2018 IEEE International Students’ Conference on Electrical, Electronics and Computer Science (SCEECS)

Design of Solar Powered Battery Charger: An

Experimental Verification
Debashish Mohapatra∗ , Subhransu Padhee† , Jhansirani Jena‡
∗ Departmentof Electrical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, Odisha, India
† Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, National Institute of Technology Rourkela, Odisha, India
‡ Department of Electrical and Instrumentation Control Engineering, Institute of Technical Education and Research,
Siksha ’O’ Anusandhan University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India

Email: ∗ mailto.lipun@gmail.com, † subhransupadhee@gmail.com, ‡ jhansi.jena@gmail.com

Abstract—This paper presents the design and implementation
details of the embedded system to design a photovoltaic based
battery charger for lead-acid battery. The battery is charged
in float charging mode as well as in bulk charging mode. In
bulk charging mode perturb and observe maximum power point
tracking algorithm is used to charge the battery. Hardware
realization of the PV based battery charger has been carried
out and is tested in real time scenario.
Keywords—Battery charger; lead-acid battery; float charge
mode; bulk charge mode
I. I NTRODUCTION
Photovoltaic (PV) system is one of the most reliable,
efficient and economical renewable energy system used world-
wide. This system has long life, low maintenance cost and
is free of pollution. Photovoltaic generation system is widely
used in stand-alone or grid-tied or hybrid system. The V-I and
P-I characteristics of PV cell are nonlinear in nature and the
electrical energy generated from the PV cell is dependent on
solar insolation and ambient temperature. To extract maximum
power from the PV cell under different weather conditions,
maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithm is used. A
battery is an electro chemical device which converts chemical
energy to electrical energy through an electro-chemical oxida-
tion process. Battery is one of the essential part of photovoltaic
system as it works as an auxiliary source. Battery management
system has been significant research interest where overall
health of the battery, charging and discharging of the battery
has been studied. Some of the widely used batteries are
lead acid battery, lithium-ion battery, Nickel-Cadmium (Ni-
Cd), Nickel-metal hydride (Ni-MH) and Nickel-iron battery. In
battery management system, switched mode power converter
is used to charge the battery. Boost converter and other step
up converter topology are used when the voltage of battery
is higher than the voltage of PV panel [1]. Buck converter is
used when the voltage of battery is lower than the PV panel
[2]. Researchers have also used buck-boost converter [3] and
SEPIC converter [4] for solar battery charger application.
This paper provides a detailed discussion on experimental
setup used for PV based battery charger. In this PV based
battery charger, lead-acid battery is used and it is charged from
the solar energy. The battery charger system comprises of a
DC-DC synchronous buck converter as it is assumed that the
battery voltage is lower than the solar voltage. Conventional
perturb and observe (P&O) maximum power point tracking
(MPPT) algorithm is used to drive the gate pulses of the
converter. The lead-acid battery is charged either using float
charge mode or using bulk charge mode.
The paper is organized as follows. After the introduction
part, section II provides the detailed problem formulation of
the system. Section III discusses modeling of PV system,
MPPT algorithm and DC-DC synchronous buck converter.
Section IV is dedicated for discussion of mathematical mod-
eling of lead-acid battery. Section V provides detailed ex-
perimental verification of the system. Section VI provides
concluding remarks. The preliminary version of the paper
appeared in [5]; this work extends upon [5] by providing
experimental verification of the PV based battery charger
system.
II. P ROBLEM F ORMULATION
The schematic diagram of PV based battery charger is
shown in Fig. 1. A PV panel is used as the energy source
which produces electrical output. The said electrical power of
PV panel varies with varying ambient temperature and solar
irradiance level. A lead-acid battery (12V, 18AH) is used to
store the charge. DC-DC synchronous buck converter is used
as the power electronic interface between the PV panel and the
battery. The diode of the buck converter is replaced by a switch
in synchronous buck converter, therefore, the conduction and
switching loss of the synchronous buck converter is reduced.
Fig. 1 presents the block diagram of control structure of
photovoltaic charger.
The PV based battery charger operates in two different
modes, i.e. bulk charge mode and float charge mode. In bulk
charge mode the perturb and observe MPPT works and in float
charge mode, the controller works. When the solar power is
greater than 5 Watt, then the battery is charged in bulk mode
using MPPT technique. When the battery voltage is equal to
maximum battery voltage, the battery is charged in float charge
mode. An additional switch (S1 ) is provided to cut-off the
supply from the PV panel to the battery. In this PV based
charger, two voltage sensors are used and one current sensor

c
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 Ipv Io TABLE I
S PECIFICATION OF PV CHARGER
S1
12V
DC-DC 18 Ah Parameters Symbols Values
Vo
PV Panel
V pv
Synchronous Lead-Acid Nominal Power of PV Module P 100 W
Cin Buck Battery Minimum Wattage of PV Module 1W
Converter
Low Wattage of PV Module 5W
Maximum Voltage of PV Module Vmp 18 V DC
Maximum Current of PV Module Imp 5.56 A
Inductor of converter L 330 µH
Output capacitor of converter Co 220 µF
S1 MOSFET
Driver
Input capacitor of converter Cin 4700 µF
Switching Frequency fsw 31 kHz
Maximum Battery Voltage 14.1 V
V pv
Minimum Battery Voltage 11 V
P&O
Controller
High Battery Voltage 13 V
Ipv MPPT
Vo

Charge Controller Rs

Fig. 1. Block diagram of control structure of photovoltaic charger Ipv Rp

Id

is used. The voltage sensors are used to measure PV voltage

and battery voltage respectively whereas the current sensor is Fig. 3. Equivalent circuit diagram of single diode model of PV cell
used to measure the current of PV panel. A MOSFET driver
circuit is used to provide required gate pulses to the MOSFET
of the DC-DC synchronous buck converter. Fig. 2 illustrates where Ipv is the current of PV cell and Id is Shockley diode
the working principle of photovoltaic charger using finite state equation. Shockley diode equation can be represented as
   
representation. qV
Id = Io exp −1 (2)
akT
Substituting Eq(2) in Eq(1), the modified I-V characteristics
ON Sol_watt < 1W
OFF of an ideal PV cell can be represented as
1W<SolWat<5W    
99.9% PWM qV
Sol_watt > 1W I = Ipv − Io exp −1 (3)
aKT

Sol_watt < 1W
Sol_watt < 1W where Io is the leakage current of diode, q is the electron
Sol_watt > 5W
charge 1.6021 × 10−19 C, K is the Boltzmann constant
1.3805 × 10−23 J/K, T is the temperature of p-n junction
Float (Kelvin), a is the ideality constant of diode.
Bulk Batt_vol = Max_batt_vol
Charge Practical PV array comprises of series or parallel connected
Charge Controller
PV cell. The I-V characteristics of practical PV array can be
MPPT Batt_vol < 13 V Bat_Vol=
Max_Bat_vol represented as
   
V + Rs I V + Rs I
Fig. 2. Finite state representation of working principle of photovoltaic charger
I = Ipv − Io exp −1 − (4)
Vt a Rp
Here, Ipv is PV current and Io is saturation current. Rp is
The design specification of PV based charger is summarized
equivalent parallel resistance, Rs is equivalent series resistance
in Table I.
and Vt is the thermal voltage of PV cell with Ns cells
connected in series connection. The thermal voltage of the
III. M ODELLING OF P HOTOVOLTAIC S YSTEM PV cell can be represented as Vt = NsqKT
The current of the PV cell is dependent on solar irradiance
The circuit diagram of a single diode model of PV cell is
and temperature. The relation between the PV current and
illustrated in Fig. 3. The ideal PV cell consists of a constant
temperature can be represented as
current source and a diode whereas the practical PV cell
consists of additional series Rs and parallel resistance Rp . G
Ipv = (Ipv,n + KI ∆T ) (5)
The basic equation which describes the I-V characteristics Gn
of an ideal PV cell can be represented as where Ipv,n is light generated current at nominal operating
condition (25◦ C, 1000W/m2 ), ∆T is the difference of temper-
I = Ipv − Id (1) ature (Actual and nominal temperature), G is the irradiance of

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the surface and Gn is the nominal irradiance The relationship B. DC-DC Synchronous Buck Converter
of diode saturation current with temperature can be represented DC-DC synchronous buck converter steps down the input
as  3    voltage to a regulated output voltage. It comprises of two
Tn qEg 1 1 switches, inductor, capacitor and load. The circuit diagram of
Io = Io,n exp − (6)
T aK Tn T synchronous buck converter is presented in Fig. 5.
Here, Eg is the bandgap of semiconductor

A. Maximum Power Point Tracking

L
Maximum power point tracking (MPPT) is one of the most S1 RL
vital component of PV system. A large number of MPPT
techniques have been reported in literature. The comparative C R
analysis and overview of different MPPT techniques have been Vin

reported in [6]–[12]. S2 RC
One of the most widely used MPPT is Perturb and Observe
(P&O) MPPT because it is true MPPT, independent of PV
panel, can be implemented using both analog and digital
circuit and the technique doesn’t require periodic tuning. The Fig. 5. Circuit diagram of synchronous buck converter
dP
main principle of (P&O) MPPT is the checking of dV slope.
The slope is positive at the left of MPP and the slope is Small signal control-to-output transfer function of syn-
negative at the right of MPP [13]. This can be mathematically chronous buck converter can be represented as
expressed as v̂o (s) Vo

1 + sRc C

Gdv (s) = = (8)
dˆ(s) D 1 + a1 s + a2 s 2

> 0 v < Vmpp
dp 
= = 0 v = Vmpp (7) where
dv 
< 0 v > Vmpp L
a1 = Rc C + (R||RL ) C + (9)
Fig. 4 illustrates the algorithm of (P&O) MPPT. Initially the R + RL
voltage and current of PV module is measured using respective R + Rc
voltage and current sensors and the power is calculated. a2 = LC (10)
R + RL
Change of power and change of voltage is calculated and if
IV. M ATHEMATICAL M ODEL OF BATTERY
the change of power dP > 0 and also dV > 0 then the duty
cycle increases by a fraction of ∆D and for negative slope the There are different types of rechargeable batteries available
duty cycle decreases by a fraction of ∆D. in the market and the lead-acid battery is the oldest type
of rechargeable battery. The lead-acid battery comprises two
Start electrodes and the electrolyte. Lead Oxide (P bO2 ) serves as
the Cathode, Lead (P b) electrode severs as the anode and 33.5
Read V(k) and I(k) % (V/V) sulphuric acid (H2 SO4 ) serves as the electrolyte. The
from PV panel
electro-chemical reaction of the cathode and anode produces
electric energy. The electro-chemical can be represented by
P(k)= V(k)*I(k)
P b(s) + 2HSO4− + 2H + + P bO2(s) → 2P bSO4(s) + 2H2 O
dP = P(k) - P(k-1) (11)
dV = V(k) - V(k-1)
Here, (s) refers to the solid
The overall reaction during charging of a lead-acid battery can
Yes No be represented as
dP > 0
2P bSO4(s) +2H2 O → 2P b(s) +2HSO4− +2H + ++P bO2(s)
(12)
dV> 0 dV> 0
Lead acid battery has a high specific power, so it can supply
Yes No Yes high surge current. Therefore, lead-acid battery are used in
No
electric and hybrid automobiles. The aging problem of lead-
D decreases D Increases D Increases D decreases acid battery can be contributed to various factors such as
anodic corrosion, loss of water, short circuit and accumulation
To Switch
of lead sulfate [14]–[16]. There are different types of lead-
acid batteries such as flooded battery, valve regulated lead
Fig. 4. Conventional Perturb and Observe MPPT acid battery and absorbent glass mat battery. To quantitatively
describe the behavior of battery different parameters such as

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capacity, state of charge, depth of charge, state of health and provided to the analog input channel of the microcontroller
internal resistance are used. where the current can be displayed using a display unit.
Different mathematical model of battery have been de- IRLB8748 MOSFET is used for design of synchronous buck
scribed in literature [17]. The generic model of battery pre- converter because of its low Rds(ON ) . IR2110 based circuit
sented in [18] is implemented in this paper. This model is used for MOSFET driver unit. For protection of PV panel,
considers state of charge (SOC) as the state variable and transient voltage suppression (TVS) diode P6KE36CA is used.
can accurately represent electro-chemistry of the battery. The The developed hardware setup is presented in Fig. 7. The
generic model of the battery can be represented as developed hardware setup is tested in outdoor environment
Q
 Z  as shown in Fig. 8 and the resultant data of battery and solar
E = Eo − k R + A exp −B idt (13) panel are displayed on a PC using the serial communication
Q − idt
feature of the microcontroller as shown in Fig. 9. The gate
Vbatt = E − RIbatt (14) pulses of the synchronous buck converter is shown in Fig. 10
Here, Eo is no-load battery voltage (V); kR is polarization
voltage (V); Q is battery capacity (Ah); idt is charge
drawn or supplied by the battery (Ah); A is exponential zone
amplitude (V); B is exponential zone time constant inverse
−1
(Ah) ; Vbatt is battery voltage (V); R is internal resistance
of battery (Ω); Ibatt is battery current (A)
V. E XPERIMENTAL I NVESTIGATION
An experimental prototype has been developed for PV based
solar charger system. The specification of solar panel used for
the above mentioned experiment is summarized in Table I.
100 W Su-kam made (sukam.com) PV panel is used for the
experimental verification. The schematic diagram of hardware
implementation is shown in Fig. 6.

Fig. 7. Developed hardware

Fig. 8. Testing of hardware in outdoor environment

Fig. 6. Schematic diagram of hardware implementation of MPPT based TABLE II

battery charger S PECIFICATION OF PV M ODULE

In this hardware implementation ATmega328 microcon- Parameters Symbols Values

troller is used for the purpose of designing the controller and Maximum Power Pmp 100 W
Power Tolerance ±5%
the resultant values are shown in a 20x4 LCD display. The said Maximum Voltage Vmp 18 V DC
microcontroller has 14 digital Input-Output pins out of which Maximum Current Imp 5.56 A
6 can be used as PWM pins, 6 analog input pins, 10-bit A/D Short Circuit Current Isc 6.1 A
Temperature Coefficient -0.4 %/K
converter and a 16 MHz quartz crystal. ACS712 is used as Isc temperature coefficient 4.7 mA/K
the current sensor. ACS712 is a fully integrated hall effect Voc temperature coefficient -2 mV/K
based linear current sensor IC module which has 3 pins such Nominal operating cell temperature 45◦ C
as +5 V, data pin and Ground. The output of the data pin is

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Fig. 9. Serial data of PV based battery charger
Fig. 10. Gate pulses of synchronous buck converter
VI. C ONCLUSION
This paper provides a comprehensive design and implemen-
tation details of PV based battery charger system which is
used to charge lead-acid battery in float charge mode as well
as in bulk charge mode. Mathematical model of PV module,
synchronous buck converter and battery has been provided.
Experimental prototype of PV based battery charging module
has been developed which is then tested in outdoor envi-
ronment. It has been observed that the battery is charged in
bulk mode and in the said charging mode, MPPT algorithm
facilitates the charging. Experimental results demonstrate the
charging of the battery in both float and bulk charging mode.
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