Design and implementation of an indoor test bench for validation of solar MPPT algorithms

As a solution to the problem of increasing deficit of electrical energy, the use of renewable energy sources is increasing. Application of renewable energy resources in electricity generation system is done in a variety of configurations such as standalone photovoltaic plants, standalone wind power plants, Microgrid system, etc. The system described and developed in this paper, aims to realize a low cost, reliable and robust test bench for testing various maximum power point tracking algorithms. This paper introduces photovoltaic simulator implemented using simple controllable DC power supply and PC, with the capability of simulating wide range of irradiance and temperature conditions. The system consists of PWM controlled boost chopper, microcontroller with inbuilt real time control capability and respective sensors for implementation of various algorithms. The proposed system is a part of COEP-Microgrid, a project initiated by the students of College of Engineering, Pune, which aims at establishing a Microgrid in the college campus. Perturb & Observe algorithm has been implemented on this test bench to check and verify the ability of the system.