Photovoltaic Pumping System using SVPWM based Induction Motor Drive with a High Gain Converter

This paper proposes an efficient industrial solar water pumping system using Space Vector Pulse Width Modulation (SVPWM) based Induction motor. An isolated high gain DC-DC converter is designed to boost the output voltage of the single solar panel. The proposed system has high life as storage elements such as batteries are avoided. The best features of the space vector PWM is the efficient and simple usage along with the reduction in total harmonic distortion (THD) with less switching loss and less computational calculations. Maximum Power point tracking algorithm is also used to extract maximum power at a given irradiance level. Since the converter offers high gain, the low voltage supplied from the solar panel is enough to drive a motor. The paper simulates a three-phase induction motor drive using the proposed SVPWM based voltage source inverter (VSI) along with the solar array using the designed high gain DC-DC converter. The speed control strategy used is scalar voltage/frequency control which is one of the best technique for industrial application. Pertinent results were obtained using a current fed high gain full bridge DC-DC converter and SVPWM based Induction motor drive in MATLAB/Simulink.