2013 International Conference on Circuits, Power and Computing Technologies [ICCPCT-2013]

Control of Power Converter for Power

Quality Improvement in a Grid
Connected PV System
S. Thai Subha,

V. Hima Leela,

Dept. ofElectrical and Electronics Engineering

Dept. of Electrical and Electronics Engineering

SRM University, Chennai,

SRM University, Chennai,

lndia

lndia

thaisubha.s@ktr.srmuniv.ac.in

leelareddy29@gmail.com

11. PROPOSED SYSTEM

Abstract-RENEWABLE energy sources are spreading due to

environmental and energetic shortcomings. These systems are
usually grid connected, and a power converter is tlle key item to
connect the renewable energy sources to tlle grid. Tlle power
converter must be accurately designed in order to comply with grid
requirements in terms 0/ power quality and sa/ety. This paper
/ocuses on the design, modeling and control o/ power converters /or
power quality improvement in a grid connected Distributed
Generators system. In this paper Photovoltaic is considered as DG.
Control action 0/ power converters are designed such that they can
figure out with a trans/ormer coupled grid connected system with
different voltage levels 0/ the grid. The Grid Connected
Photovoltaic system in which a low voltage based PV generation
system ted to grid 0/ 25 kV and 125 kV along with tlle effect 0/
irradiance on active power ted to grid is demonstrated All the
simulations are carried out in MATLAB/Simulink environment and
the results with priggish analysis are exhibited.

The proposed system configuration is demonstrated in

Figure 1. The PV array is designed at voltage level of 270 V
and capable of producing 100 kW at constant irradiation of
2
1000 W/m This 270 V PV voltage is boosted to 500 V by
using a DC-DC boost converter. A 3-level bridge inverter is
used to convert this dc power into ac power, which is filtered
by an LC filter before being fed to line frequency transformer.

3level bridge Inverter

GridCurreni
-.

Grid

Index Terms-Distributed Generator(DG}, Grid Connected

Photovoltaic (GPV)
I. INTRODUCTION
Energy plays a pivotal role in our daily activities. The
degree of development and civilization of a country is

Pulses 10 3level
bridge Inverter

measured by the amount of utilization of energy by

human beings. Energy demand is increasing day by day
due

to

increase

in

population,

urbanization

and

industrialization. The world's fossil fuel supply viz. coal,

Fig. I. Proposed system configuration

petroleum, and natural gas will thus be depleted in few

hund red

years.

The

rate

of

energy

consumption

increasing, supply is depleting resulting in inflation and

The filtered power can be coupled with the Grid of any

energy shortage. This is called energy crisis. Hence,

voltage level through line frequency transformer. The current

alternative or renewable sources of energy have to be

controller block with transformer output current and Grid

voltage PLL as inputs will produce the appropriate pulses for

developed to meet future energy requirement.

the 3-level bridge inverter.

Among renewable energy sources, photovoltaic (PV)

III. ApPROACH

systems are one of the most up to date techniques, due to

In order to avow the performance of proposed power

the combined effect of the downward price tendency and

converter, the following approaches were considered.

of the increasing efficiency of the PV modules. Hence,

DC fed to Grid

solid-state

PV Fed to 25 kV Grid

power

converters

are

increasing

their

importance as the enabling technology for integrating PV

PV Fed to 125 kV Utility Grid

systems into the Grid. In this project a power converter

A.

sized for PV systems is presented; nevertheless most of

Figure 2 shows the DC Fed to Grid System Configuration

the addressed issues can be simply extended to other

in which the PV array is replaced with a DC source of 270V

renewable energy sources, like wind energy conversion

and Figure 3 shows its MATLAB/Simulink implementation.

systems, fuel cells, and combined heat power production.

978-1-4673-4922-2/13/$31.00 2013 IEEE

DC Fed 10 Grid

26

2013 International Conference on Circuits, Power and Computing Technologies [ICCPCT-2013]

J level bridge Inverter

GridCurrent
....

wI

C
B n
S+

VoVl'r,,
l

VoVOJIin

Grid

IdIV.,VoVt""

IdlOJlin

0 v

PLL & Mmu/:ment

e
r

PWM

Idlvot

lo.....rf

Uni! Dlay

VdVQJnv

G:llf:I'slOi

Vabc.relGeneraoon

CIJIffnIRulsl

Pulses 10 Jlevel
bridge Inverter

Fig. 4. MATLAB/Simulink implementation of VSC control

The current controller is implemented in the Voltage

Fig. 2. OC Fed toGrid system Configuration

Source Converter (VSC) control block. Since voltage has been

taken as reference the controller is termed as Voltage Source
Converter. The VSC control block is a subsystem, which is
depicted in Figure 4.

i. System Considerations
The following considerations are made for designing DC
Fed Grid:
DC voltage

270 V

Boost converter Frequency :

5 kHz

Duty ratio

0.48

Transformer rating

: 260V/25 kV 100 kVA

Grid Voltage

25 kV

ii. Results and Discussion

Figure 5 shows that the active power P, reaches 150 kW by
t

0.5 sec with and is settled at t

2 sec whereas the reactive

power Q, is maintained as zero from t

0.5 sec onwards.

Hence, the reactive power compensation is done.

:_'

2OO r----------r----r_--_,

:n

1
;: 8
-

Ci

.....

..... P
_
O"_
O_
'P _

_
A"

__

:EE.________

.so

....

_
__

+--

R.i Po" r Q
_

, 1 000\-------;!;o..,--- ---f--------t, .-- ------!;-------:;2.'<. ----

Fig. 5. Active and Reactive Power OC fed toGrid

Fig. 3. MATLAB/Simulink implementation of DC fed toGrid

Fig. 6. Grid voltage and current . DC fed toGrid

27

2013 International Conference on Circuits, Power and Computing Technologies [ICCPCT-2013]

Figure 6 shows that the Grid voltage and current are in

phase which shows that unity power factor is achieved.
Fundamental (60Hz) = 2.0420+004 , THD= 0.04%

0.04

0.03

LL

b 0.02

Ir

::;:

0.01

....IIII
.
1000

.1

.1111

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

7000

8000

9000

10000

Frequency (Hz)

Fundamental

(EOHz) = 4.9 , THD=

1.31 %

LL

0.5

J.l1

'"

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

7000

8000

9000

10000

Frequency (Hz)

Fig. 7. FFT analysis ofGrid voltage and current - De fed toGrid

Figure 7 displays the FFT analysis of Grid voltage and Grid

current which shows that THD s of Grid voltage Vg and the
current injected into the Grid Ig is 0.04% and l. 3 1%
respectively which satisfies IEEE 5 19 standard limits.

From the above discussion, it is evidenced that reactive

power compensation with THDs of voltage and current <5%
are obtained. Hence, the power quality in a Grid connected DC
system is improved by controlling the power converter is
concluded.

B. PV Fed

1025 kV Grid

Figure 8 shows the MATLAB/Simulink implementation of

PV fed to 25 kV Grid. The only difference in DC fed Grid and
PV fed Grid is that, the DC source is replaced by a PV array
with MPPT, capable of producing 100 kW power under
2
constant irradiation of 1000 W1m . The duty cycle of boost

Fig. 8. MATLAB/Simulink lmplementation of PV fed 10 25 kVGrid

converter is modified according to the incremental conductance

based MPPT algorithm.

Figure 10 shows that the Grid voltage and currents are in

i. Resulls and Discussion

phase which shows that unity power factor is maintained.

Figure 9 shows that 99. 15 kW out of 100 kW generated PV

power is fed to the Grid as active power and is maintained at
the same level from t
reaches zero at t

0.48 sec whereas the reactive power

0.2 sec.

Fig. 10Grid voltage and current - PV fed to 25 kVGrid

Fig. 9. Active and Reactive Power - PV fed to 25 kVGrid

Figure 11 shows the FFT analysis of Grid voltage Vg and

and 1.62%

the Grid current Ig whose THDs are 0.04%

respectively are obtained.

28

2013 International Conference on Circuits, Power and Computing Technologies [ICCPCT-2013]

Fundamental

;'f

0.04

'E

0.02

(6 0Hz) = 2.041e+004 , THD= 0.04%

From above discussion, reactive power compensation has

been achieved with unity power factor. Moreover THDs of Vg
and Ig are obtained as per the IEEE 5 19 standard limits.
Thus, power quality improvement is done by controlling

0.03

the power converter in every approach.

0.01
IV. EFFECT OF IRRADIA nON

0 "

--

Frequency

--8000--10000

6 000
(Hz)

--

Fundamental (60Hz) = 3.232

--

The amount of energy received by a surface over a given

period of time is known as Irradiation. From the basis of PV
cell, as the irradiation reduces the electron-hole pair generation

THD= 1.62%

reduces which results in the reduction of photovoltaic effect

and hence there is a reduction in PV power generation. The
effect of irradiation on PV power generation is illustrated in
Figure 14.
In MATLAB/Simulink,

=
::il1 0.2

the variation

of irradiation is

implemented by using signal builder block. The effect of

irradiation on PV voltage is fewer whereas the current varies in

4 -- ----8
0 ""-OO
= O--1 0
000
6 0OO
OOO

proportionate with irradiation, which results in PV power to

Frequency (Hz)

Fig. 1 1. FFT analyses ofGrid voltage and current

espouse the variation of irradiation.

PV fed to 25 kVGrid

As the generated power depends on irradiation, power

From the above discussion, the power quality problems

converter is controlled to attain high efficiency with improved

such as reactive power and high THDs of voltage and currents

power quality. The voltage level is maintained as constant

are eliminated. Thus, the power quality in a Grid connected PV

because of MPPT, only the Grid current varies with irradiation.

system is improved by controlling the power converter.

Hence, power fed to Grid has similar effect as on Grid current

C. PV Fed 10 J25 kV Utility Grid

as iIIustrated in Figure 15.

The only difference between the PV fed Grid and the PV

fed Utility Gird is that the voltage source of 25 kV which is

Constant

Conant

considered as Grid is replaced with the power system network

and whose MATLAB/Simulink

Neg "e :

in Figure 12.

S?L
T

; ; --++-.----rt+---O
J --
---3

Ikm Feeder

24km Feoder

2' M W
Load

Conant

implementation of is shown

"""""" ",,,,,,,., :,, ,,,,.,,,,.,Slojll"":'

POg'
"

"

,;

Negan 'e

pe """ " "",,,SIo

""" ." . " ,,, , ,,,,.,,

Conant :

Positive
i ",ope""
Conant

""" , """.

ljQ

125kV

4iMVA

ftl
tJI

Groundlng
Transfarmer

--

1!jJ

.3.300,.
I

"""""

"

----

"""

"" .:"

----

"

""""""

PrrtMl\\j

"""" """""""

-,

"

"""

----

";

"""""

.-

r-

----

"

""""",,

"

, ,,,"""""

--

--

,,

"""

"""" """

""""

lOO__"""";--"""

-!-

Fig. 12. MATLAB/Simulink implementation of UtilityGrid

Here, a 125 kV ac source, which is considered as

-
!,
-Ir:
DJ.... . ... . ... . . . . . .... . . . . . . . . .. . . ... . . . .. . . . . . .. . . ... . .. . .

Grid is step downed to 25 kV to feed power to the two local

loads through feeder. Such a power network is termed as

I
-
.
. .. .

----

--

'' '

'' ''

.. .

I
. . .'

----

.. .

. .

----

..

----

..

..

..

-,

--

" . . ",rr.",,;

Utility Grid. As the reactive power compensation and unity

power factor is achieved as similar to the previous approaches.

100"'"''''''''''''''''';'''''''''''''''''''''''': ''''''''''''''''''''''''': ''''''''''''''''"".":".""""""."""";"""""""".,,,,,

Except the Grid current THD is increased to l. 71 % which is

'

shown in Figure 13.

Fundamental (60Hz) = 3.317 THD=

"

'

'

''''

'''

'.

4001 r-===...,.-.. -----,r-------------r-------r------

1.71%

100

Fig. 14. EfTect of irradiation on PV power generation

Frequency (Hz)
Fig.13. FFT analysis ofGrid Current- PV fed to 125 kV UtilityGrid

29

2013 International Conference on Circuits, Power and Computing Technologies [ICCPCT-2013]

Transaction on Power Electronics, vol. 24, 1 198- 1207

no.

5, May 2009.
[6]

Jing Li l, Fang Zhuo, Xianwei Wang, Lin Wang, Song Ni

"A

Grid-Connected PV

System with Power Quality

Improvement Based on Boost

Inverter"

Power

Electronics

Dual-Level Four-Leg

and

Motion

Control

Conference, pp. 436-440,May 2009.

[7] Yi Lei, Zhengming Zhao, Wei Xu, and Jianguo Zhu
" Modeling and Analysis of MW-Level Grid-Connected
h
PV Plant" IECON 20 1 1- 3i annual conference on IEEE
Industrial Electronics Society, pp.890-895, Nov 20 1 1.

Fig. 15. EfTect of irradiation on power fed toGrid

V. CONCLUSION
The simulations of the DC fed to Grid and PV fed to
Grid were evidenced that the modeled power converter is
controlled effectively to feed power to the 25 kV Grid without
any PQ problems. Similarly, the simulation of PV fed 125 kV
Utility Grid also proved that power quality in any GPV system
can be improved by controlling the power converter.
In

addition,

the

effect

of

irradiation

on

PV

power

generation and PV power fed to Grid are simulated and the

results are presented

REFERENCES

[ 1]

Giovanni Franceschini, Emilio Lorenzani: "Saturation

Compensation Strategy for Grid Connected Converters
Based

on

Line

Frequency

Transformers,"

IEEE

Transactions on Energy Conversion, vol. 27, 229-237, no.

2, June 2012
[2] R. Kadri, J.-P. Gaubert, and G. Champenois, "An improved
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IEEE Transaction on Ind. Electron., vol. 58, no. 1, pp. 6675, Jan. 20 1 1.
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O. Lopez, F. Freijedo, A.Yepes, P. Fernandez-Comesaa,

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M. Cacciato, A. Consoli, R. Attanasio, and F. Gennaro,

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RuppertFilho

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to

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