Performance analysis of photovoltaic powered dc motor — Propeller system

The application of autonomous directly photovoltaic (PV) powered electro-mechanical has received increasing attention for different applications (e.g. PV water pumping, PV powered cooling of arid climate greenhouses, solar vehicles etc). The PV array output is a nonlinear and time-dependent power supply that varies with solar intensity and cell temperature, so the performance characteristics of the directly PV-powered DC motor - propeller system are very different than when powered by a constant DC voltage. The focus of this work is to do performance analysis of directly PV-powered DC motor - propeller system. Through performance evaluation, it has been observed that power transfer matching, with respect to the maximum power points of the PV module and the operating points of the DC PM motor - propeller, mainly depend on the load parameters, DC motor parameters. The matching can be improved by selecting appropriate parameters of the DC motor and propeller load. In designing a DC motor (for directly PV powered system), it is very important to consider the PV array´s locus of maximum operating points for a particular propeller load application. This analysis will be useful in developing a directly PV powered aerodynamic systems.