A Grid-Connected Photovoltaic System with Direct Coupled Power Quality Control

Sung-Hun Ko and Seong-Ryong Lee

School of Electronic & Information Engineering Kunsan National University Kunsan 573-701 Korea merchin@kunsan.ac.kr
Abstract This paper presents a grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) system with direct coupled power quality controller (PQC), which uses an inner current control loop (polarized ramp time (PRT)) and outer feedback control loops to improve grid power quality and maximum power point tracking (MPPT) of PV arrays. To reduce the complexity, cost and number of power conversions, which results in higher efficiency, a single stage CCVSI is used. The system operation has been divided into two modes (sunny and night). In night mode, the current controlled inverter (CCVSI) operates to compensate the reactive power demanded by nonlinear or variation in loads. In sunny mode, the proposed system performs PQC to reduce harmonic current and improve power factor as well as MPPT to supply active power from the PV arrays simultaneously. It is shown that the proposed system improves the system utilization factor (SUF) to 100%, which is generally low for PV systems (20%). Mathematical modelling, computer simulations and experimental results for a 1kVA CCVSI are presented.

Hooman Dehbonei and C.V. Nayar

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Curtin University of Technology GPO Box U 1987 Perth 6854 Australia dehbonei@ieee.org Moreover, the conventional grid-connected PV system does not operate on cloudy days or at night. Fig. 1 shows a typical daily operating pattern of a grid connected PV system.

I. INTRODUCTION In finding solutions to overcome a global energy crisis, the photovoltaic (PV) system has attracted significant attention in recent years [1]. There are many motives for increasing the use of grid-connected PV systems, which has lead to expectations of high installation rates of these systems around the globe. The major motives include preservation of world underground resources, reducing air pollutants and to respond to the increase in electricity demand. Grid-tied PV systems are so promising that many national solar-roof programs have been initiated and are in progress in countries such as Germany, Japan, USA and Korea, etc. Conventional grid-connected PV systems suffer from minor drawbacks such as high installation costs, low conversion efficiency and variable PV output power, depending on weather conditions [2, 3]. In order to improve the performance of PV systems, many maximum power point tracking (MPPT) techniques have been developed [4, 5]. In most of these articles, the main goal was to supply the maximum available active power from PV to a grid without compensating the harmonic current and reactive power demanded by the load. Today, non-linear loads are widely used in residential and office buildings. These include computers, modern electrical products, variable speed drives and even normal fluorescent lamps. As a result, the power quality of the grid has been reduced (poor power factor and increasing total harmonic distortion (THD)). Conventional grid-connected PV systems require additional active filters to reduce THD and compensate reactive power [6-9].

Fig. 1. A daily operating pattern of a grid connected PV system

Fig. 1 shows that typically a PV system operates at most for less than eight hours a day. It means that the system utilization factor (SUF) for a PV system is less than 20% (considering rainy and/or cloudy periods). It is worth noting that even during a sunny period, although conventional PV systems inject the PV power at unity power factor to the grid, the overall system power factor is low due to the loads reactive power demand. Since the reactive power demand from the load is variable, when PV power is injected into a grid at unity power factor the overall system power factor is poor. This will be worse during the sunny period, when PV arrays can supply the whole active power demand by the load as the full reactive power demanded by the load must be supplied by a grid (the grid power factor is worse). Therefore, it is necessary to develop a grid-connected PV system for residential homes and offices with a single loop current controller to improve grid power quality. In order to avoid a large number of components being involved in any two-stage systems (a dc-dc converter and an inverter), a single stage power converter using a CCVSI was considered [10]. In this paper, a grid-connected PV system equipped with a direct coupled PQC algorithm is proposed, which gives first priority to MPPT. The proposed system requires only one CCVSI, which can control the current flow (MPPT operation) at low THD and unity power factor, as well as simultaneously provide reactive power support. The CCVSI performs faster in response compared to a VCVSI [11-13] and achieves unity power factor at a common coupling point. Moreover, the CCVSI maintains the current THD within the limit for the

1-4244-0136-4/06/$20.00 '2006 IEEE

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Fig.3 The equivalent circuit of the proposed system

Fig. 2. Illustrated configuration of the proposed system

whole inverter operating range, without require additional hardware or complex control. In this study the CCVSI is programmed to perform MPPT during sunny hours and active filtering for the rest of the day (SUF increases to 100%). II. GRID-CONNECTED PV SYSTEM WITH DIRECT COUPLED PQC ALGORITHM A grid-connected PV system can be transferred to a grid via one or two power conversions. Generally, the number of power stages in power conditioners signifies the number of power conversions. In PV applications, one stage power converters are more efficient and reliable, as they require only one DC/AC inverter connecting the PV arrays directly to a grid. The cost and efficiency of the two-stage PV system is compromised due to the use of a large number of individual devices [14]. Both the single and two stage PV systems require an additional active power filter to reduce THD and improve power factor. In this paper, a single stage grid-connected PV system with direct coupled PQC algorithm is proposed (Fig. 2). Fig. 2 shows that this system consists of a single phase CCVSI, a DSP based control module, and interfacing and sensing modules. The input of the CCVSI is connected to a DC capacitor and the PV arrays. The output of the CCVSI is connected to a grid via a step-up transformer. The aims of the proposed system are to improve the power quality and active power support to a load (linear and /or nonlinear) and/or grid. As a CCVSI controls the current flow using the VSI switching instants, it is modelled as a current source. As the output voltage of the inverter is filtered, this current can be assumed to have only a fundamental frequency depending upon the grid. The simplified equivalent diagram of the system is shown in Fig. 3. A. Operational principles of the system The system operation has been divided into two modes (sunny and night). In sunny mode when PV power is available, the proposed system provides the PV energy at MPP to the load and/or grid, while the remaining capacity (rating) of the inverter is used to mitigate the current harmonics and improve the power factor at the common coupling point. In night mode, the grid will deliver the required active power demanded by the load and the CCVSI will supply the required reactive

power. Considering these two different modes, the proposed system improves the system utilization factor (SUF) to 100%, which is generally low for PV systems (20%). The CCVSI uses switching instants to generate the desired current flow in the output inductor filter. As the current generated from the CCVSI can be controlled independently from the voltage, the active and reactive power controls are decoupled. Hence, unity power factor operation for the entire range of the load is possible. This is one of the main advantage of CCVSI`s. Fig. 4 shows the phasor diagram of a proposed system in the presence of an inductive load and different modes of operation.

I g . I PV I loadp

Vg

I cq
Ic
(a)

I load
Ig
Vg

Ic
(b)
Fig. 4. Phasor diagram of the proposed system at each operation mode at the inductive load a) sunny state and b) night state

I load

The load current (Iload) is continuously supplied by the current of the grid (Ig) and CCVSI (Ic). It can be expressed as (1);

I load = I g + I c

(1)

During night mode, the active power demand by the load (Pload) should be equal to the grid power to achieve unity power factor. Hence the required grid current (Ig*) can be rewritten as (2).
* Ig = Re[I load ] =

Pload Vg

(2)

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In sunny mode, the desired grid active current is less than the load active current demand, as the PV also supplies the rest of the load active current demand. In this mode, the active power in the CCVSI has to flow from the DC to the AC bus (grid or load). This means that both the grid and PV output power supply the load active power. The remaining load reactive power will be supplied by the CCVSI, considering the remaining capacity and rating of the inverter. Hence equation (2) can be rewritten as follows;
* Ig = Re[I load ] Re[I c ] =

The PRT current control block operates in a way that ensures the Zero Average Current Error (ZACE) is obtained in each switching period and at a fixed switching frequency. This method uses only the current error signal to determine switching, and aims to maintain a narrow switching frequency band. In the PRT current control loop, the actual CCVSI current is forced to follow the reference current. The actual CCVSI current is measured with an instantaneous measurement, and is subtracted from the reference current to give an error signal. III. SIMULATION RESULTS PSim simulator was used for the simulation. To verify the performance of the system, a 3KVA system including linear and nonlinear load was simulated. The inverter capacity was assumed to be 3KVA and PV arrays at maximum power provided 1432W at 192 V. Table 1 illustrates the simulation conditions and parameter values.
TABLE I SIMULATION CONDITIONS AND PARAMETERS Parameters Values Parameters Values Vac Fs Filter inductor 220Vrms 60Hz 10mH Vmppt Fsw DC link capacitor 192V 5 kHz 1000uF

Pload PPV Vg

(3)

The CCVSI current should be controlled not only to compensate the reactive power current of the grid depending on the load, but also to reduce its active current corresponding to the PV output power. To manage the power flow of the entire system, the CCVSI current should be controlled to compensate the reactive current of the grid depending on the load condition. Therefore, the desired CCVSI current (Ic* ) must be controlled in a way that it meets the reactive current of the load demand as presented in (4):
* I c* = I load I g

(4)

B. System Control Algorithm Fig.5 shows the control block diagram, which consists of a PQC and an MPPT control block, to provide a reference current required by the polarized (PRT) current control algorithm. The MPPT algorithm is necessary to extract the maximum power from the PV at all times. To avoid complex calculations of conventional MPPT algorithms, such as incremental conductance (IncCond), an improved MPPT algorithm has been developed, using only PV current (IPV) and voltage (VPV) feedbacks. For synchronization in the control scheme, a grid voltage (Vg) and a phase locked loop (PLL) were used. The sample of load current (Iload) and grid voltage (Vg) were used in the PQC block to generate the desired reactive current component (Icq*) of the desired inverter current (Ic-ref*). This reference current and instantaneous CCVSI current (Ic) were then given to the PRT block to generate the desired instantaneous switching PWMs.

Full load 3kVA Transformer turn ratio 1:2 Where Fs is the fundamental frequency, Fsw is the switching frequency

The waveform of a conventional PV system and the proposed system in the presence of inductive and non-linear loads are shown in Figs. 6 and 7 respectively.

(a)

(b) Fig. 6. The simulation waveforms in the presence of an inductive load Z=

Fig. 5. The proposed control block diagram

40 36.7[], a) conventional PV system and b) proposed PV system

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been used to capture the following results. It is important to note that the CCVSI current (Ic) is the primary current of the transformer using control block diagram in Fig.5.
TABLE II SIMULATION CONDITIONS AND PARAMETERS Specification Model & value Full load Vac IGBT module DSP processor Voltage sensor (a) Current sensor Filter inductor 1KVA 200Vrms 2MBI50L60 TMS302C31 LEM LV25P LEM LA25P 6mH

Figs. 8 (a) and (b) show the experimental waveform of the night mode of operation in the presence of an inductive load and diode bridge rectifier with RLC loads. These results are very similar to the simulation results (Fig. 6 (b) and Fig. 7 (b)). For the proposed PV system, using Voltech (PM3000 A), the

(b)
Fig. 7. The simulation waveforms in the presence of a nonlinear load, a) conventional PV system and b) proposed PV system

Where, Vg is the voltage waveform of the grid, and Ig, Ic and Iload are current waveforms of the grid, CCVSI and load respectively. Figs. 6(a) and (b) show that the both the PV and grid can supply the active power demanded by the inductive load. Fig. 6(b) shows that the proposed system can supply the reactive power required by the load, however, the conventional PV grid-connected system cannot supply the reactive power required by the load (Fig. 6(a)). In a conventional PV system, the phase angle between the grid voltage and current is as high as 51.3 (power factor = 0.65) when the load impedance angle is 36.9 (power factor= 0.8). This figure shows that the power factor is worst in the presence of a PV grid connected system with unity power factor operation. Fig. 7 shows the simulation results of the conventional PV system and proposed system in the presence of a nonlinear load (a RLC diode bridge rectifier). Fig. 7 shows that both the PV and grid can supply the active power demanded by a load. Fig. 7(b) shows that the proposed system prevents any low order harmonics injection into the grid. The simulation results confirm the control algorithms capability to achieve MPPT operation, by supplying the active power from PV to the grid, while compensating the grid current harmonics and providing greater reactive power support at the same time. IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS In order to verify the simulation results and system performance, a 1kVA experimental laboratory setup (scale down version) was built. System specifications are given in Table II. The Tektronix (TDS3054B) digital oscilloscope has

(a)

(b)
Fig. 8. Experimental waveform results of the proposed PV system in night mode of operation in the presence of a) inductive load (Z= 40 36.7[]) and b) nonlinear load (a diode rectifier with RLC)

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power factor was more than 0.98. Fig. 8 (a) shows that the proposed PV system performs at unity power factor in the presence of an inductive load (Z= 40 36.7[]). In this case, the grid supplies the load active power and the CCVSI supplies the load reactive power. Fig. 8 (b) shows the performance of the proposed PV system in night mode and in the presence of a nonlinear load. It confirms that the proposed PV system performs well and while it can reduce the low order harmonics of the nonlinear load, it also achieves unity power factor at the common coupling point for the grid. Fig. 9 illustrates the FFT results of the grid current up to 5[kHz]. Fig. 9(a) shows low order harmonics and the capability of the proposed PV system to reduce these harmonics. The FFT results of the grid current reveal that the proposed PV system performs at lower THD while maintaining unity power factor at the common coupling point. However, in a conventional PV system not only is the system unable to perform at unity power factor at the common coupling point, but the grid also suffers from lower order harmonic injection of nonlinear loads. Fig. 9 (a) shows a conventional PV system that faces difficulty when operating in the presence of a nonlinear load without an active filter. Figs. 10(a) and (b) show the performance of the proposed PV system in sunny mode in the presence of linear and nonlinear loads, respectively. Fig. 10(a) shows that the CCVSI does not react in the presence of a linear load in sunny mode. This is because there is no reactive power demand from the load and all the active power is supplied by the grid. This figure illustrates that when the CCVSI is still operating under sunny mode and PV energy is available, it will supply the load and reduce the grid current shares. Fig. 10(b) shows the proposed PV system in the presence of a nonlinear load that

performs as a PQC when PV energy is not available. In this case, the active power is supplied by the grid. On the other hand, when the PV become available, the PV system supplies the active power from the PV and the rest of the available capacity of the inverter will be used for reactive power and/or active filtering compensation.

(a)

(a)

(b) Fig. 10. Experiment results of the proposed PV system in sunny mode in the presence of a) pure resistive load and b) nonlinear load (a diode bridge rectifier with RLC)

V. CONCLUSION This paper presented a grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) system with direct coupled power quality controller (PQC). The proposed PV system used an inner current control loop and outer feedback control loops to improve grid power quality and maximum power point tracking (MPPT) of PV arrays. To reduce the complexity, cost and number of power conversions, which results in higher efficiency, a single stage CCVSI was used. It was demonstrated that the system performs well in either sunny or night modes of operation. In night mode, the current controlled inverter (CCVSI) operates
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(b) Fig. 9. Experimental FFT results of the grid current at the nonlinear load (a diode rectifier with RLC), (a) conventional PV system and (b) proposed PV system.

to compensate the reactive power demanded by nonlinear or variation in loads. In sunny mode, the proposed PV system performs PQC to reduce harmonic current and improve power factor as well as MPPT to supply active power from the PV arrays simultaneously. It was shown that the proposed system improves the system utilization factor (SUF) to 100%, which is generally low for PV systems (20%). Experimental results from a 1kVA CCVSI confirms the validity of the proposed PV system including mathematical modelling and computer simulations. VI. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work has been supported by KESRI(R-2005-7-136), which is funded by MOCIE (Ministry of commerce, industry and energy). VII. REFERENCES [1] Xiaofeng Sun, Weiyang Wu, Xin Li, Qinglin Zhao, "A research on photovoltaic energy controlling system with maximum power point tracking," presented at Power Conversion Conference, 2002. PCC Osaka 2002. Proceedings of the, 2002. E. Imamura, Y. Uchiyama,, "Analysis of financial support for photovoltaic system installation with the economic simulation model," presented at Photovoltaic Energy Conversion, 1994., Conference Record of the Twenty Fourth ; IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference - 1994, 1994 IEEE First World Conference on, 1994. A.M. Sharaf, A.R.N.M.R.U. Haque,, "Low cost utility interconnected photovoltaic scheme for residential/ village/ cottage electricity," presented at System Theory, 2005. SSST '05. Proceedings of the Thirty-Seventh Southeastern Symposium on, 2005. Yang Chen, K. Smedley, F. Vacher, J. Brouwer,, "A new maximum power point tracking controller for photovoltaic power generation," presented at Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exposition, 2003. APEC '03. Eighteenth Annual IEEE, 2003. P.Midya, P.T. Krein, R.J. Turnbull, R. Reppa, J. Kimball,, "Dynamic maximum power point tracker for photovoltaic applications," presented at Power Electronics Specialists Conference, 1996. PESC '96 Record., 27th Annual IEEE, 1996. P.G. Barbosa, L.G.B.Rolim, E.H.Watanabe, R. Hanitsch,, "Control strategy for grid-connected DC-AC converters with load power factor correction," Generation, Transmission and Distribution, IEE Proceedings-, vol. 145, pp. 487-491, 1998. S.J.Chiang, K.T.Chang, C.Y.Yen,, "Residential photovoltaic energy storage system," Industrial Electronics, IEEE Transactions on, vol. 45, pp. 385-394, 1998. S.-J.Huang, F.-S.Pai,, "Design and operation of

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