Modelling and design methodology of an improved performance photovoltaic pumping system employing ferrite magnet synchronous reluctance motors

This paper proposes a novel photovoltaic water pumping system (PVWPS) with an improved performance and cost. This system doesn't contain a DC-DC converter, batteries nor rare-earth motors. Removing the aforementioned components will reduce the whole cost and increase the reliability of the system. For enhancing the performance of the PVWPS, a ferrite magnet synchronous reluctance motor (FMSynRM) is employed. Besides, the motor inverter is utilized to drive the motor properly and to extract the maximum available power of the PV system. This is performed using a suggested control strategy that controls the motor inverter. Furthermore, to show the effectiveness of the proposed PVWPS, the performance of the proposed system is benchmarked with a PVWPS that is employing a pure SynRM. Moreover, the complete mathematical model of the system components and the control is reported. It is proved that the flow rate employing the proposed system is increased by about 29.5% at a low irradiation level (0.25 kW/m²) and 15% at a high irradiation level (1 kW/m²) compared to the conventional solar system using a pure synchronous reluctance motor (SynRM). An experimental laboratory test bench is built to validate the theoretical results presented in this research work. Good agreement between the theoretical and the experimental results is proved.