Development Of A DC To DC Buck Converter For Photovoltaic Application Utilizing Peripheral Interface Controller

• Main Authors: Abd Ghani, Zamre, Kamit, Kamarudin, Zeain, Mohammed Yousif, Zakaria, Zahriladha, Azidin, Farid Arafat, Ab Hadi, Nik Azran, Mohd Isira, Ahmad Sadhiqin, Othman, Hidayatulfathi, Lago, Herwansyah
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Asian Research Publishing Network (ARPN) 2019
• Subjects: T Technology (General); TK Electrical engineering. Electronics Nuclear engineering
• Online Access: http://eprints.utem.edu.my/id/eprint/24059/2/published%20paper%20ARPN.pdf; http://eprints.utem.edu.my/id/eprint/24059/; http://www.arpnjournals.org/jeas/research_papers/rp_2019/jeas_0419_7684.pdf

Nowadays, renewable energy has become one of the important energy resources in our daily lives. One of the important and promising renewable energy resource today is the photovoltaic (PV). However, weather changes contribute to the PV output power fluctuations. Thus, for a PV-related system, a closed-loop control system is necessary for ensuring the system produces a regulated dc output voltage. This paper presents the development of PIC16F877A microcontroller-based dc to dc buck converter. This converter steps down a dc voltage source to a specific voltage which suitable for other specific applications. For the PV output voltage fluctuating from 18V to 12V, the microcontroller generates a pulse-width modulation (PWM) signal accordingly to control the converter switching device MOSFET IRF540, thus regulating the converter output voltage to 12V. The system simulation was carried out in the PROTEUS ISIS Professional software tool. Due to the unavailability of the PV device in this simulation software, a dc voltage source is utilized. This voltage source is varied to emulate the PV output variations. The simulation results show that the controller managed to step-down the voltage source and regulated at 11.98Vdc. The prototype was built and tested in a laboratory for validation. Due to the constrains and limitations of the PV module, an adjustable power supply was used to provide variation of input voltage levels for the buck converter. The experiment results also show that the output voltage is managed to be regulated at 12V. The results signify the efficacy of developed converter control system algorithm.