In a typical solar photovoltaic (PV) system, a solar photovoltaic array is used to generate electricity and a DC/DC converter is used to boost the voltage. The maximum power point tracker (MPPT) is used to make the photovoltaic array work at the maximum power extraction point in the power voltage characteristics of the photovoltaic array. There is a grid-connected inverter for DC/AC conversion and an output voltage controller to maintain synchronization with the grid. In addition to this, the output filter at the terminals of the grid-connected inverter and the DC link capacitor on the DC bus must be designed to filter out the higher harmonics generated by the switching of the inverter.
Photovoltaic panel selection
Photovoltaic arrays consist of photovoltaic modules connected in series or parallel, each module consisting of individual solar cells connected in series. A typical arrangement of a solar photovoltaic array is shown in the figure
MATLAB Simulink has a PV panel model that includes a library of commercial solar PV panels. It includes nameplate data and PV characteristics for irradiance and temperature variations. For this design, we chose the Canadian solar (CS6X-310P) model, and it has a wide range of output voltages. The main features of this module are shown in the table below
PV string size calculation
Maximum module voltage corrected for lowest ambient temperature in the field.