Photovoltaic emulator based on PV simulator RT implementation using XSG tools for an FPGA control: Theory and experimentation

This paper presents an efficient field-programmable gate array (FPGA) implementation method for a photovoltaic (PV) simulator based on two-diode model applied to control a PV emulator. The hardware set up allows to repeat the real PV system behavior in the laboratory regardless of external climatic conditions change. The proposed approach has been designed through Xilinx System Generator (XSG) tools and MATLAB/Simulink environment and verified across cosimulation method. A real-time test bench is built based on the implemented PV simulator with a closed loop control using proportional integral (PI) regulator, a direct current/direct current (DC/DC) buck converter and a resistive load. Experimental results are in agreement compared with simulation ones and prove the high accuracy and efficiency of the proposed implementation method for allowing a good emulation of PV characteristics. From some experiments, the development of PV emulator constitutes an important challenge task in the PV energy field.