Abstract
Threatening environmental effects have forced the community to utilize green and clean alternative options for the generation of electric power. As a matter of fact, solar energy is a critical source of energy; so the demand for creative research is its peak. However, performing real time experiments on solar PV systems is limited by cost, manufacturing, weather constraints and requirement of large space. Thus an equivalent solar energy photo voltaic (PV) system is required for experimental verification and analysis based on precise simulations. In this research work a PV emulator system based on a buck converter is realized. The main objective of PV Emulator is to replicate the characteristic curves (I-V, P-V) of the real solar panel. In order to compensate the variations in both the load and the parameters of power stage, a robust control system is required. A fractional order sliding mode control scheme (FOSMC) has been designed and investigated in this research work. Results have proved the superior performance of the FOSMC as compared to other classical sliding mode control method. The FOSMC controller and PV emulator are implemented using rapid prototyping technique.