Low cost utility interconnected photovoltaic scheme for residential/ village/ cottage electricity

This paper presents a novel error driven online search and tracking controller for maximum PV-solar energy utilization for utility connected low cost village/cottage/residential electric energy scheme. It proposes a maximum photovoltaic solar energy tracking and efficient energy/power utilization control scheme to cope with changing resistive loads and motor torque variation as well as ambient atmospheric change. The proposed controller requires only the online value of the PV array output voltage and current that can be easily measured with voltage and current transducer. Satisfactory results are obtained with the proposed dynamic tracking controller for resistive load as well as for asynchronous motor. The conversion from DC to AC is done with the inverter. In this paper the novel dynamic search controller was developed based on dynamic voltage or current error-signals activating a proportional plus integral (PI) controller. For resistive or motorized type load the tri loop based PV power, voltage and current tracking controller is adequate in ensuring maximum power tracking. The proposed grid connected scheme is a suitable for low cost residential/ cottage electricity renewable energy scheme and can be implemented by a low cost PIC 16 microcontroller for economic sizes (1500 watts-15000 watts).