Abstract: Solar energy is an important renewable resource which is abundant in nature and free of running cost though its installation cost is higher. Trapped solar energy is used to run motors for different applications. Motors used for applications are DC motors, induction motors or Brushless dc (BLDC) motors of which BLDC motors are more advantageous. This paper deals with the utilization of a ZETA converter in solar PV array based water pumping as an intermediate DC-DC converter between a solar PV array and a voltage source inverter (VSI) in order to achieve the maximum efficiency of the solar PV array and the soft starting of the permanent magnet brushless DC (BLDC) motor by proper control. A Zeta converter is a fourth-order DC-DC converter made up of two inductors and two capacitors and capable of operating in either step-up or step-down mode. A BLDC motor is employed to drive a centrifugal type of water pump because its load characteristic is well matched to the maximum power locus of the PV generator. The transient, dynamic and steady state behaviors of the proposed solar PV array powered zeta converter fed BLDC motor driven water pumping system are evaluated under the rapid and slowly varying atmospheric conditions using the sim-power-system toolboxes of the MATLAB/Simulink environment.
Keywords: Brushless dc (BLDC) motor, zeta converter, solar PV array, voltage-source inverter (VSI), centrifugal pump, soft starting.
Title: Solar Water Pumping System Employing ZETA Converter and BLDC Motor
Author: SATHYA.M, Dr.C.GOVINDARAJU
International Journal of Electrical and Electronics Research
ISSN 2348-6988 (online)
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