One of India's top universities, IIT Guwahati was established with the goal of winning international acclaim for its brilliance in research, education, and innovation as well as to develop the nation's next generation of leaders for the benefit of society as a whole. In continuance with their mission, IIT Guwahati orders Solar PV Training Systems from Ecosense to establish Renewable Energy Lab.
Ecosense’s Solar Photovoltaic Labs provides a holistic learning and training in the field of Solar Photovoltaics. Solar Photovoltaic Lab consists of three products which together covers the entire concepts of Solar PV’s training, installation and research. Ecosense supplied and installed two Solar PV Training and Research Systems at Department of Physics, IIT Guwahati.
Dept of Physics, IIT Guwahati
Ecosense’s Solar PV Training and research system enables user to learn about Solar PV standalone technology. Using this system, a user gains knowledge in three fields of Solar PV Standalone system:
1) Physics of Solar PV Panels — I-V and P-V characteristics, series and parallel connection of solar panels effect of irradiation, effect of temperature, effect of shadow, effect of tilting of panels, effect of geographical location etc.
2) Components and Assembly of standalone system — use of blocking diode, use of bypass diode, use of solar charge controller, use of solar inverter, difference between MPPT and PWM charge controllers, AC load, DC load, battery charging/ discharging characteristics, assembly of several components and power flow calculations in each branch.
3) Research in PV systems — Ecosense separately provides a research unit along with standalone experimental system. User can initiate research in the area of maximum power point tracking using this unit. It has provision of providing automatic as well as manual gate signals to charge controller. User can use his/ her own MPPT algorithm with any of the controller to provide manual gate signals.
As the initial few experiments explain about the system's physics, which is crucial to comprehending the science underlying the system, this approach enables students to acquire the ideas in a step-by-step manner. It improves the user's theoretical understanding of solar PV systems. The components and assembly of a standalone solar PV power plant that results from subsequent experiments teach students about the parts used in a standalone solar PV system, how they are employed, and what size is suitable for an optimally operating off grid solar PV power plant.
After these basic essential experiments students have all the necessary knowledge about Solar PV Standalone system and to further increase their understanding Ecosense’s Solar PV Training and Research system also offers research experiments where an individual can gradually move to a research mindset from technical mindset. These experiments focus on discovering ways to utilize maximum power from a Solar PV standalone system. These experiments help students/users to start thinking from the perspective of research in the field of Solar energy or renewable energy systems.
Dept of Physics, IIT Guwahati
What can one learn using the system
A. Science behind Solar Photovoltaics
• To demonstrate the I-V and P-V characteristics of PV module with varying radiation and temperature level
• To demonstrate the I-V and P-V characteristics of series and parallel combination of PV modules.
• To show the effect of variation in tilt angle on PV module power.
• To demonstrate the effect of shading on module output power.
• To demonstrate the working of diode as Bypass diode and blocking diode.
B. Standalone Photovoltaic Systems
• Workout power flow calculations of standalone PV system of DC load with battery.
• Workout power flow calculations of standalone PV system of AC load with battery.
• Workout power flow calculations of standalone PV system of DC and AC load with battery.
• To draw the charging and discharging characteristics of battery.
C. Research based Experiments
• Find the MPP manually by varying the resistive load across the PV panel.
• Find the MPP by varying the duty cycle of DC-DC converter.
• Observe the Vm, Im, Pm and duty cycle at which MPP occurs, with MPP algorithm.
• Observe the response of Pm in the plotter and compare with the Pm observed in previous experiment
• Perform the previous three Experiment with only battery in the circuit.
• Observe the output waveform of the inverter in auto mode.
Technical Advantages of the Solar PV Training and Research System
• An active measurement panel to measure different voltages, currents and temperature.
• User can vary Irradiation to simulate sunlight conditions during the day which further affects the temperature of Solar Panel to study I-V and P-V characteristics under varying irradiation and temperature.
• Series and Parallel Combination of Solar Panels possible.
• Arrangement to tilt solar panels to study the effect of Tilt angle on PV module Power.
• Shading blades are provided to study the effect of shading on Solar PV.
• No connections are made internally to encourage user to learn connecting different components together in order to install a standalone Solar PV standalone power plant.
• Workout power flow calculations of Standalone PV power plant using charge controller, inverter, AC /Dc load and Battery.
• Option to provide external gate signals to charge controller via Function generator to study effect of change in Duty Cycle of charge controller on PV Power.
• User can externally feed MPPT signal to study effect of MPPT algorithm on PV Power.
• User can use his/her own MPPT algorithm to study the effect of MPPT algorithm on PV Power
• User can plot Real time PV, IV, V vs time, P vs Time, I vs Time curves using proprietary PC Software.
• Perturb and Observe MPPT Algorithm
• IP 65 protected PV Panels
• Equipped with Handheld Solar Insolation measuring instrument
• Equipped with an angle measurement instrument
• Data can be saved in csv format
• Graphs can be saved in image format
Dept of Physics, IIT Guwahati
Demonstration of Equipment Conducted
After Successful installation of equipments, complete demonstration of equipment conducted. The demonstration and training session was joined by faculty members and students of the department.