A Comparative Study of Photovoltaic Water Pumping System-Driving Conventional AC Single-phase and Three-phase Motor Submersible Pumps

The water is very important to human lives. The best and most appropriate way to have an adequate supply of water is to use solar energy to drive pumps instead of using fossil energy. This research was conducted as a comparative study of a conventional submersible AC motor–pump driven by a photovoltaic system using two types of AC motor which are single-phase and three-phase submersible water pumps. The performance of the system was measured according to the standard test procedure in IEC 62253: 2011 while the depth of the well was simulated by an adjustable pump discharge pressure and a pump installed in a predetermined location of 40 meters. The results showed that the three-phase pump supplied more water and has a good response as indicated by a low irradiance of approximately 75 Watt/m2 in the morning, around 06.15 AM which runs the pump motor effectively while the one-phase pump required a higher irradiance of 750 Watt/m2 at around 10.30 A.M. Moreover, the PVWPS system with the three-phase pump also had higher efficiency and
PR values with 0.64 and 0.40598 respectively than the system with the single-phase with 0.48 and 0.21388.