Special Issue - 2021 International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT)

ISSN: 2278-0181
NCREIS - 2021 Conference Proceedings

Solar Water Pump using BLDC Motor Drive with

High Gain DC-DC Converter
Kavya Pramod M Elizabeth Cherian
Dept. of Electrical and Electronics Engineering Dept. of Electrical and Electronics Engineering
Government Engineering College Government Engineering College
Bartonhill, Thiruvananthapuram, India Bartonhill, Thiruvananthapuram, India

Abstract— This paper proposes a simple solar photovoltaic Although conventional boost converter, Single Ended Primary
(PV) fed water pump using a high gain step-up DC-DC converter. Inductor Converter(SEPIC), buck-boost converter , cuk
An energy-efficient brushless DC (BLDC) motor is used to drive converter etc. are used for many applications, low gain and
the water pump. As the low voltage obtained from solar panel is poor efficiency are the major drawbacks of these
inadequate for driving the motor pump, the system is
incorporated with a novel high gain DC-DC converter to step up
converters[5][6].
the voltage. The maximum power from the solar PV array is Recently, several high voltage gain DC-DC converters
extracted by adjusting the duty ratio of the step-up DC-DC have been proposed which use passive elements in boosting
converter. To control the duty ratio, an incremental conductance stages. A High Frequency Transformer is utilized in isolated
(INC) based maximum power point tracking (MPPT) control DC-DC converter to boost the input voltage by varying its
technique is used. The proposed system eliminates the turns ratio[7]. But isolated DC-DC converters have high input
requirement of complex speed control methods. Constant speed current ripple and high voltage stress on the secondary side. In
of the motor is achieved by maintaining DC link voltage at a addition, large size of transformer and multistage power
constant value. The MATLAB/Simulink-based simulations are conversion process are also the shortcomings of these
carried out to validate the efficacy of the system.
converters. Non-isolated high gain DC-DC converters with
Keywords— Solar photovoltaic; Step-up DC-DC converter; compact size and high efficiency are utilized as an alternative
BLDC; MPPT. for PV application. Various high gain converters are proposed
in [8][9] for solar PV applications which use voltage lifting
I. INTRODUCTION techniques such as cascading, interleaving etc. In reference
Diminishing conventional energy resources creates a large [10], the converter is provided with several number of voltage
gap between energy required and supplied. Climatic changes, multiplier cells eventhough, it has low voltage gain. A high
depleting fossil fuels, increasing carbon footprint and global gain DC-DC converter with Switched inductors and capacitors
warming have led to the use of green energy. Among the green is presented in [11]. But this converter has higher component
energy sources, solar power has become the recent trend on count and hence the conduction and switching losses are
account of its inexhaustible nature, cleanness, cost free and higher and efficiency is found to decrease with increase in
ease of availability [1]. In a country like India, groundwater number of components due to the effect of uncontrolled
irrigation has been expanding at a very rapid pace. India uses diodes. In [12] an active network based high gain DC-DC
more than 18 million grid tied pumps and 8 million diesel converter is proposed. This converter attains high gain but with
operated pump sets for agriculture[2]. But high running cost is a pulsating input current. The converter is controlled with two
the major problem addressed. Solar pumps are the attractive switches and makes the system more complex and less
alternative where grid electricity is unavailable and other efficient. Moreover, discontinuous input current is also a
sources are very expensive. Multiple configurations of both drawback of the circuit.
AC and DC solar powered pumps are available in the market. A solar water pump using a high gain step-up DC-DC
Solar powered AC pumps require high capacity PV panel and converter with single switch is proposed in this paper.
suffer from poor efficiency[3]. Solar powered DC pumps are Proposed converter is designed to provide high gain with lesser
considered to be more suitable than AC pumps due to the high number of components. As the converter possesses only one
efficiency and wide operating ranges. Because of its high
efficiency, low maintenance cost, better speed-torque
characteristics, low electromagnetic interference issues BLDC
motor is found to be more suitable to be operated with solar
DC power. Moreover when comparing DC and AC pumps for
a given capacity of solar panel, it is found that BLDC motor-
pump has higher water output[4].
The size of the solar panel is directly dependent on rating
of the motor, the quantity of water that is required and the solar
irradiance available. As PV panel makeup most of the system
cost, a DC-DC converter with MPPT is usually incorporated
to boost the low voltage generated from the solar panel.

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Special Issue - 2021 International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT)
ISSN: 2278-0181
NCREIS - 2021 Conference Proceedings

Figure 1: Schematic diagram of solar water pumping system with proposed DC-DC converter

switch, the control circuit is simple and easy. The converter shaft of the motor senses the position of rotor and feeds the
boosts the input solar voltage to the required dc voltage for the signal back to the controller which generates the gating signals
effective operation of the BLDC motor. The maximum power to the VSI switches. Thus the BLDC motor which is coupled
from the PV cell is extracted by using MPPT to the water pump rotates.
technique[13][14]. The water pumping system with the III. HIGH GAIN STEP-UP DC-DC CONVERTER
proposed converter is designed, modeled and analyzed by
simulation. A new topology of high gain step-up DC-DC
The remaining sections of the paper are organized follows. converter as shown in Fig.2 is used in this system.
Section II gives the proposed water pumping system. In section
III the operating principle of DC-DC converter is discussed. In The converter circuit consists of only one inductor(L), three
section IV the design of the solar PV array and the DC-DC diodes (D1 , D2 , D3 ) and three capacitors(C1 ,C2 ,C3 ) which are
converter are presented. Section V discusses the simulation
results and section VI gives the conclusion and future scope.
II. PROPOSED SYSTEM
A. System Configuration
The topology of the proposed solar fed water pump driven
by BLDC motor using a high gain step-up DC-DC converter
is presented in Fig.1. This system consists of solar PV array, a
high gain step-up DC-DC converter, a three phase VSI[15], a
BLDC motor and a water pump. The PV array feeds the BLDC
motor through the step-up DC-DC converter and VSI. PV
array consist of suitable number of series and parallel
connected solar PV modules. The step-up DC-DC converter Figure 2: Proposed high gain step-up DC-DC converter
carries out the MPPT of PV array. The VSI performs the
electronic commutation of the BLDC motor. The merit of this controlled by a single switch(S). It works on Continuous
system is that the high gain of the proposed boost converter is Conduction Mode (CCM). Initially capacitors C1 and C2 are
achieved with lesser number of components than the existing assumed to be in charged condition. When switch is ON diodes
high gain boost converters. D1 , D2 are reverse biased and diode D3 is forward biased.
B. Operating Principle Inductor (L) charges and capacitor C1 , C2 discharges to output
The solar PV is the power source to the whole system. The capacitor C𝑜 . When switch is OFF diode D1 and D2 are forward
maximum power from the solar PV panel is extracted by using biased and diode D3 is reverse biased. Inductor discharges,
INC MPPT technique which decides the duty ratio of the DC- capacitors C1 , C2 charges and C𝑜 discharges.
DC converter. The low voltage from the solar panel is boosted The prominent feature of the proposed converter is that, the
by using high gain DC-DC converter. The output of step-up number of elements in the path of the current at any interval of
converter is the required DC link voltage, which serves as the time is small which results in decreased power loss during
input DC voltage to VSI. The VSI feeds power to the BLDC conduction and hence increased efficiency. The use of single
motor. Inbuilt hall effect sensors which are attached on the switch in the converter circuit makes the control simple and

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Special Issue - 2021 International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT)
ISSN: 2278-0181
NCREIS - 2021 Conference Proceedings

manageable. Inductor and capacitors serve as the voltage I0 (1 − D)

C0 = (9)
boosting elements. fS ΔV0
IV. SYSTEM DESIGN
From equation (4), the gain of the converter is found to be
A. Design of solar PV array higher than the gain of existing high gain converters[6][10].
The solar panel is selected in view of the input power of The parameters designed are shown in Table I.
the BLDC motor including the power loss associated with
converter and motor (approximately 10%). A commercially TABLE I. DESIGN PARAMETERS
available 4 pole, 1.3 kW BLDC motor which has a rated speed
of 3000 rpm is selected to run the water pump. Hence, to drive Parameters Values
the selected BLDC motor a 1.5 kW peak solar PV array is SPV array voltage at MPP 100 V
selected. A PV module having MPP voltage of 28.5V and SPV array current at MPP 15 A
current of 7.5 A under standard test condition(1000 𝑊/𝑚2 , SPV array power at MPP 1.5 kW
25°C) is selected to acquire the desired capacity. The number
of series and parallel modules required are calculated by Motor capacity 1.3 kW

selecting solar PV array voltage at MPP as 100 V. Number of poles 4

The solar PV array current at MPP is[16], Speed 3000 rpm
Stator resistance 3.58 Ω
Power at MPP
IMPP = (1) Stator inductance 9.13mH
Voltage at MPP Voltage constant 68 V/krpm
Number of modules in series,
VMPP Switching frequency 10kHz
NS = (2) Inductor 2 mH
vm
where 𝑉𝑀𝑃𝑃 and 𝑣𝑚 are the MPP voltage of solar array and Capacitor C1, C2 200 𝜇F
module. Capacitor Co 1000 𝜇𝐹
Number of modules in parallel,
IMPP
NP = (3) V. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
im
where 𝐼𝑀𝑃𝑃 and 𝑖𝑚 are the MPP current of a solar array and
module. An analysis of the proposed system based on simulation is
B. Design of High Gain Step-Up DC-DC Converter performed to check the effectiveness and performance.The
The step-up DC-DC converter is designed to provide an results showing the performance of the solar PV panel, DC-
output of 270 V. During CCM the voltage gain of the converter DC converter and BLDC motor are given in Fig.3 and 4.
is expressed as,
A. Performance of DC-DC Converter
V0 2 The performance characteristics of the DC-DC converter
= (4) under standard testing condition is shown in Fig.3. Fig.3(a)
Vin 1 − D
shows the standard solar irradiance of 1000 𝑊/𝑚2 at the
standard temperature of 25°C. Fig.3(b) shows the voltage
where 𝑉𝑖𝑛 is the input voltage and 𝑉0 is the output voltage.
output (100V) of the solar panel which is the input to the
And the ratio of current is given by,
converter. The PV output current is shown in Fig.3(c). The
I0 1−D
= (5) step-up converter boosts the input voltage to 270 V as shown
Iin 2
where 𝐼𝑖𝑛 is the input current and 𝐼𝑜 is the output current.
The duty ratio is estimated as,
V0 − 2Vin
D= (6)
V0

The inductor L is given by,

D(1 − D)2 R
Lmin = (7)
4(1+D)fS

where 𝑓𝑠 is the switching frequency.

The value of capacitor is estimated as,

2Vin
C1 =C2 = (8)
(1 − D)RfS ΔVC
Figure 3: PV and converter characteristics: (a) solar irradiance (b) PV output
The value of output capacitor is estimated as, voltage (c) PV output current (d) converter output voltage (e) converter output
current.

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 Special Issue - 2021 International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT)
ISSN: 2278-0181
NCREIS - 2021 Conference Proceedings

in Fig.3(d) and the output current of the converter is shown in generation is the major drawback of PV panel. Hence as a
Fig.3(e). future scope the performance of the system can be enhanced
by providing a backup in the form of battery or utility grid so
as to meet the continuous demand irrespective of weather
conditions.
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