High Power PV Array Emulator Based on State Feedback Controller Under Uniform and Non-Uniform Insolation

Solar Photovoltaic (PV) energy has known an increased interest in the last years. However, its dependence on climatic conditions hinders PV researchers from carrying out their tests and experiences at the desired weather parameters of temperature (T) and solar insolation (G), in addition to the expensive cost of actual PV panels and the required large area. Therefore, the PV array emulator has been invented to reproduce faithfully similar PV characteristics and mimic the behavior of actual PV modules and arrays irrespective of environmental conditions change. This paper proposes thus a new PV source emulator based on a full-bridge converter controlled by a state feedback technique. The control strategy is based on the resistance-current characteristic of the PV array in order to ensure high accuracy of the emulation process. The main contribution of this work is the improvement of the accuracy (relative steady-state error is less than 1%), stability and dynamic response of the PV emulator compared to existing solutions since the current and voltage ripples of the proposed emulator do not exceed 0.8% while the outputs of some existing conventional emulators become unstable at certain conditions. Moreover, the designed system is able to reach higher peak powers than those obtained through conventional PV emulators (more than 7 kW). Simulation results using Matlab Simulink software are presented and discussed to highlight the performances of the proposed PV system under uniform irradiance and partial shading conditions.