The Advantages of Using Saturable DC Series Motors Fed from Solar Photovoltaic Arrays

This paper presents a method for increasing the daily output mechanical energy supplied by DC motors directly connected to solar cell arrays (SCA). Without any interfacing circuitry between the PV-array and the DC series motor, an increase of about 10% in the mechanical energy can be achieved. The procedure is based on the use of series DC motors with nonlinear magnetic circuits so that these motors will be driven into their saturation region during their normal operation. It will be shown that through properly selecting the parameters of the motor’s magnetization characteristics (initial mutual inductance and the flux saturation level), an improved matching between the PV-array and the DC motor will be possible.