Development of a LabVIEW-based test facility for standalone PV systems

To quantify the potential for performance improvement of a standalone photovoltaic (PV) system, a test facility has been installed. This paper describes this development of a prototype standalone PV system. Essentially this entire system involves the integration of a Personal computer (PC), Data Acquisition (DAQ), a battery array and a solar array simulator (SAS) to create a standalone PV system and to test and simulate the system. This new system boasts of high accuracy measurements coupled with the commercial viability of low cost. The basic idea of this facility is that the SAS simulates solar power which is utilized to charge batteries. The information obtained by monitoring parameters, such as average battery's temperature, voltage and current is fed to the PC via the DAQ for analysis. This customized control interface has been developed by utilizing LabVIEW software, which forms the programming backbone of inter-instrument communication via IEEE-GPIB bus. The software created for this system is highly generic and can be used for other instances where different hardware is used. This paper also discussed further research plan, in utilizing this standalone PV system to perform load analysis and batteries charging or discharging with the inputs to the SAS with actual meteorological data obtained from the Malaysian meteorological department.