Battery-Operated Electronic Ballast of Fluorescent Lamps for Photovoltaic Applications

Ying-Chun Chuang Yu-Lung Ke Hung-Shiang Chuang

Department of Electrical Engineering Kao Yuan University Kaohsiung Hsien, Taiwan, R.O.C. e-mail: chuanghs@cc.kyu.edu.tw Department of Electrical Engineering Kun Shan University Yung-Kang City, Tainan Hsien, Taiwan, R.O.C. e-mail:chuang@mail.ksu.edu.tw e-mail:yulungke@mail.ksu.edu.tw

AbstractA novel battery-operated electronic ballast of fluorescent lamps for photovoltaic applications is presented in this paper. In order to reserve the electrical power transformed from photovoltaic modules, a battery charger with high performance, low switching losses, low cost and high efficiency should be designed. This paper presents a novel battery charger with electronic ballast which is characterized with simple structure, less component count, small volume, light weight, low cost, high efficiency and high power density. Moreover, the electronic ballast uses a current-sourcing push-pull resonant inverter to supply a 40W fluorescent lamp. This new electronic ballast structure can accept 12V DC voltage input to provide the power that the lamp needs. Derivation and operating principles of the proposed topology are performed. All switches in the system can achieve zero-voltage-switching. Experimental results show the functionality of the overall system as well as prove it to be a good solution for several photovoltaic applications. Keywords- photovoltaic modules; battery charger; electronic ballast

I.

INTRODUCTION

As the concerns of fossil fuel exhaustion and environmental pollution increase, renewable energy conversion systems become more and more attractive. Among them, photovoltaic power generation systems stand out as an important solution because they can produce electrical power without causing environmental pollution by directly converting the inexhaustible solar energy into electricity. They can be used in various applications such as those for the household appliances, for the soldiers in the remote missions, for the solar cars, and even for the electric aircrafts. Also, they are ubiquitous in spacecrafts. Taiwan is located in the subtropical zone, with lots of sunlight and long sunny days. Therefore, solar energy should be the most prominent candidate for green energy [1,2]. Since the solar radiation changes with time and the photovoltaic arrays have a nonlinear voltage-current characteristic, which is subject to vary with the change of the operating conditions, the photovoltaic modules system has to regulate the output voltage by controlling a DC/DC converter interposed between the photovoltaic modules and the battery to ensure the efficient operation. As the amount of electricity

produced by the photovoltaic modules during the day drops to zero before dawn, batteries are normally used to store the produced energy for a later use. The life and capacity of the batteries depend on several factors, such as charge mode, maintenance, temperature, and age. Among these factors, the charge mode has a great impact on battery life and capacity. The battery bank should be charged with current and voltage levels with low ripple. Therefore, a high performance battery charger is necessary in a photovoltaic power generation system. In order to minimize the losses, it is essential not to waste energy in the conversion process. In relation to the power electronics and associated control schemes, the main requirement is to guarantee that the charging system is efficient. Therefore, topologies with high switching frequencies were used to reduce the charging current ripple and extend battery life. However, as the switching frequency increases further, switching losses and EMI noise arise [3-6]. To solve this problem, the switching frequency is increased by reducing the switching losses through a modified series-loaded resonant converter. The modified series-loaded resonant converter consists of an Lr-Cr resonant converter with a voltage doubler topology. This modified series-loaded resonant converter has an output of twice the peak value of the traditional series-loaded resonant converter. Oscillating voltage and current, due to Lr-Cr resonance in the tank, are applied, and the converter switches can be switched at zero voltage and zero current conditions. On the other hand, fluorescent lamps have important merits over incandescent lamps that their efficiency is three to five times higher. Therefore, fluorescent lamps have been the most important light sources in our modern life. However, fluorescent lamps have negative impedance characteristics in the desired operation region. Hence, they cannot be connected directly to the source, but instead require some forms of current-limiting device to prevent their destruction by excessive current, i.e. ballast. The ballast must provide the starting and operating voltage and also limit the lamp current. In order to obtain a compact electronic ballast and eliminate undesirable features like audible noise, flickering and stroboscopic effects, the operating frequency must be raised. In the case of a fluorescent lamp operating at high frequency,

0197-2618/07/$25.00 2007 IEEE

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the luminous efficiency increases by about 20%, which reduces the energy consumption of the system [7,8]. For a battery-operated lighting system, a boost-type highfrequency electronic ballast is used to light up the fluorescent lamp. A new electronic ballast with current-sourcing push-pull resonant inverter is introduced in this paper. The main advantage of the push-pull circuit is that no more than one switch in series conducts at any instant of time. This can be important if the dc input to the converter is from a low-voltage source, such a battery, where the voltage drops across more than one switch in series would cause a significant reduction in energy efficiency. Also, the control drives for the two switches have a common ground. The objective of this paper is to analyze and implement an electronic ballast for battery and low input voltage applications. Then, a prototype of the battery-operated electronic ballast for photovoltaic applications is built and tested to verify the analytical predictions. II. SYSTEM CONFIGURATION

be assumed to be a constant voltage VBA during a switching period. The basic diagram of the modified series-loaded resonant converter with voltage doubler topology is sketched in Fig. 2.

iS
C1

is1
M1 D1
+

io I o
Lr Cr
+

DR 1
+

C3
+

V pv
M2

va

iLr

vcr

vb
DR 2

Co
C4

Battery

VBA

C2

D2

is2

Fig. 2 Basic diagram of the modified series-loaded resonant converter with voltage doubler topology The analysis of this system is carried out under the following assumptions: (a) Switching elements of the converter are ideal, i.e. forward voltage drops in on-state resistances of the power switches are neglected. (b) The equivalent series resistance of the capacitance and stray capacitances are neglected. (c) Passive components are assumed to be linear, timeinvariant and frequency-independent. Figure 3 plots the equivalent circuits and key waveforms of the modified series-loaded resonant converter with voltage doubler topology. In one switching cycle, the charging circuit operation of the modified series-load resonant converter can be divided into four modes.
i Lr vCr

The complete block diagram of the proposed photovoltaic illumination system is shown in Fig. 1. Generally, it could be divided into two parts: the charging circuit which stores the electric energy produced by photovoltaic modules into the battery, together with the electronic ballast which ignites the fluorescent lamp when the battery is discharging.
Solar beam Control circuit

i pv

Cpv
Photovoltaic modules

+ V - pv

Charger stage

VBA

Electronic ballast

Battery

Lamp

i Lr

T
v Cr

Fig. 1 The block diagram of the proposed photovoltaic illumination system A. Charger Stage The power switch stresses of traditional hard-switching converters can be reduced by connecting dissipative snubber circuits in series and parallel with the power switches in the converters. However, these dissipative snubbers shift the switching losses from the power switch to the snubber circuits, and therefore do not provide a reduction in the overall switching losses. Due to high switching loss and EMI, the switching frequency of the energy conversion technology is limited. To overcome such problems, resonant converters have been developed. The resonant converters can reduce switching losses and EMI level significantly by shaping either current or voltage sinusoidally. The photovoltaic modules output is converted to a DC-DC converter with a modified series-loaded resonant converter. The components Lr and Cr form the series-resonant tank, and the current through the resonant tank is rectified and feeds the battery. The battery voltage across the filter capacitor Co can
0

Ot
Ot O

O t1

Ot2

O t 3

M1 I Lr
+
Vpv 2

D2 II Lr Cr

M2 III

D1 IV Lr Cr
+
VBA 2

Cr
+
VBA 2 Vpv 2

Lr
V pv 2

Cr
V BA

i Lr = +

i Lr = +

V BA 2

Vpv 2

i Lr =

i Lr =

+ 2

Fig. 3 The equivalent circuits and key waveforms of the modified series-loaded resonant converter Mode I: (between ot0 and ot1) In the steady-state symmetrical operation, both power switches are operated identically. Similarly, the two diodes operate identically. Therefore, it is sufficient to analyze only

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one-half cycle of operation, since the other half is symmetrical. Prior to ot0, freewheeling diode D1 is turned on, and conducts a current that equals the resonant tank current iLr, and the power switch M1 is excited. At the instant ot0, the resonant tank current iLr reverses and naturally commutates from diode D1 to the power switch M1. In this mode operation, the power switches turn on naturally at zero voltage and at zero current. The initial condition of the capacitor Cr is Vco. Then, the instantaneous resonant inductor current and the voltage across Cr can be evaluated, respectively
iLr (t ) = 1 V pv V - Vco - BA sin o t Zo 2 2

1 V pv V - Vco - BA (1 - cos ) Zo 2 2

(6)

ot1 ot ot2 is given by

V t WBA2 = 02 -t1 o iLr t' dt' 2

Then, the energy flowed into the battery during the interval

()

V pv VBA V 1 t = BA 02 -t1 - Vc1 sinot' + I L1coso t' dt' Zo 2 2 2

V 1 V pv VBA - Vc1 (1 - cos ) + I L1sin = BA 2o Z o 2 2

Vo 2o V pv Zo V 1 V pv Vco BA (1 cos ) Zo 2 2

(7)

Substituting Eqs. (3) and (4) into above equation produces (2) frequency impedance
+ WBA2 = +

V pv VBA V pv V vcr (t) = - Vco - BA cosot 2 2 2 2

where
o = 2fo =

the
1 LrCr

angular and the

resonance characteristic

1 V pv V Vco BA Zo 2 2

(1 cos )
(8)

Lr , respectively. Zo = Cr

1 V pv V - Vco - BA sin sin Zo 2 2

1 V pv V - Vco - BA Zo 2 2

Then, we define the following term

B V pv Zo + A-

Mode II: (between ot1 and ot2) At ot1, before the half-cycle of the current iLr oscillation ends, M1 is forced to turn off, thus forcing the positive current to flow through the bottom freewheeling diode D2. Because of the negative dc voltage applied across the resonant tank, the current through the diode goes to zero quickly at ot2. During this interval, the inductor current iLr is expressed as
iLr t' =

(1 - cos )
(9)

V 1 V pv - Vco - BA sin sin Zo 2 2

()

V pv VBA 1 - Vc1 sinot' + I L1 cosot' Zo 2 2

1 V pv V - Vco - BA sin Zo 2 2

(3)

where IL1 is the initial current in the inductor iLr and

I L1 = iLr (t1 ) =

V pv V BA I vcr t' = Vc1 + - Vc1 1 - cosot' + L1 sin ot' 2 2 o

Vc1 = Vcr (t1 ) = V pv VBA V pv V - Vco - BA cos 2 2 2 2

()

The voltage vcr across the capacitor Cr can be derived as

(4)

where Vc1 is the initial voltage across the capacitor Cr and

The energy flowed into the battery during the interval

ot0 ot ot1 is
t V W BA1 = o1 BA iLr (t)dt 2

Therefore, the total energy flowed into the battery during the interval ot0 ot ot2 can be evaluated V WBA = WBA1 + WBA2 = BA ( A + B ) (10) 2o The energy from the photovoltaic modules during the interval ot0 ot ot1 is V pv t V pv 1 W pv1 = (11) 0 i Lr (t ) dt = 2 A 2 o The energy from the photovoltaic modules during the interval ot1 ot ot2 is V pv t -t V pv ' ' 2 1i W pv2 = B (12) Lr t dt = 0 2 2o Therefore, the energy generated by the photovoltaic modules is V pv W pv = W pv1 + W pv 2 = (A - B) (13) 2o For a lossless system, these two kinds of energy are equal in the steady state. Hence, the output voltage is solved as

()

V V 1 V pv t = BA 01 - Vco - BA sinot dt 2 2 Zo 2 V V 1 V pv - Vco - BA (1 - cos ) = BA 2o Z o 2 2

VBA = V pv

AB A+ B

(14)

(5)

Defining the following term

The most important advantage of the modified seriesloaded resonant converter is that the maximum output voltage VBA in Fig. 2 can approach the source voltage Vpv. This is in contrast to the traditional series-loaded resonant converter

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where VBA can only approach 0.5Vpv. In other words, the modified series-loaded resonant converter must switch only half as much current for fixed values of Vpv and output power. Because of this advantage, the modified series-loaded resonant converter will be the preferred configuration for fast charging applications of batteries. B. Battery-Operated Electronic Ballast The basic structure of a simplified current-source pushpull resonant inverter is shown in Fig. 4 [9]. The current Iin at the input is a squarewave current of Iin.
VBA i CE1 vCE1 v Cp Cp

T1

n1 v1

1: n

T2

Ls

iL L1

Li Ii v2 i CE2 vCE2 n2 T3 n3 Feedback and Trigger signal vS

rr

RLAMP

vLAMP

Cs

Q1 V BE1

Q2 V BE2

vC s

Iin

iC C

iL L

iR R vo

Fig. 5 Battery-operated current-sourcing push-pull resonant inverter electronic ballast Fig. 4 Simplified current-source push-pull resonant inverter With the initial conditions vo(t=0)=0 and iL(t=0)=0, the output voltage vo is given by I (15) v o ( t ) = in e t sin r t r C where = 1 / 2 RC . The damped-resonant frequency r is given by
1 1 (16) 2C 2 LC 2 R From above equations, we can see that the currentsourcing push-pull resonant inverter can produce an approximately sinusoidal voltage waveform at the output terminals. This type of inverter is commonly used in relatively fixed output applications (e.g., fluorescent lighting, induction heating, or ultrasonic generators). Due to the high switching frequency, the size of commutating components is very small. Fig. 5 shows the proposed circuit configuration of the current-sourcing push-pull resonant inverter electronic ballast which is driven by a 12V battery. It consists of a battery, an input inductor Lin, a resonant capacitor Cp, a center-tapped transformer T, and two symmetrically driven power switches Q1 and Q2. Inductor L1 is the mutual inductance of the transformer and acts as the resonant inductor. A series resonant inverter to supply the fluorescent lamp formed by inductor Ls, capacitor Cs and lamp resistor RLamp is employed. This transformer is being used as a step-up transformer. This configuration is relatively suitable for solar-energy lighting application. Although the work presented here has input dc voltage of 12V, the same analysis can be extended for any input voltage higher or lower than 12V. A prototype has been assembled in the laboratory and the measurements of voltage and current waveforms have been presented and discussed. To simplify the analysis, the input filter inductance Lin is assumed to be sufficiently large to be regarded as an ideal dc input current source Iin during a high-frequency resonant cycle.

In accordance with the conducting status of the power switches, the operation of the battery-operated electronic ballast can be divided into two modes. In the steady-state symmetrical operation, both the power switches are operated identically. Therefore, it is sufficient to analyze only one-half cycle of operation, since the other half is symmetrical. Fig. 3 illustrates the theoretical waveforms for each interval.
vS
0

r =

t t

vC s
0

v CE1
0 0

t t

vBE1 i CE1
0

t t t

v CE2
0 0

vBE2 i CE2 vLAMP

0 0

t t

iLAMP
0 t0 Q2 ON t1 Q1 ON t2 Q2 ON

Fig. 6 Theoretical waveforms of the proposed battery operated electronic ballast

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Referring the primary components into the secondary side and neglecting the leakage inductances of the transformer, the equivalent circuit is drawn in Fig. 7. In this figure, the inductor Lrr is given by
L1 Lrr = n 2 Cp

III.

EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

1 2 r L1 Cp

+ Ls

(17)

where the symbol n represents the turns ratio between the turns on the secondary side of the transformer and the turns on the primary side of the transformer.

v L rr Lrr

A. Battery Charger The input of proposed modified series-loaded resonant converter was connected to a system consisting of a photovoltaic modules of output voltage 24V and 150W. A prototype of the battery charger with modified series-loaded resonant topology was established in a laboratory to confirm the functional operations. The developed charger circuit is applied to a 12V, 48AH lead-acid battery. The conditions of the experiment were as follows: switching frequency fs=22KHz, resonant frequency fr=20KHz, charging current Io=6.5A, charging voltage VBA = 15V, and the open circuit voltage of battery Voc =11V. Under these operation conditions, the two parameters of the modified series-loaded resonant converter are chosen as follows: Cr=3.2F Lr=16H The waveforms were measured with the help of digital multi-meter. Figure 8 displays the waveforms of the trigger signals VGS1, and VGS2. Figure 9 presents the waveforms of the resonant voltage vCr and the resonant current iLr. Fig. 10 reveals the input voltage and output voltage waveforms of resonant tank terminals. Figure 11 displays the voltage variation curve of the battery. The terminal voltage of the battery from 10.5V to 15.3V takes 500 minutes. Figures 12 and 13 plot the charging current and the charging efficiency, respectively. The charging current Io decreases as the voltage VBA of the battery increases. The charging current takes 500 minutes to fall below 5A. The minimal and maximal efficiencies of the battery charging circuit are around 71% and 95%, respectively, and the average charging efficiency of the charger is 84.8%.

vS

i Lrr Cs vCs

RLAMP

vLAMP

Fig. 7 Battery-operated electronic ballast with the primary side referred to the secondary side At the beginning of the operation of the proposed electronic ballast, the power switch, Q2, is turned on. With the initial condition iLrr (t=0)=ILrro, the voltage across the capacitor Cs can be derived as
vCs (t ) = I Lrro Lrr t e sin rr t Cs

(18)

where the damping factor, R = LAMP 2 Lrr the resonant angular frequency,
or =
1
Lrr Cs

V GS1

and the damped-resonant frequency rr is given by

rr =
1 1 2 2 Lrr C s 2 RLAMPC s
I Lro t e [or cos rr t sin rr t ] Csrr

V GS2

The corresponding value of the lamp current is

iLAMP ( t ) = iLrr ( t ) =

(19) CH2:10V/div CH3:10V /div Time:10s /div Fig. 8 The trigger signals of power switches (20)

The lamp voltage vLAMP can be found

R I v LAMP ( t ) = LAMP Lrro e t [or cos rr t sin rr t ] Csrr

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v cr

( A) 8.0 7.5 7.0 6.5

i Lr

6.0 5.5 5.0

0 100 200 300 400 500

( minutes )

CH2:20V/div CH4:20A /div Time:10s /div Fig. 9 The resonant voltage and current waveforms
va

Fig. 12 Charging current curve during charging period

(%)
95 90 85 80

vb

75 70 65 0 100 200 300 400 500 ( minutes )

CH2:10V/div CH3: 10V /div Time:10s /div Fig. 10 The input and output voltage waveforms of resonant tank
( V) 15.5 14.5 13.5 12.5 11.5 400 500 (minutes ) Fig. 11 Battery voltage curve during charging period 10.5 0 100 200 300

Fig. 13 Charging efficiency curve during charging period Battery-Operate Electronic Ballast To verify the predicted operation principles and theoretical analysis of the proposed new current-sourcing push-pull resonant electronic ballast of fluorescent lamps for photovoltaic applications, a laboratory electronic ballast of Fig. 5 is built to drive a fluorescent lamp of 40W. The circuit parameters are listed in Table 1. Fig. 14 shows the measured experimental waveforms of v1 and ics of the novel battery operated electronic ballast, which is quite consistent with the predictions. Fig. 15 displays the measured waveforms of transformer voltage v1 and the input dc current Iin. The experimental results shown in Figs. 16 and 17, demonstrate that zero-voltage switching is achieved for the power switch. Therefore, the switching losses for this new electronic ballast are practically zero. Fig. 18 shows the measured transformer output voltages vs and capacitor voltage vcs, , lamp voltage vLamp, and lamp current iLamp waveforms when the batteryoperated electronic ballast is supplied from a DC input voltage of 12V. Figs. 14,15,16,17, and 18 show the measured experimental waveforms of the experiment circuit, and they are quite consistent with those predicted. The experimentally obtained efficiency from the current-sourcing push-pull electronic ballast is equal to 88.3%. The crest factor (CF) of the lamp current equals 1.23 which meets the requirements of lighting applications. B.

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Table 1 Circuit parameters Input voltage Vs 12V DC Switching frequency fs 19kHz Input inductor Lin 100H Inductor L1 9H Inductor Ls 8mH Capacitor Cp 0.1F Capacitor Cs 4.7nF

vCE2
CH1

vBE2
CH2

CH1: 20V/div CH2: 4V/div Time: 25s /div Fig.17 Measured waveforms of vCE2 and vBE2
CH1

v1
CH1

vs vC s

CH2

iC p

CH2

CH3

vLAMP iLAMP

CH1: 10V/div CH2: 1A/div Time: 25s /div Fig. 14 Measured waveforms of v1 and icp

CH4

CH1

v1

CH1: 1KV/div CH2: 1KV/div Time: 25s /div CH3: 200V/div CH4: 0.5A/div Time: 25s /div Fig.18 Measured waveforms of vs, vcs, vLamp and iLamp

I in
CH2

IV.

CONCLUSIONS

CH1: 10V/div CH2: 2A/div Time: 25s /div Fig. 15 Measured waveforms of v1 and Iin

iCE2
CH1

vBE2
CH2

CH1: 2A/div CH2: 4V/div Time: 25s /div Fig.16 Measured waveforms of iCE2 and vBE2

In order to make the best use of the solar energy and store the energy into batteries, this study composed the photovoltaic modules with a simple structure, low switching loss, high efficiency and high performance modified series-loaded resonant battery charger. This charger is designed to develop better efficiency of the photovoltaic module. This study presents the use of battery charger with zero-voltage-switching technology in the charging test of a lead-acid battery charger to demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed methodology. The average circuit efficiency of the charging process exceeds 80%. In addition, the performance is obtained at lower cost as less number of components are used. Besides the charger, an electronic ballast with currentsourcing push-pull resonant inverter has been discussed in this paper. This type of inverter is well suited for battery applications when compared to half-bridge topology, since it doubles the voltage on the inverter operation while the halfbridge divides it. All the switches used in this ballast are common ground and therefore the use of special drivers was not necessary, thus attaining an extra cost reduction for the ballast. Furthermore, the commutations in the switches of the electronic ballast are realized at zero voltage. The proposed electronic ballast is a novel option for fluorescent lamps

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operating at high frequency and low input voltage. The measured performance showed good agreement with the theoretical predictions. REFERENCES
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