A Single Phase Grid Tied Solar Micro Inverter

(250w and 500W)

An abstract submitted
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the degree
of

MASTER OF TECHNOLOGY
in

POWER ELECTRONICS AND DRIVES

Submitted by
Rajeev Baratam
EE132505
Under the guidance of
Prof. P Srinivasan

Department of Electrical Engineering

National Institute Of Technology Warangal,
Telangana, April 2015

Abstract
This thesis presents a single phase grid connected DC/AC inverter with reactive power
(VAR) control for residential photovoltaic (PV) applications.
The DC-D converter is a Flyback converter with a voltage doubler. To increase the
efficiency of solar power extraction an MPPT algorithm (Incremental conductance method) is
implemented. The inverter, utilizing the voltage sourced inverter (VSI) configuration, allows
the local residential PV generation to actively supply reactive power to the utility grid. A low
complexity grid synchronization method was introduced to generate the parallel and
orthogonal components of the grid voltage in a highly computationally efficient manner in
order to create a synchronized current reference to the current control loop. In addition, the
inverter is able to use a small long life film type capacitor on the DC-link by utilizing a notch
filter on the voltage control loop.
Simulations were performed on LTSPICE platform and TINA-TI platform and a
prototype was also developed in the lab to prove the effectiveness of the controllers, the grid
synchronization method and to measure efficiency of overall system.

About project
This document introduces the main topic of this thesis, a single phase grid connected
DC/AC inverter with reactive power (VAR) control for residential photovoltaic (PV)
applications. In this work, the foci are on the control of the inverter and the grid
synchronization technique, the reduction of the size of the DC-link capacitor in order to use
long life film capacitor in a low cost manner. Another challenge is extending this to 5ooW by
paralleling two DC-DC converters.
First, a brief background on the single phase PV grid connected inverter is presented
along with the motivation of this work. Then, a literary review on the PV inverter system
configurations, controls, DC-link capacitor reduction techniques and the grid synchronization
methods are presented. Extending this concept to 500 W solar inverter. The objectives of this
work are stated at the end of this chapter.
The remainder of the work is organized as follows:
Chapter 2 describes the design of the DC-DC converter power stage including the selection of
driver circuits, DC-link capacitor consideration.
Chapter 3 describes the design of the inverters power stage including the selection of the
switching circuits, DC-link capacitor consideration, and the output filter design.
Chapter 4 focuses on the control methods of the inverter which consist of a current controller
along with a low complexity grid synchronization technique and a DC voltage controller.
Chapter 5 shows the LTSPICE simulation results for the grid connected inverter. The
validation of the current loop control and the voltage control are shown.
Chapter 6 shows the experimental results for the grid connected inverter. The steady state
operation and the transient response results of the inverter are shown and discussed.
Chapter 7 summarizes the thesis, and the future directions that can be investigated.