Effective In-Laboratory Test Method of Power Generation from PV Modules

Abstract

A photovoltaic (PV) system requires outdoor experiments to validate system functionality and reliability. However, the outdoor experiments of the PV system require complicated set-ups for installing PV panels, and their results can be easily affected by the environmental conditions such as weather and season. Recently, a PV emulation method has been proposed, which can emulate the PV characteristics in laboratory by connecting a DC supply to PV modules in parallel. However, the voltage characteristics of the conventional PV emulator differs from the real PV panels, which induces accuracy issues. This paper proposes a novel PV emulation method with accuracy improvements at the maximum power point (MPP) of the PV panel. Using the proposed PV emulation method, the performance verification of recent PV power conversion technologies, such as differential power processing (DPP) applications, can be accurately achieved. The proposed emulation method of the PV power generation is verified with outdoor experiments and the conventional emulation method.