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Procedia Technology 21 (2015) 636 642

SMART GRID Technologies, August 6-8, 2015

Grid Connected Multilevel Inverter for Renewable Energy

Applications
R.Mahalakshmi a* , K.C.Sindhu Thampattyb
a
Assistant Professor, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham,Bengaluru-56007, India.
b
Professor, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapetham,Coimbatore--641112, India

Abstract

Electrical energy generation from renewable energy sources such as sun, wind etc., are widely adopted due to the increase in
electricity consumption. The integration of renewable energy sources with the grid plays an important role in energy utilization.
It is difficult to utilize electricity from renewable energy sources directly for the injection of power into the grid. Hence the
system needs power electronic converters as an interface between renewable energy sources and grid/load. This paper discusses
about the integration of three phase six level voltage source inverter into the grid. Three phase 2000 VA inverter is designed by
using three, single phase eight switch six level inverters (in quarter cycle) and each single phase inverter uses three DC voltage
sources which can be derived from renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and fuel cell. The pure sinusoidal 415V three
phase voltage is obtained from inverter to inject the power into grid and to the three phase resistive load. The proposed three
phase Multi Level Inverter (MLI) is compared with the conventional three phase inverter and the observed THD of the
conventional MLI is 31%. THD of the proposed MLI output voltage is analyzed which is 0.13% and found to be very less
compared to six and 12 pulse conventional converter topologies. The simulation on the proposed inverter topology is done in
MATLAB/Simulink and the results are verified.
2015The
2015 TheAuthors.
Authors.Published
Published
by by Elsevier
Elsevier Ltd.Ltd.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of Amrita School of Engineering, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham University.
Peer-review under responsibility of Amrita School of Engineering, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham University
Keywords: Grid Integration,Multilevel three phase inverter, THD,Renewable energy sources;.

1. Introduction

Nowadays the power obtained from solar and wind energy are connected to the grid for better utilization of
renewable energy sources. The power extraction from renewable energy sources cannot be directly utilized by the
loads or the grid. The power electronic interface such as DC-DC converters and DC-AC inverters especially MLIs

* Corresponding author. Tel.: 919035406063.

E-mail address: deivamaha@gmail.com

2212-0173 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of Amrita School of Engineering, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham University
doi:10.1016/j.protcy.2015.10.076
 R. Mahalakshmi and K.C. Sindhu Thampatty / Procedia Technology 21 (2015) 636 642 637

are used as an interface between them. The grid can be fed by pure sinusoidal wave or voltage/current with lesser
harmonics. Grid frequency should match with the frequency of the signal which is being injected [1]. To obtain
lesser harmonics sinusoidal three phase voltage and current, MLI configuration with LC filter is incorporated.
Conventional MLIs started with three level outputs such as 0V - Vdc 0V. Later there were more number of
configurations on inverter topology has come out. Since the inverter generates multi stepped wave output, the
harmonic profile can also be improved. Further the advantages of MLIs are higher efficiency, reduced dV/dt
stresses on the load, lower electromagnetic interference (EMI). DC input voltage sources the MLIs can be derived
from renewable energy sources such as Photo Voltaic array with DC to DC converter, Induction
generator/Synchronous generator fed wind turbine with rectifier configuration and fuel cell with DC-DC converter
[2]. To improve the harmonic profile of the voltage and current waveform for grid integration there are so many
techniques adopted waveform such as hysteresis current control, Multi level H bridge cascaded inverter
etc.,[3][4].The proposed work focuses on the formulation of grid tied three phase 6 level eight switch inverter (per
phase)[5][6] and is formed by three single phase inverters with three DC sources and eight switches [5].Grid
integration techniques are discussed in the many number of papers [9-12]. The proposed inverter is connected for
powering the 2000W resistive load and to inject power to the grid. For the grid integration three phase inverter
output voltage is stepped up by the three phase transformer to bring the voltage to 415V Line. To reduce the
harmonics in the output voltage, proper value of three phase transformer leakage inductance is selected [13]. THD of
the output waveform is analyzed with the use of MATLAB simulink/FFT block. The proposed new three phase
inverter topology generates less harmonic three phase voltage waveform compared to conventional six pulse and
twelve pulse inverter topology. The THD of the six pulse converter is 31% and twelve pulse is around 12% [4] and
the proposed topology produces THD of 0.13%. Six pulse and 12 pulse converter need LC filter for obtaining the
pure sine waveform. But the proposed MLI can be directly connected to the grid and load.

2. Block Diagram of Grid Tied Inverter

The proposed configuration represents the grid connection of three, single phase inverters which are connected
in star.The DC sources can be obtained from renewable energy sources such PV/wind and fuel cell which is not
focused in this work. The following levels can be obtained 0, Vdc, 2Vdc, 3Vdc, 4Vdc and 5Vdc in quarter cycle of
the output waveform. Vdc is selected as 30V and therefore the peak amplitude of a inverter output is 150V.The gate
pulse for the switch S1 is formed by using two ramp signals of 180 out of phase with other. The each ramp signal is
compared with the different DC levels. Output of them is summed up to produce the pulse for switch S1 and the
complement of the pulse of S1 is the pulse of switch S1. Similarly all the other switches pulses were generated.
Switching states of the switches in the single phase inverter is shown in the table:1. The gate pulses are generated
based on this switching state shown in Table 1. S1, S2, S3, S4 pulses are compliment of S1, S2, S3, S4
respectively.

Table 1 : Switching states.

Vphase S1 S2 S3 S4
+5 Vdc 1 0 1 0
+4 Vdc 0 0 1 0
+3 Vdc 1 0 1 1
+2 Vdc 0 0 1 1
+ Vdc 1 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0

3. System Description

The overall system is analyzed as two cases

Case 1: Three phases Multi level inverter connected to the 415V, 2000 W three phase resistive load.
Case 2: Multi level inverter connected to the 50 W three phase resistive load and to 415V three phase grid
638 R. Mahalakshmi and K.C. Sindhu Thampatty / Procedia Technology 21 (2015) 636 642

The proposed inverter generates the three phase voltage having 150V as a maximum value (3Vdc). To integrate
the inverter to 415V grid and load, the inverter output is stepped up by the three phase transformer. The output of the
inverter is in the form of steps exhibits higher harmonic profile. To improve the harmonic profile proper leakage
inductance of the transformer is adjusted. Due to the slight increase in transformer inductance the secondary of the
transformer voltage is decreased from the expected value. It can be brought to expected value by increasing the turns
ratio slightly and also by adding shunt capacitor which is assumed as 1F. The direction of the power flow of the
system in case 1 and 2 are observed. The total power delivered by the inverter is approximately equal to 2000 W in
both the cases. THD of the output waveform is found to be very less as 0.13% compared to six pulse and twelve
pulse converter. THD of the six pulse and 12 pulse are 31% and 12% respectively. Since there is fewer harmonic in
the voltage waveform, the MLI can be used directly for the integration of three phase grid. This topology can be
applied to high voltage applications by increasing the input DC voltage values. In conventional three phase six pulse
inverter, only one DC source is used as input, In proposed topology, three DC sources are used can be derived from
three different renewable energy sources.

2.1. Case 1 System simulation with resistive load

The proposed system is connected to the three phase resistive load. Fig.1 shows the output voltage of the three phase
inverter which has six levels such as 0V, 30V, 60V, 90V, 120V, 150V in quarter cycle i.e for 5 ms. Fig.2 shows the
output current flowing through the resistive load i.e. output current of the inverter without integrating to the grid.

2.2. Case 2 system simulation with grid integration.

In order to integrate, the output of the inverter is connected to the three phase transformer having default
transformer leakage inductance and the output voltage of the system is shown in Fig. 3. The system is connected to
the grid and also to the 50W three phase resistive load.
It can be observed that the output of the proposed inverter has lesser voltage THD of 7.46% and this is obtained
without the filter. To reduce the THD, still more transformer inductance is adjusted and the obtained THD is 0.13%
which is shown in Fig. 4 The obtained THD is very less compared to that of conventional inverter topology whose
voltage THD is shown in Fig. 5, obtained from the phase output voltage of the three phase DC-AC converter which
is simulated for the purpose of comparison with the proposed multi level inverter. It is observed that the THD of the
output of the three phase converter is 31% with reduced fundamental voltage and is very high compared to the
proposed system. Fig. 6 shows current through the resistive load and the maximum value of the current is 0.1A. Fig.
7 and Fig. 8 show the grid current and grid voltage respectively. Fig. 9 and Fig.10 show the active power (368W)
and reactive power (1082W) injected to the grid respectively.

Fig. 1 Output voltage of the inverter

R. Mahalakshmi and K.C. Sindhu Thampatty / Procedia Technology 21 (2015) 636 642 639

Fig. 2 Output current of the inverter

Fig. 3 Output voltage of the grid tied inverter (with proper inductance)

Fig. 4. THD of proposed inverter output voltage

640 R. Mahalakshmi and K.C. Sindhu Thampatty / Procedia Technology 21 (2015) 636 642

Fig. 5. THD of the conventional inverters output voltage.

Fig. 6. Current through the resistive load (50W,415V)

From the simulation results, it is observed that the proposed cascaded H-bridge three phase MLI is suitable for grid
integration and it can be fed by three DC voltages derived from different renewable energy sources like solar, wind
and fuel cell simultaneously unlike three phase conventional inverter.

3. Conclusion

Three phase MLI topology using three single phase inverters is proposed and simulated and this topology is
connected to the three phase resistive load and to the grid. The injection of power from the renewable energy
sources to the grid through the three phases MLI is observed. The output of the inverter is smoothened by proper
selection of transformer leakage inductance and improved the THD of the voltage waveform to 0.13% which is
very less compared conventional three phase six pulse inverters having THD of 31%. The proposed system is found
to be well suited for the interface of three different types of renewable energy sources (hybrid) and the grid.
R. Mahalakshmi and K.C. Sindhu Thampatty / Procedia Technology 21 (2015) 636 642 641

Fig. 7 Grid Voltage

Fig. 8 Grid current

Fig. 9 Active power received by the grid

642 R. Mahalakshmi and K.C. Sindhu Thampatty / Procedia Technology 21 (2015) 636 642

Fig.10. Reactive power absorbed by the grid

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