Abstract
The use of electronic load controllers (ELCrs) is widely adopted in pico hydropower systems to maintain output power supplied to the consumer load, regardless of changes in consumer demand. This is due to the absence of moving mechanical parts, affordability, prevention of the hammer effect in pipes, and being more efficient than the governor systems. However, implementing existing ELCrs in a pico hydropower system can pose challenges related to power quality, efficiency, or costs. In this paper, a fuzzy PI-based single-switch bidirectional AC chopper electronic load controller (FP-SSBAC ELCr) is proposed. This configuration reduces the number of insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) from two, typically found in the conventional bidirectional AC choppers, to one per phase, resulting in cost reduction. A hybrid controller, comprising fuzzy and PI controllers, is designed to quickly maintain a constant output voltage and frequency when consumer load abruptly changes. The gains of the PI controller are updated by the fuzzy logic controller based on the voltage error and its derivative. The proposed model is simulated in MATLAB/Simulink and validated experimentally under sudden changes in consumer load. The results achieved with the FP-SSBAC ELCr demonstrate improved dynamic performance without overshoot compared to PI-based ELCrs. The highest recorded voltage and current total harmonic distortions (THDs) are 2.8 % and 2.1 %, respectively, meeting the IEEE 519 standard. Therefore, the proposed model has the potential to enhance performance and efficiency and can be implemented cost-effectively in pico hydropower systems.