC type motor-pump set. The entire system is equipped with the control strategy which has multiple modes of operation based on availability of sources. The modelling of all the power converters and their compensator design are provided in this paper. Performance of the system is investigated using developed test-bed with water-pump, tank, power conditioning unit, solar PV simulator, and grid supply. The control strategy and overall system efficiency is verified by simulation and experimental results.