BLDC motor-driven solar PV array-fed water pumping system employing zeta converter

Abstract

This paper proposes a simple, cost-effective, and efficient brushless dc (BLDC) motor drive for solar photovoltaic (SPV) array-fed water pumping system. A zeta converter is utilized to extract the maximum available power from the SPV array. The proposed control algorithm eliminates phase current sensors and adapts a fundamental frequency switching of the voltage source inverter (VSI), thus avoiding the power losses due to high frequency switching. No additional control or circuitry is used for speed control of the BLDC motor. The speed is controlled through a variable dc link voltage of VSI. An appropriate control of zeta converter through the incremental conductance maximum power point tracking (INC-MPPT) algorithm offers soft starting of the BLDC motor. The proposed water pumping system is designed and modeled such that the performance is not affected under dynamic conditions. The suitability of proposed system at practical operating conditions is demonstrated through simulation results using MATLAB/Simulink followed by an experimental validation.