Design, Control, and Evaluation of a Photovoltaic Snow Removal Strategy Based on a Bidirectional DC-DC Converter for Photovoltaic–Electric Vehicle Application

Abstract

A novel self-heating technique is proposed to clear snow from photovoltaic panels as a solution to the issue of winter snow accumulation in photovoltaic (PV) power plants. This approach aims to address the shortcomings of existing methods. It reduces PV cell wear, resource loss, and safety risks, without the need for additional devices. A self-heating current is applied to the solar panel to melt the snow covering its surface, which is then allowed to slide off the panel due to gravity. The proposed system consists of a bidirectional DC-DC converter, which removes the snow cover by heating the solar PV modules using electricity from the grid or electric vehicle (EV) batteries. It also charges the EV battery pack and/or supplies the DC bus when no EV is plugged into the charging station. For each mode of operation, a current-controlled system was implemented using a PI controller and a model predictive controller (MPC). The MPC approach achieved a faster rise time, shorter settling time, very low current ripples, and high stability for the proposed system. Specifically, the settling time decreased from 9 ms and 155 ms when using the PI controller at 20 µs and 35 µs with the MPC controller for both the buck and boost modes, respectively.