An experimental investigation on off-grid solar photovoltaic power system using matrix converter

Abstract

This article investigates the possibility of providing electricity from off grid solar photovoltaic power systems (OGSPVPS) for a remote location without electricity connection in the state of Tamil Nadu. Crucial review of literature disclose that, in the design of a solar photovoltaic power system, matrix converters are not dealt with so far to produce better quality and low distortion power efficiently to the loads. However, cascaded H bridge multilevel inverters are widely used to obtain a stepped sinusoidal output voltage in solar photovoltaic application. In this work, an attempt has been made to design and develop an OGSPVPS by incorporating single phase matrix converters in order to obtain a feasible solution for medium power applications at remote locations. Also, the proposed matrix converter for solar photovoltaic application claim a total harmonic distortion of less than 7%. Finally, simulation results are presented to prove the feasibility and the experimental work was investigated to validate the results. Furthermore, the capability of matrix converters to operate in rectifier mode is presented, thereby substantiating that it can facilitate grid connected solar photovoltaic uninterruptible power supply (UPS) in addition to off-grid system.