Comparison between voltage controlled and current controlled buck converter based photovoltaic emulator

Photovoltaic emulator can be designed using different topologies. This paper will outline the simulation of voltage controlled and current controlled buck converter based PV emulator and its performance is evaluated with linear and non-linear load which is compared with the results that would have been obtained if loads were fed from the real PV source. The output characteristics of PV modules and hence, the array greatly depends on the environmental conditions, which makes it very difficult to reproduce and maintain same environmental conditions for testing and comparing the performance of PV power conditioning systems. A photovoltaic emulator facilitates PV systems to be analyzed in a controlled environment where using actual photovoltaic panels would produce inconsistent results for the PV system, due to variability in outside temperature and weather conditions. Extensive simulation results are obtained in MATLAB which show that PV emulator system behaves electrically similar to a real PV source and also the results of voltage and current controlled buck converter PV emulator are compared and finally concluded which topology of PV emulator is a better one.