Photovoltaic emulator using particle swarm optimization

Abstract

The photovoltaic (PV) emulator (PVE) is a specialized power supply that generates the same output as the PV module. However, the conventional control strategy called the direct referencing method (DRM) used for the PVE has oscillation problem. The problem is caused by the dependency of the DRM on the external components to compute the operating point. This problem can be overcome if the operating point is computed internally. This paper proposed a control strategy that compute the operating point internally using the particle swarm optimization (PSO). The resistance comparison method is chosen to implement the PSO into the PVE. The proposed PVE is compared with the conventional PVE that uses the DRM control strategy. Both PVEs use the similar buck converter, proportional-integral controller, and single diode model for a fair comparison. The result shows that the proposed PVE has no lower oscillation and higher accuracy when compared to the conventional PVE.