Experimental 1kW DC Micro-Grid based on PV Systems: Strategy Based on NI LabVIEW Platform

A improved design of a 1 kW and 190 Vbus DC micro-Grid (DC-µG) experimental prototype is presented in this paper. The DC-µG includes two simulators of photovoltaic arrays with 500 W power programed each, a boost power convert for each simulator, a super-capacitors bank of 0.230 F, a battery bank and a full bridge inverter for interconnection with the Main Grid (MG); the loads used for experimental tests of this DC-µG were resistive type and nonlinear loads like LED luminaires, fluorescent luminaires and a computer. Management System and Control (MSC) of DC-µG has been developed using National Instruments Company technology, generating MSC embedded into two NI myRIO-1900 hardware and using LabVIEW as programming language software. The MSC objective is keep the DC-µG voltage bus inside of ±5 % nominal Vbus (190 V) in spite of any connection/disconnection of loads in DC-µG. In addition to take advantage of max power of photovoltaic systems, supplying necessary energy to priority loads and the remaining energy inject to MG. The experimental results obtained show a good dynamic response of DC-µG with shorts setting times and small overshoots in the bus voltage.