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Solar panel simulator

Giovanni Romeo and Giuseppe Urbini

Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia


Roma, Italia

This is a funny kind of power supply, not stable in voltage or in current: it simulates the
comportment of a solar panel and can be very useful if you are playing around a solar powered
device in a raining day. We designed it for internal use, but it may have a general value.
We may roughly schematise a solar panel with the equivalent circuit shown in figure 1.

VCC out
Dn
open circuit voltage:
depends of the cells
short circuit current: quality and their number
depends the of the
cells quality and the I dc
illumination

D1

Fig. 1: Solar panel equivalent scheme. The current produced depends of the illumination and of the nature of the cells
(surface, material, geometry) and the voltage is tied also to the number of cells.

There is a simple way to ‘boost’ a generator saving its I-V characteristic: it’s shown in fig 2.

Vg = Vg ( I g )

A ammeter
Z Vout = AVg (BI load )

V B I load
I g = BI load

Fig 2: a generator booster. The output is transferred to the out using an amplifier (A), and the current through the load is
measured and used to control the reference generator current through the scale factor B. This circuit saves the I-V
generator shape, supplying the power defined by the scale factors A and B.

You may tune the values of A and B to obtain the wanted output using the I-V shape of the
reference generator.
The schematic in fig. 3 is the designed to work simulator, obtained by a generator (like the one in
Fig. 1) boosted following the principle illustrated in fig. 2.

R1
+5
U3
U1 220k
-5 R2 -5 -5
U2 +24
LM741 LM741 LM741
4

4
R3
800k
2 1 2 1 2 1
V-

V-

V-
- OS1 - OS1 - OS1
R4
1k
OUT
6 220k OUT
6
OUT
6
R5 R6 R7
Q1
3 5 3 5 3 5
V+

V+

V+
+5 + OS2 + OS2 + OS2
200k 4k D2 220k
D1
R8
+24 MJE520
7

7
75 +24 +24 +24 R10
0
D3 D4
0 220k 20k
D6 R9
D5 0 positive output
1N4148
R11 R12 45
0 negative output
100
R13 R14 0.1
1
+5
0 -5 0 +5

4
+24 U5 +5 U4A R16 R19
LM7805 +5 10

V+
U6 800 + R20 1k 1k
1 2
VIN VOUT
C1 1 8 2
FC V+ R15 OUT
2 7 1k
CAP+ OSC
GND

C4
+

3 6 9
1K R17

V-
C2 GND LV - RED LED
+ + 4 5
100uF 10u CAP- OUT GREEN LED D7 D8
LM339
+

18
C3 0 R18 +5
3

ADM660
100uF 0 -5 10u 1K -5

4
U4B
0 0 0 8

V+
+ R21
0 OUT
3
1k
6
- V-

LM339 0
18

-5

Fig. 3. The simulator designed to work. The circuit is 24 volts powered (bubble +24 and analog ground), using a
floating power supply (we used a DC-DC converter). The output is between ‘positive output’ and ‘negative output’.

U1 is used as current generator, and the constant current, flowing through a series of diodes (D1,
D3, D5) is obtained by reading the shunt R13; the diodes and the constant current source form the
reference generator (as shown in fig.1). D2, D4, D6 and U2 operate a temperature correction. U3
and Q1 (fig. 3) are used as output amplifier. The information about the load current is obtained by
the shunt R14. Both of the shunts, R13 and R14 work in the low side; this is not elegant but, since a
solar panel is a floating device, you need to power the whole circuit with a floating voltage source,
and the low side shunts work perfectly. The number of cells (open circuit voltage) is obtained
changing the output gain modifying the R10 value (A gain in fig.2); the resistor R12 regulates the
short circuit current (Idc in fig. 1) by changing the B gain (fig. 2). Op amps are not critical, and
many modern quad op amps may replace the old beloved 741.
The circuit shows the power coupling conditions using a two-colours LED. It lights green when the
load is too weak, red when it is too heavy, and orange when it approaches the maximum power
transfer, indicating that your load is well coupled with the simulated panel. This is useful to quickly
check MPPT charge regulators.
This LED is operated by a couple of comparators (U4 A and B) looking at the voltage of the diodes
series. This is done after the thermal correction.
Fig.4 shows the simulator comportment, the blue curve is the typical V-I curve of a solar panel.
The orange curve represents the power output. The traces red and green represent the LED status.

current
red LED
current(A), power(W/10), LED status

green LED
2
power

maximum power point

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
voltage (V)

Fig. 4: Simulator comportment. The blue trace shows a typical I-V curve of a solar panel; red and green traces show the
LEDs actions. The light is green in case of weak load (low current, high voltage), red in case of heavy load (high
current, low voltage) and orange (both LEDs on) around the MPP. The LEDs thresholds can be tuned using R17 and
R18 in Fig. 3. The orange trace represents the output power.

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