Solar charging solution provides narrow-voltage DC/DC system bus for multicell-battery applications
by Wang Li, Battery Power Applications Engineer, and Michael Day, Power Applications Manager, Vendor website, Oct 01 2011
Focus:
In solar-powered battery-charging systems, in the conventional charger architecture, the system load connects directly to the solar panel. This makes it difficult to implement maximum power point tracking (MPPT). At the same time, the system is presented with a widely varying operating voltage. In this article, a solar charger design based on a narrow-voltage dc-dc (NVDC) battery charging architecture is presented. This architecture separates the solar panel from the battery to allow MPPT, while supplying a power source with a narrow voltage range to the system. This narrow voltage range enables the power supplies downstream to be optimized for size, cost, and efficiency. This article explains the limitations of the conventional charging architecture and how the NVDC architecture overcomes these limitations as well as design considerations when implementing the NVDC architecture.
What you’ll learn:
- How to optimized solar battery charging to ensure maximum power point tracking
- How to optimize performance of the power supplies downstream of a solar charging system
Notes:
This article appeared in the Q4 2011 edition of Texas Instruments' Analog Applications Journal.
View this Source (requires a PDF Viewer installed on your device)
© 2025 How2Power. All rights reserved.