Intelligent Control for SEPIC-Fed BLDC Solar PV Water Pumping Systems with Enhanced Energy Efficiency

Abstract

One of the most common and commonly used decentralized uses of renewable energy is solar photovoltaic (PV) water pumping, which provides an alternative to diesel-powered irrigation and drinking-water provision in remote and off-grid areas. Of all the different combinations of motor and converter reported in the literature, the brushless direct current (BLDC) motor driven by single-ended primary inductor converter (SEPIC) has proven to be a particularly appealing design since it offers the high efficiency and low maintenance of BLDC machines with either the wide-range buck-boost capability, constant input current, and non-inverting output of the SEPIC topology. This is a review of the state of the art of intelligent control strategies implemented on SEPIC-fed BLDC solar PV water pumping systems, especially maximum power point tracking (MPPT), sensorless commutation, and adaptive speed/torque control. The traditional approaches that include Perturb and Observe and Incremental Conductance are discussed as well as intelligent approaches that include fuzzy logic control, artificial neural networks, adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference systems (ANFIS) and bio-inspired metaheuristic optimization methods which include particle swarm optimization, genetic algorithms and grey wolf optimization. The review also addresses system-level integration, converter design issues, energy efficiency improvement mechanisms and relative performance in terms of tracking performance, steady-state ripple, partial shading resistance and complexity of implementation. Potential research issues associated with computational load, sensor reliance, standardization and techno-economic feasibility are pinpointed and future research opportunities with regard to hybrid intelligent controllers, digital twins, and Internet-of-Things (IoT)-enabled predictive control are described. The review aims to be a summary of research that can be used by researchers and practitioners in the development of next-generation, high-efficiency solar water pumping systems.