Upkeeping the Battery State-Of-Charge (SoC) and its life are of great significance in Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) & Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEV). This is possible by integrating Solar Photovoltaic Panels (PPs) on the Roof-top of the BEVs & HEVs. However, unlike Solar Powered Vehicle Charging stations and other PV applications where the solar panels are installed in such a way to extract the maximum Photon energy incident on the panel, vehicle Roof-top mount Solar PPs face many challenges in extracting maximum Power due to partial shading issues especially under dynamic conditions when passing under trees, high rise buildings and cloud passages. This paper proposes a new strategy called “Super-capacitor Assisted Photovoltaic Array”. In which Photovoltaic Modules are integrated with Super-capacitors to improve the transient performance of the Photovoltaic Array system. The design of proposed Super-capacitor Assisted PV array is validated & its performance is compared with conventional PV array in Matlab/ Simulink environment.
Efficient energy collection from photovoltaic (PV) systems in environments that change is still a challenge, especially when partial shading conditions (PSC) come into play. This research shows a new method called Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) that uses fuzzy logic and neural networks to make PV systems more flexible and accurate when they are exposed to PSC. Our method uses a fuzzy logic controller (FLC) that is specifically made to deal with uncertainty and imprecision. This is different from other MPPT methods that have trouble with the nonlinearity and transient dynamics of PSC. At the same time, an artificial neural network (ANN) is taught to guess where the Global Maximum Power Point (GMPP) is most likely to be by looking at patterns of changes in irradiance and temperature from the past. The fuzzy controller fine-tunes the ANN’s prediction, ensuring robust and precise MPPT operation. We used MATLAB/Simulink to run a lot of simulations to make sure our proposed method would work. The results showed that combining fuzzy logic with neural networks is much better than using traditional MPPT algorithms in terms of speed, stability, and response to changing shading patterns. This innovative technique proposes a dual-layered control mechanism where the robustness of fuzzy logic and the predictive power of neural networks converge to form a resilient and efficient MPPT system, marking a significant advancement in PV technology.
This paper presents a design of a low cost, low loss 31-level multilevel inverter (MLI) topology with a reduce the number of switches and power electronic devices. The increase in the levels of MLI leads to limiting the THD to the desired value. The 31-level output voltage is created using four PV sources with a specific ratio. The SPWM is used to control the gating signals for the switches of MLI. The PV system is integrated into the MLI using a boost converter to maximize the power capacity of the solar cells and the Incremental Conductance (IC) algorithm is employed for maximum power point tracking (MPPT) of the PV system. Simulation results of 31-level MLI indicate the THD of voltage and current waveforms are 3.73% within an acceptable range of IEEE standards.
Recently, numerous researches have emphasized the importance of professional inspection and repair in case of suspected faults in Photovoltaic (PV) systems. By leveraging electrical and environmental features, many machine learning models can provide valuable insights into the operational status of PV systems. In this study, different machine learning models for PV fault detection using a simulated 0.25MW PV power system were developed and evaluated. The training and testing datasets encompassed normal operation and various fault scenarios, including string-to-string, on-string, and string-to-ground faults. Multiple electrical and environmental variables were measured and exploited as features, such as current, voltage, power, temperature, and irradiance. Four algorithms (Tree, LDA, SVM, and ANN) were tested using 5-fold cross-validation to identify errors in the PV system. The performance evaluation of the models revealed promising results, with all algorithms demonstrating high accuracy. The Tree and LDA algorithms exhibited the best performance, achieving accuracies of 99.544% on the training data and 98.058% on the testing data. LDA achieved perfect accuracy (100%) on the testing data, while SVM and ANN achieved 95.145% and 89.320% accuracy, respectively. These findings underscore the potential of machine learning algorithms in accurately detecting and classifying various types of PV faults. .