Designing a Solar-Powered System For Submerged 3HP BLDC Motor

Solar energy is abundantly available in the Indian subcontinent. To extract maximum power from solar panels there are effective methods and technologies that can be applied. This study deals with a position sensorless brushless DC (BLDC) motor-driven solar photovoltaic (PV) fed water pump. A technique based on the back electromotive force (back-EMF) zero crossing is proposed for sensorless operation of the BLDC motor. The back-EMF is derived from the difference of line voltages. Thus, a requirement of neutral potential is eliminated. In addition, the proposed drive avoids the use of phase current sensors. The speed is automatically adjusted according to the available peak power from the PV array. The devices of the voltage source inverter, used to feed the BLDC motor pump, are switched at fundamental frequency. This leads to minimizing switching losses. The responses of the PV fed pumping system with the proposed drive are observed under various operating conditions. The suitability of the proposed topology is demonstrated through the hardware implementation.