Design of SRM driven BESS based PV powered water pumping system

The paper intends to design a stand-alone, self-sufficient, reliable and efficient water pumping system employing a switched reluctance motor (SRM) drive. The proposed topology of SRM-pump drive is powered by the photovoltaic (PV) array and assisted by the battery energy storage system (BESS) which enables for a PV-battery hybrid system capable of pumping rated volume of water continuously throughout the day irrespective of variations in the solar energy availability. The bidirectional buck-boost DC-DC converter is designed to maintain DC link voltage at a desired value to control the power flow throughout the system. An incremental conductance (IC) maximum power point transfer (MPPT) control algorithm, used primarily for power optimization of the PV array, is executed using a boost converter. The fundamental switching of the mid-point converter used for phase commutation of the SRM drive reduces the losses in the drive and increases the efficiency of the proposed system. Self-starting of the motor is achieved through a speed feedback controlled gating scheme for the phase commutation of the SRM. Soft starting of the SRM is realized through advanced angle control and IC algorithm. The torque ripple minimization of the SRM drive is obtained by optimizing the turn-on and turn-off angles. The proposed system is modeled in MATLAB and is analyzed under varying environmental conditions. The attained results substantiate its utility and worthiness as an effective water pumping system.