Solar Photovoltaic Array Dependent Dual Output Converter Based Water Pumping Using Switched Reluctance Motor Drive

This paper aims at the design and development of an efficient photovoltaic (PV) array powered switched reluctance motor (SRM) driven pump utilizing a dual supply buck–boost converter. The buck–boost converter, having dual supply, is used as an intermediate dc–dc power conditioning stage between PV array and SRM-pump. To optimize the power of the PV array and to provide soft starting to the SRM drive are the two major concerns of this converter. It also provides voltage balancing of split capacitors, owing to which there is considerable reduction in torque ripple and the required size of it. Moreover, the continuous conduction mode operation of dual supply dc–dc converter minimizes current and voltage stresses on converter indices and reduced electromagnetic interference. The electronic commutation of the SRM drive at fundamental frequency offers reduced switching losses in the midpoint converter and, therefore, considerable enhancement in the efficiency of the proposed system. A dwell angle self-starting control algorithm for a four-phase 8/6 SRM is also implemented in the proposed system. A prototype is developed in the laboratory to validate the performance of the proposed system in different environmental conditions.