Electronic ballast for solar power street light

• Main Author: Wong, Kok Chin.
• Other Authors: Ali Iftekhar Maswood
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering::Electronic systems
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/18396
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Solar energy is tipped to be an alternative and practical source of energy generation to replace petroleum in the future as agreed by many energy-industry observers. The growth of photovoltaic grid-connected systems worldwide has sprouted at a tremendous rate in recent years. Though Singapore is a small country, her location is ideal for photovoltaic applications as it has abundance sunlight throughout the year except for rainy seasons. This report aims to present the design and implementation electronic ballast for solar power street light. The designs of this system consist of a Pulse Width Modulation (PWM), a push pull converter and a high frequency transformer. The aim is to change the DC voltage from charge controller (+12V) to an AC wave by using the Pulse-Width-Modulation. This voltage will transform to very high voltage by high frequency transformer. In order to verify the feasibilities of the inverter system, simulations were carried out using the PSIM software. Hardware circuits were then developed for actual implementation. In addition, photovoltaic (PV) module will also be presented in this project, characteristics of maximum power point (MPP) for PV is study under different sun intensities. Different tests were conducted under the sun to obtain the electrical characteristics and maximum power point of the photovoltaic module.