Design and simulation of a chopper circuits energized by Photovoltaic modules

This paper describes dc chopper with various configuration of the main and auxiliary switches aiming at studying the circuit behavior of the chopper design with different snubber and auxiliary circuits. Because of the input voltage is supplied by a PV module, several types of feedback configurations are studied in order to select the most suitable circuit configuration that corresponds to minimum output voltage fluctuations. The feedback signal is taken from either line or the load side. Four circuit configurations have been studied; auxiliary, modified auxiliary, cascade, and modified cascade circuits. PSIM and MATLAB platforms were used to simulate the behavior of these circuits. The simulation results and the conducted analysis states that modified auxiliary circuit present the optimized configuration for PV modules. The feedback control for this circuit compensates the output voltage fluctuation due to irradiation change and temperature effect on the PV cells. Design recommendations and suggestions are proposed for future work.