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LabVIEW based monitoring system applied for PV power station

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 Proceedings of the 12th WSEAS International Conference on AUTOMATIC CONTROL, MODELLING & SIMULATION

LabVIEW Based Monitoring System Applied for PV Power Station

1,2 1 3 4
MOHAMED ZAHRAN , YOUSRY ATIA , ABDULLAH AL-HUSSAIN & IHAB EL-SAYED

1. Electronics Research Institute, PV Dept., El-Tahrir St., Dokki, 12311-Giza, EGYPT, [email protected]
2. Jazan University, Faculty of Engineering, Electrical Engineering Dept, KSA: [email protected]
3. Jazan University, Dean of Faculty of Science, KING SAUDI ARABIA: [email protected]
4. Jazan University, Faculty of Engineering, Industrial Engineering Dept, KSA: [email protected]

Abstract: -The monitoring system in photovoltaic (PV) power plants is very important and urgent in some cases
for analyzing, troubleshooting and in decision making issues. This paper proposes very simple, low cost, high
reliability, and high precision PV monitoring system. The proposed system is composed of a laptop connected to
very cheap microcontroller board via serial cable. All the sensors and actuators are emulated in a prototype board
that interfaced to the microcontroller system. A graphical user interface (GUI) program is developed in LabVIEW
to monitor all the collected data in the laptop monitor and controls the system actuators via the microcontroller.
An assembly program is written on the microcontroller board to scan and acquire all required data from sensors,
transfer it to laptop for monitoring and then storing it for PV system documentation. The experimental results
show that the proposed monitoring system is very robust and the control signals are very accurate. The system is
very reliable, precise, cheap and more flexible for use in large scale photovoltaic power plant monitoring.

Key words; solar cell model, monitoring system, LabVIEW, PV power station, sensors and actuators

1. Introduction and may be used in system monitoring, control, or data

In large scale PV power station, a monitoring and control logger issues. These instruments such as current and
system is necessary to monitor and control the system voltage sensors, state of charge (SOC) sensor for the
operation. The PV power station is often consists of battery bank, pyranometer, and temperature sensor
photovoltaic array strings, storage batteries bank, power combined in single system capable of acquiring
conditioning unit and electrical loads appliances. In the measurements from all data sources placed on-line. In the
operation of such station especially with large size proposed system, the advantages of NI software in
(kilowatt or megawatt scales), the system performance combined with the robust, reliable and more cost effective
should be carefully monitored and a proper decision must microcontroller to present a more cheap system for PV
be taken in time. The monitoring system for PV power power stations applications. The system also maintains an
station is very important to analyze, examine and decision extensive database of minute-by-minute data for
making issues [1-4]. For example, if one cell or branch of subsequent retrieval and analysis, and regularly updates
cells in one module is shadowed, broken, or have a hourly, daily, and monthly summary performance graphs.
problem, a hot-spot phenomena will be occurred and the
PV cell or module may be damaged. It also reduces the 2. Proposed PV System Description
overall system efficiency. So that a warning alarm should The proposed PV system is composed of eight PV strings,
be draw the operator attention to make a decision to battery bank, battery operation control unit and an
remove or repair that fault. The role of monitoring system electrical load appliance. A multiple sensors and actuators
is to discover such drawbacks and inform the operator by are placed in different locations in the system to monitor
the type and location of the failure to take decision or act a and control the system operation as shown in Figure 1.
fault tolerant system if the monitored hardware is
supported. In this paper, a proposed monitoring and 3. Proposed Control and Monitoring System
control system is designed and implemented for such PV Description
power stations based on LabVIEW software and As shown in Fig.1 and Fig.2, the monitoring system
microcontroller interfacing. In this work, integrating contains sensors and actuators to monitor and control of
several types of instruments make the system very popular the system operation. All the sensors are attached to the

ISSN: 1790-5117 65 ISBN: 978-954-92600-1-4

 Proceedings of the 12th WSEAS International Conference on AUTOMATIC CONTROL, MODELLING & SIMULATION

analog to digital converter (ADC) of the microcontroller   kT / q

unit via analog multiplexer. The collected data has two q is the charge of an electron (coul)
functions; monitoring and control. The output control k is the Boltzman constant (j/K)
signals outs from the microcontroller and go to the T is the cell temperature (K)
actuator to operate (ON or OFF) in order to control the I, V, are cell current (A), voltage (V),
system operation. The various sensors in the system are: Rs, Rsh series and shunt resistance (Ohms).
A: Current Sensors for;
 PV strings (IS_1 to IS_8), Solar array are constructed from a series and parallel
 summation of the PV strings currents (IPV), combination of solar cells. The solar array model is
 battery bank current (IB), and simulated at different insolation levels and STC as [5]. The
 Load current (IL). results of simulation are presented in Figure 3
B: System voltage sensors for;
 PV output voltage (VSA), and
 Load terminal voltage (VL).
C: Pyranometer (Sun insolation sensor); (Insol).
D: Cell surface temperature sensor (Temp).
Actuators as shown in Fig.1 are placed in distributed
places to control the system operation as:
 Contactor in each string output terminal (S1 to S8)
to control the current flow from that branch (ON-
OFF).
 Contactor at the PV system output terminal (SP).
 Contactor at the battery bank (SB) output terminal Figure 1, Proposed PV system connection.
to control the flow of the battery current (charging,
discharging, or OFF state).
 Contactor at the load input terminal (SL).
All the sensors are connected to analog multiplexer and
then to the ADC of the microcontroller. The
microcontroller collects the data and transmits it to the PC
via serial interfacing cable.

The LabVIEW program in the PC is built to receive the

data from the microcontroller unit and manipulate it to
display on the computer monitor and to control the system Figure 2, Proposed PV monitoring system
operation.
4.2. Modeling of Storage Battery
4. Proposed System Modeling Another important element of solar array photovoltaic
system (SAPV) is the battery. The battery is necessary in
4.1. Modeling of PV Array such a system because of the fluctuating nature of the
The PV array model that is widely used is the one-diode output delivered by the PV arrays. Thus, during the hours
model and is referred in subsystems with a specific of sunshine, the PV system feeds directly the load and the
number of cells in series and/or parallel. The relationship excess electrical energy is stored in the battery. During the
between current and voltage for one cell is given by [2]: night, or during a period with low solar irradiation, energy
is supplied to the load from the battery [6].
  V  IRS 
   
 V  I RS
I  I SC  I O e    1  Eq. 1 The battery storage may be modeled in different ways.

 
 R sh Due to the fact that a battery is an electrochemical device
Where: with rather complex behavior it is not easy to represent
precisely. Two different types of model suited to lead acid
Isc is the short-circuit value of light-generated
current batteries may be considered depending on the accuracy
and properties [4]:
Io is the dark saturation current

ISSN: 1790-5117 66 ISBN: 978-954-92600-1-4

 Proceedings of the 12th WSEAS International Conference on AUTOMATIC CONTROL, MODELLING & SIMULATION

i) Energy transfer model, ii) Simulation model  Q 

E  Es – K   I b - N .I b Eq. 3
 Q - I b .t 
Where:
 E is the battery voltage,
 Es is a constant potential,
 K is the coefficient of polarization per unit of current
density,
 Q is the amount of active material available per unit
of electrode area,
(a) (b)  Ib is the apparent current density, assumed constant
Figure 3, I-V and P-V curves at different insolation level during the discharge,
for (a) one solar array string, and (b) the global system.  t is the time elapsed since the start of discharge, and
Both models are used in this paper. The internal resistance  N is the internal resistance per unit area.
of a battery stack is determined experimentally in three
cases of the battery SOC; minimum SOC, medium SOC 5. System Implementation
and maximum SOC in Ref. [3]. The results of 5.1. Hardware Implementation
experimental test are summarized in Table 1. The microcontroller board is interfaced to the laptop
computer via serial interface. The sensors and actuators are
Table 1, battery stack parameters at different SOC’s emulated using a prototype board. All the interfacing
Item SOCmin SOCmed SOCmax circuit is built in that board to emulate the system
ES(V) 48.44 50.32 52.00 operation. Figure 4 shows the microcontroller board, the
VS(V) 47.28(disch) 48.28(disch) 52.68 (ch) interfacing and the emulating circuit. The LED’s show the
Ich(A) 6.23 6.27 1.35 switched ON and OFF solar arrays. Interfacing cables with
computer and power supply are also illustrated.
Rb() 0.186 0.3252 0.504
5.1.1. The microcontroller board
The different loading currents of the PV array and the The ATMRGA16 microcontroller has the following
storage battery at different operating conditions are used to features:
estimate the system operation performance [3, 7]. Lead  High-performance, Low-power AVR 8-bit
Acid batteries dynamic model is presented in many Microcontroller
references [8-11]. At the end of charging/discharging  Advanced RISC Architecture
cycle, the battery SOC can be calculated using following  High Endurance Non-volatile Memory segments
equation,  32 Programmable I/O Lines
 [I *T - (I C *TC )*C ]   0 - 16 MHz for ATmega16
SOC  SOC max –  D D  Eq. 2  Two 8-bit Timer/Counters and One 16-bit
 C BAT  Timer/Counter.
Where:  Real Time Counter with Separate Oscillator
 ID is the battery discharge current in Amperes,  Four PWM Channels
 TD is the discharge interval in hours,  8-channel, 10-bit ADC
 IC is the battery charge current in Amperes,  Byte-oriented Two-wire Serial Interface
 TC is the charge interval in hours, and  Programmable Serial USART
 C BAT is the battery capacity in Ah.  Master/Slave SPI Serial Interface
 c is charging efficiency is assumed as 80%  On-chip Analog Comparator
 External and Internal Interrupt Sources
The battery voltage model is given by the following
 Low Power Consumption.
equation:
All these features make the microcontroller board very
suitable, cheep and high performance solution for the
monitoring system.

ISSN: 1790-5117 67 ISBN: 978-954-92600-1-4

 Proceedings of the 12th WSEAS International Conference on AUTOMATIC CONTROL, MODELLING & SIMULATION

cheap device and works with a very extensive way to

collect system data, transfer these data to the computer,
and to receive the operation commands from the computer
and execute it. It is attached to the analog sensors via
analog multiplexer and collects the sensors data
periodically. The flowchart of the microcontroller is shown
in Fig.6. The algorithm starts with microcontroller
peripheral initialization, then it begins scanning of the
various sensors reading and storing in its RAM and
transmits this data to the computer via the serial
interfacing.

6. Monitoring system block diagram

Figure 4, Emulator board and Computer Interfacing.
Figure 6 shows the monitoring system block diagram. In
5.2. Software Implementation the top section of the block diagram, the serial interface
There are two software algorithms are built in this work; and the analog sensors of the PV station different variables
one for the laptop that is the LabVIEW graphical user mentioned above are realized. In the middle of block
interfacing (GUI). The second is the microcontroller diagram, the mathematical and logical operations are
interfacing and data logger program. The integration of the implemented in the LabVIEW math-script module; the
two algorithms gives the system more robustness and digital interface also is presented. While in the bottom of
flexibility than one algorithm. The microcontroller the block diagram, the current sensors of the individual PV
program is written with assembly language, whereas the array strings are realized.
laptop program is written by LabVIEW software package.
5.2.1. System logical control flow chart
Figure 5 shows the flowchart of the control algorithm of
the system. The system starts with reading the operating
sensors and actuator states, and then checks the battery
current (charging or discharging).
Start
1

Read: ISA, IB, VB, SOC,

VSA, VL, Insol., Temp,
IS-1, IS-2, IS-3, IS-4,
IS-5, IS-6, IS-7, IS-8,

+ve Charge IB -ve Discharge

+/- ?

Get: SOC & IBd Get SOC

NO SOC >= YES YES SOC <= NO

Max ? Min ?
Figure 6, Microcontroller program for data acquisition and
D = ISA - IL
packing flowchart.
Any
All SA’s YES NO YES
D > IS-1 SA’s
ON ?

NO IS-J <=0
YES
OFF
NO The logical and control routines are implemented in the
NO

YES
math script module as shown in Figure 7. All the data are
Turn ON one
Message
section J
Turn OFF
one SA
Turn OFF Turn ON
collected by the microcontroller unit and transferred to the
SA section Load all SA’s
failed section
laptop via a serial cable. In the laptop LabVIEW program,
processing is occurred on those data for monitoring and
1
data saving for system documentation. Also if there is a
Figure 5, Logical block diagram.
problem, an action is taken to remove or repair that
problem. The interface board is designed and implemented
5.2.2. Microcontroller algorithm flowchart using ATMEL microcontroller ATMega16 board. An
The microcontroller's job in the system is a data logger analog multiplexer is added to handle the multiple analog
device and a control circuit. The microcontroller is an 8-bit signals. A digital indicator is added to show which PV

ISSN: 1790-5117 68 ISBN: 978-954-92600-1-4

 Proceedings of the 12th WSEAS International Conference on AUTOMATIC CONTROL, MODELLING & SIMULATION

string is connected and which is disconnected; this

indicator is transmitted to the laptop and presented in the
front panel with the other indicators for easy monitoring of
the system performances in one show.

Figure 8, Mode 1: Sunny period (ISA is excellent), SA powering

the load, charging the batteries, and some of SA strings are OFF.

Figure 7, Monitoring System for PV Power Station Block

Diagram.

7. System Operation and Experimental Results

The proposed system is experimentally tested in very
large number of modes and states. All modes of operation
gave the expected response from it. Selected states of
operations can be summarized in the following modes:
Figure 9, Mode 2:, Sunny periods and battery SOC is medium,
Mode 1: Sunny periods and battery is excellent: ISA is very good, load is powered from SA and Battery is
In the sunny periods, the PV output power is adequate charging, all SA sections are ON.
to power the load and charging the battery. If the battery is
fully charged as indicated from SOC sensor reading, the
battery is disconnected from the system (SB is OFF and
IB=0). If the SA power is higher than the load
requirement, some of PV strings must be OFF.
Figure 8 represents mode 1. The battery SOC is close
to 100%, some of the SA strings are switched OFF and the
summation of current is 39.7A while the load current is
36.7A. The battery is charging with minimum controlled
current in this case because it is close to being fully
charged.
Mode 2: Sunny periods and medium battery SOC:
Figure 9 represents the second mode of operation.
Insolation level is very high, the battery SOC is about
50%, and all the SA strings are ON. The summation of SA Figure 10, Mode 3: Low insolation level and battery SOC is
current is 76.9A shared between powering the load and good, ISA<IL, load is powered from SA and battery, battery in
charging the battery. discharge mode and all SA sections are ON.

ISSN: 1790-5117 69 ISBN: 978-954-92600-1-4

 Proceedings of the 12th WSEAS International Conference on AUTOMATIC CONTROL, MODELLING & SIMULATION

Mode 3: Low Insolation level and medium battery SOC: sense. The experimental results show that the logical
In the low insolation periods while the SA energy is operation of the proposed system is straightforward and
not adequate for powering the load and the battery SOC is the results are obvious, and clear. All thinkable modes of
good, all the PV strings are ON and the storage battery operation are applied to the system and its response was
shares the PV strings in load powering. Figure 10 excellent and it was as expected. The software can be
represents the third mode of operation. The battery SOC is expanded to match larger PV plants with the same
medium (>60%), all the SA strings are ON and the output implemented hardware. So that, the proposed system is
current is not enough to power the load, the battery shares reliable, simple, cheap, and has excellent performance.
the SA’s to power the load, battery operated in discharge
mode. References
[1] Laurent Mingo, “A Cost-effective Solution for Photovoltaic
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In the eclipse mode during the night, the battery Mingo at Blue System Integration Ltd., www.bluesystem.ca
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The system controller monitors SOC of the battery and Fotis Stergiopoulosa, Costas Elmasidesb, “Power management
takes the proper action to disconnect the load if the battery strategies for a stand-alone power system using renewable
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Mode 5: Eclipse mode and empty battery: wind Hybrid System Modelling for Remote Rural
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Using SEPIC Converter”, Engineering Research Journal (ERJ),
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[6] A. Mellita, M. Benghanem, S.A. Kalogirou, “Modeling and
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variables, monitoring, and making a decision for the
photovoltaic power system. The proposed system is
designed, emulated, implemented, and experimentally
tested. The friendly GUI enables user to define and
rearrange the monitored variables to suit his needs and

ISSN: 1790-5117 70 ISBN: 978-954-92600-1-4

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