Article

A LabView Based Instrumentation System for a Wind-Solar Hybrid Power Station

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Abstract

Renewable energy technologies range from the well established, such as hydropower, to the emergent, such as a wind-solar hybrid system. Each technology has its own individual instrumentation requirements to measure and control system variables. National Instrument’s LabView™ data acquisition hardware and software module has become one of the most widely used tools to capture, view, and process controls, instrumentation, and power system data both in academia and the industry (Franz, 2003, and Travis, 2002). This paper describes a LabView™based real time data acquisition and instrumentation of a 1.5 kW wind-solar hybrid renewable energy system. The wind-solar power generation station is used as an instructional resource for teaching renewable energy concepts to Industrial Technology students at the University of Northern Iowa (UNI). The addition of the new LabView™module to the system provides the much needed real time information on the system variables, such as wind speed, wind direction, dc power, ac power, ac/dc voltages and currents. This real-time data acquisition system is being used extensively to provide the students a hands-on laboratory experience related to electrical, electronics, and instrumentation. In this paper, discussions on many aspects of data acquisition, instrumentation, interfacing, and programming are based on an existing 1.5 kW wind-solar hybrid power station at the University of Northern Iowa.

Keywords: computer programming|electricity|electronics|energy|research|research methods

How to Cite:

Pecen, R., Salim, M. & Zora, A., (2004) “A LabView Based Instrumentation System for a Wind-Solar Hybrid Power Station”, Journal of Industrial Technology 20(3).