VHDL Description of Power Management Strategy for an Autonomous Photovoltaic Water Pumping System for Agricultural Applications

Today, it is clear that desertification due to global warming has important impacts on agricultural production capacity of hundreds of thousands of people. To remedy this situation, it is possible to use renewable energy to pump water and irrigate the fields. However, to optimize the energy exchange between the various components of such a system it is necessary to use an effective management strategy. This paper presents two power management strategies (PMSs) of an autonomous photovoltaic pumping system for agricultural applications. It also presents the description of the best management algorithm in the VHSIC Hardware Description Language (VHDL) for the implementation in FPGA. The simulation model was developed using MATLAB/Simulink/Stateflow to compare the performance (batteries state of charge variation and water level in the reservoir) of the developed management strategies. The study identified the best PMS regarding the availability of water for irrigation and stored energy in the batteries.