Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

DESIGN OF ENERGY EFFICIENT MULTILEVEL INVERTER FOR PHOTOVOLTAIC BASED RURAL PUMP DRIVE APPLICATIONS

R. Yalini and N. Suthanthira Vanitha

Abstract

The power consumption of electrical motors accounts for about 80% of industries power consumption and 90% in agricultural field. Majority of the power consumption equipment are AC drives whereas the synchronous and DC motors are comparatively low. So, development of energy efficient drive for motors will help us to save enormous energy. Multilevel inverter offers a better control of adjustable speed drives. This paper presents an energy saving five level inverter with reduced THD which accounts for reduced power consumption by the PV based AC induction motor. The frequency is varied by SVM technique using a microcontroller. In an inverter, as number of level increases, the output waveform is almost nearly sinusoidal; hence Harmonics and CMV will be reduced which lowers the energy loss. The full circuit of the inverter block and the gating signals is simulated with induction motor as the load using MATLAB simulink for 30Hz, 40Hz, 50Hz & 60Hz of inverter output frequency. The comparative simulated results of CMV & THD for the various frequency levels are measured for analyzing the performance of the inverter. The significant reduction of THD shows the proposed five level inverter is energy efficient.