Connecting Solar Cells to electrical circuits designed with
blocks from SimPowerSystemslibrary10 CommentsPosted byYu Ang
TanonOctober 31, 2011Here is a good article for researchers who
deal with Solar Cells in the Simulink environment.A common
situation that solar cell researchers face is they typically design
electrical power systems (e.g RLC Circuits) with blocks from the
SimPowerSystems library, and then would like to connect the Solar
cell block to this circuitry (see figure 1).
Figure 1 Circuitry designed in SimPowerSystems domain, and User
wants to replace DC Voltage Source with a Solar Cell block.However,
as intuitive as figure 1 may seem to be, this method is not
possible. This is because the solar cell block is obtained from
another library and is considered as a member of the family of
another domain (SimElectronics). Therefore, when the researcher
tries to connect this block to the circuitry, hell find that
Simulink does not allow the connection.The tipHeres the tip on how
to connect the Solar Cell block to a circuitry designed with
SimPowerSystems. Listed below are the steps in sequence, where each
of it is assisted by a diagram.1. Connect a current sensor
block(Simscape>Foundation Library>Electrical>Electrical
Sensors)to the Solar Cell block. This block measures the current
and outputs a physical signal which will be fed to the
SimPowerSystems domain later.
1. Connect a PS Constant block(Simscape>Foundation
Library>Physical Signals>Sources)to specify the irradiance
value(Light Intensity in W/m2)that falls onto the Solar Cell. Plug
in the Solver Configuration block(Simscape>Utilities)to specify
the solver parameters that is needed by the model for
simulation.
1. Connect an Electrical reference block(Simscape>Foundation
Library>Electrical>Electrical Elements)to represent
electrical grounding for the circuit.
1. Connect a PS-Simulink Converter
block(Simscape>Utilities)to convert the physical signal to a
Simulink signal.
1. Finally, connect a Controlled Current Source block from the
SimPowerSystems library(SimPowerSystems/Electrical Sources)to
convert the Simulink input Signal to an equivalent current signal
in SimPowerSystems.
With this final step, the connection between the Solar Cell and
SimPowerSystems has actually been established. The circuit with the
solar cell can then be interfaced with the SimPowerSystem circuit
as shown in figure 2.
Figure 2 Connection between Solar Cell and Circuits in
SimPowerSystemsConclusionThats the tip to interface the Solar Cell
block to the SimPowerSystem domain. Hopefully you will find it
useful in your research and development. Happy Working!