Low-cost solar emulator for evaluation of maximum power point tracking methods

Presented is a design for a solar photovoltaic (PV) emulator optimised for the cost-effective evaluation of solar-array maximum point tracking (MPPT) methods and their associated power converters. The system design and component calculation methodology are reported with a practical comparison of the emulator output with measurements from an actual solar panel. Unlike previous work in this area the output of the emulator is compared with measurement from an actual PV array. The results show good agreement between the characteristics, demonstrating its suitability for the evaluation of static parameter based estimation and dynamic search based MPPT techniques.