Design methodology for a photovoltaic emulator based on power hardware-in-the-loop with Opal-RT simulator

This study introduces a design methodology for a photovoltaic (PV) power emulator system. The proposed framework establishes a simple and rapid approach to constructing a PV emulator by utilizing a real-time simulator to control a power amplifier supply, forcing it to mimic the operational characteristics of a real solar array. This platform effectively serves for the experimental validation of PV characteristic measurements using a resistive load in student laboratory experiments, as well as the performance testing of solar power converters, such as solar MPPT chargers. Furthermore, the proposed method constructs an accurate PV system model operating under static environmental profiles (uniform irradiance and ambient temperature) as well as mismatched series cells under non-uniform irradiance, such as partial shading scenarios. The distinctive features of this methodology are as follows: • Photovoltaic (PV) modeling. • Development of a real-time PV array simulation model. • Real-time power emulation of PV profiles based on a Power Hardware-in-the-Loop (PHIL) platform, utilizing an OPAL-RT OP5707 real-time simulator and a 1-kW APS1000 power amplifier.