Performance of SPV water pumping system at lower irradiance condition

Manander Banger, Birinchi Bora, O S Sastry*, Rashmi Singh, Supriya Rai, Renu
National Institute of Solar energy, Gurgaon-122003
Sastry284@gmail.com
Abstract
India has six different climatic zones and there are some climatic zones, which have higher occurrence of
lower irradiance range through- out the year. However, there are possibilities of deployment of solar
water pump for irrigation and drinking water purpose. Normally, we study the performance of the SPV
water pump system on high radiation level. There is also need of study the performance of Solar Water
Pump system at low radiation. This will help for the selection of pump in cloudy and subtropical climatic
zones.

PURPOSE OF WORK
India is a developing and agriculture based country. Agriculture play main role for GDP growth of
country. Due to lack of power supply in rural areas SPV water pump system playing essential part to
fulfill the farmers demands for crops. Under the National Solar Mission (NSM), Govt. of India has
proposed to deploy at least 0.1 Million pumps [1] - [2]. There are several parameters which influence the
performance of SPV pump system but it is directly proportional to solar radiation. According to Bansal
and Manke, India has six climatic zones and there is lot of variation in radiation level all over the country
in different climatic zones [3, 4, 5]. Dry and Hot climatic zone have high radiation level and cloudy and
subtropical climatic zone high land climate have more diffuse radiation. In case of region with monsoon
and cloudy area the irradiance level are very low. The performance of a SPV system will not be same in
different climatic conditions as the Irradiance varies over every zone. To find out the suitable pump for
such climatic zones there is a need to study the performance of SPV pump system in lower intensity
range.
APPROCH
National Institute of Solar Energy (NISE) is an autonomous institute of Ministry of New and Renewable
Energy (MNRE) working as a research and development, testing and certification body for SPV water
pumping system in India. It has SPV water Pump testing facility for analysis and performance evaluation
of capacity ranging from 1 HP to 10 HP with an array capacity ranging from 200 Wp to 10 kWp both for
surface and submersible DC as well as AC pumps as per MNRE specifications 2015-16 and IEC
standards. NISE has a sump well (4m x 2.5m x 2.5m), with static head of 4 m, and an overhead platform
(3.5 m x 2m x 2m) with static head of 7 m, to create suction/ delivery head for different heads pumps
varying from 10 m up to 70 m, controlled by pressure gauge and throttle valve and standard meters,
Pyranometer at the tilt with surface of the module are used to measure the radiation level. The Solar PV
modules are tested as per IEC standards for their reliability. A 3HP and 5 HP AC Submersible SPV water
pumping system has been used for this study having a multi-crystalline array technology tested at 30

meter and70meter head of operation. The performance of the SPV pump can be characterized by using
system and subsystem efficiency. This can be defined as:
Sub System efficiency = pgQH/Pspv
System Efficiency = pgQH/GA
SCIENTIFIC INNOVATION AND RELEVANCE
SPV pump systems are designed for the high input power of operation. However in most cases the
performance may not be up to the mark at different irradiance level. So it is very much necessary to
analyze the performance in lower irradiance condition.
RESULT AND DISCUSSION

Figure 1 3HP Pump Water output in High Radiation

Figure 2 3HP Input Power Vs System and Sub System Efficiency

Water Output
1800
1600

Input Power

1400
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
200

400

600

800

1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000

Water Output

Figure 3 Input Power Vs Water output of 3HP

The performance of the 3 HP pump are plotted in the figure 1-3. It has been observed that the water
output behaves almost linearly with the input power. The system efficiency is ranges from 3 to 7% and
subsystem varies from 40 to 50%. The detail analysis will be given in the full paper.
CONCLUSIONS
From this study, it is observed that the water output of SPV water pumping system depends mainly on the
power output. The performance analysis and comparison of different pumps at lower irradiance conditions
will be provided in the full paper.
ACKNOWLEGEMENT
This research is based upon work supported in part by the Solar Energy Research Institute for India and
the U.S. (SERIIUS) funded jointly by the U.S. Department of Energy subcontract DE AC36-08G028308
(Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, and Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Solar
Energy Technology Program, with support from the Office of International Affairs) and the Government
of India subcontract IUSSTF/JCERDC-SERIIUS/2012 dated 22nd Nov. 2012
Reference
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]

Bansal N.K. and G. Minke,Climatic zones and rural housing in India, Kernforschungsanlage,
Juelich, Germany, 1988.
www.mnre.gov.in
MNRE Specifications 2013-14, Ministry of New & Renewable Energy, Government of India.
IEC 62253
IEC 61702