The pumping of water is one of the activities most diffused to the employment of the photovoltaic solar energy, in spite of coming as an interesting alternative, the high cost and it lowers efficiency of the systems with the inadequate projects, still restricts its application. The rational use, based on the most efficient use of its equipments is linked to the knowledge of the operational behavior of these systems. The present work objectified to evaluate the operational behavior of a photovoltaic water pumping directly coupled operating in different conditions of solar irradiance, by means of the assembly of supported tests, submitting to different manometer elevation and determining the supplied rate flux of water. The analysis of the results allowed to determine a regression model for flux of water estimation as function of irradiance and manometer elevation. Was concluded that the power generated by the array and the rate flux supplied by the motor-pump is directly related to the solar irradiance. The maximum efficiency of the array was of 8%, 39% for the motor-pump and, 2.3% in the interaction of the components in the system.
solar irradiation; pumping head; flow of system
