1. Variable Inductance for Solar Power Applications Shane McMorrow Supervisor Prof. Ger Hurley Co-Supervisor Dr. Maeve Duffy

2. Project Outline Primary Aims – Investigate Sloped Air Gapped (SAG) inductors – Design and build a DC/DC converter capable of providing impedance matching for a variable power source – Determine the internal resistance of the variable power supply to allow impedance matching design – Determine the L-i characteristics of the SAG inductor for the buck converter to remain in continuous conduction mode – Design a SAG to provide these L-i characteristics – Implement in hardware

3. System Design

4. Design Steps Review & research – Photovoltaic Solar Panels – Buck Converters & impedance matching – SAG inductors Simulation of a PV solar panel to obtain output characteristics Setting up buck converter equations to calculate duty cycle for impedance matching and minimum inductance requirements Simulation and design of a SAG inductor which meets minimum inductance requirements

5. Simulation of the PV Solar Panel Initial simulation of a solar cell using PSpice PV Solar Panel (Sanyo HIP- 210NH1-BO-1) simulated using Matlab Primary aim of this simulation was to obtain the internal resistance of the solar panel for all light levels

6. Results of simulation

7. Key Buck Converter Equations

8. Results

9. Inductor types Air Gapped Inductor Swinging Inductor

10. SAG Inductor

11. SAG Vs Swinging Inductor

12. Changing the Slope OriginalLower Gradient

13. Versatility of the SAG Inductor Lower Gradient

14. Going to zero slope

15. Recap of Designed SAG Inductor

16. Simulated System input Characteristics

17. Simulated System Output Characteristics

18. Future Considerations Making the slope on a sloped air gapped inductor curved combine a swinging inductor design with a sloped air gapped design

19. Questions?