Design of a power regulator for photovoltaic power generation

Abstract

Due to the higher population growth and technological advancement, the energy consumption is expected to grow exponentially in next 50 years. Currently the largest portion of global energy demand is fulfilled by fossil fuel that contributes significantly to the global warming and air pollution. The renewable energy resources are attractive alternatives to replace the energy content supplied by the fossil fuels. Solar energy is the driving force for almost all types of renewable energy. The basic components of a solar energy system are DC-DC converter, charge controller, battery pack and inverter.

Due to the variance of the solar radiation, the output voltage and power of the solar panels are not stable. This project addresses this issue by designing a DC-DC converter to facilitate the conversion of unregulated DC input voltages to a regulated output voltage by using Switched Mode Power Supplies (SMPS) method. In addition to that this project focuses on designing a pure sine inverter to convert DC power generated by PV panels in to AC power for daily consumer appliances and commercial grid connectivity.

While covering the fundamentals and design process of the DC-DC converter and the pure wave inverter prototypes, this project also discusses about the printed circuit board (PCB) design procedures and testing of the both circuits.