1

Abstract The increasing concerns in environmental issues

and depleting fossil fuel reserves lead to a growing interest
towards renewable energy based distributed energy resources
(DERs) like photovoltaic (PhV) generators. With maximum
power point tracking (MPPT) controls, the efficiency of the PhV
systems can be optimized. A method of MPPT control based on a
power balance between the DC and AC sides in a two-stage PhV
configuration is proposed in this paper. With proper controls of
PhV inverters, these generators are capable of producing
necessary amount of reactive power so as to provide required
voltage support. Similarly, the amount of active (P) and reactive
(Q) power can be controlled to match the local load profile. The
MPPT control is integrated with voltage control to fulfill the PV
control objective. The control algorithms have been tested in an
IEEE 13-bus distribution feeder. The simulation results clearly
demonstrate that the proposed control approaches for PhV
generators is capable of maintaining the PhV node as a PQ or PV
bus with active power being controlled at MPP.

Index TermsPhotovoltaic generators; active and reactive
power control; Maximum power point tracking(MPPT); voltage
control
I. INTRODUCTION
DERs are the generating units or energy storage elements
located close to the load centers with a capacity range of 10
kW to 50 MW [1]. The growing concerns on depletion of
fossil fuels supplemented by related environmental issues and
rising threats to energy security and power system stability
together act as the major drivers for the deployment of DER in
modern power systems.
DERs like solar photovoltaic (PhVs) and wind, are clean
technologies and are capable of providing ancillary services in
the form of reactive power through power electronics
interface, in addition to the active power. The increased
penetration of these technologies in the modern distribution
system calls for the improved controls to provide required
ancillary services to support the grid. The DER
interconnection standard IEEE1547 is also being modified to
address a Volt-Var support through DERs and renewable
energy resources and other interconnection issues in a newer
version IEEE 1547.8[2].

S.Adhikari and F. Li are with Department of Electrical Engineering and
Computer Science, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA.
Y. Xu and H. Li are with Power and Energy Group, Oak Ridge National
Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37831,USA.
Contact: F. Li, 1-865-974-8401, fli6@utk.edu.

Several methods of controlling the active and reactive
(a.k.a. nonactive) power injection from the DER using power
electronics interface have been proposed [3]. These include
modified Newton Raphson algorithm, the use of back to back
converters and the application of the widely accepted method
of Parks transformation in the dq0 domain. The application of
Proportional, Integral and Derivative (PID) controllers in
developing the dynamic voltage control models of DER with
power electronics interfaces is discussed in [8]-[9].
On the other hand, due to the intermittency and variability
of the renewable energy resources, the power output of these
resources should always be maintained at the maximum
possible point through Maximum Power Point Tracking
(MPPT) controls to ensure the efficient operation. One of the
several methods to find MPP is to plot the power versus
voltage (P-V) curves and noting down the maximum point
[12]. The present work uses this method to find out the MPP
for its simplicity to focus on our proposed controls, although
there are other methods found in literatures like Perturb and
Observe (P&O) and incremental conductance (IC) methods
[14]-[17].
In this paper, first, a PQ control algorithm is proposed for
controlling active and reactive power injections from PhV
generators connected to a three-phase distribution system.
Second, a PV control method is proposed for tracking the
maximum power of a solar PhV array connected to a
distribution system. It includes the control of both PhV array
power output (MPPT control) and the inverter output for
maximum active power and voltage (PV) control. This is a
simple yet effective MPPT and inverter control algorithm
which is unique in controlling the DC side voltage by
satisfying the power balance objectives at the DC and AC
sides without an additional control loop. Also, the specialty of
both the control methods is that they are entirely developed in
the abc reference frame with the measurement of the control
variables based on instantaneous power. This greatly
simplifies the controls in avoiding the hassles of conversions
between reference frames if abc and dq0. Also, it is not
sensitive to measurement noise since the proposed approach is
based on measurements of the past cycle rather than at a
particular time instant.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section II
presents the background of the current research. Section III
describes the proposed PQ control algorithm used in this study
and the proposed method of PhV MPPT and voltage controls.
Section IV shows the simulation results of both the control
methods described above. Section V summarizes the major
contributions of this work.
PQ and PV Control of Photovoltaic Generators
in Distribution Systems
Sarina Adhikari, Student Member IEEE, Fangxing Li, Senior Member IEEE, Yan Xu, Senior Member IEEE,
Huijuan Li, Member IEEE
2
II. RESEARCH BACKGROUND
A. Modeling of Solar Photovoltaic Array
The commonly accepted solar cell model is a one diode
model [20]. This work uses the single diode model of the solar
cell to model the Kyocera KC200GT solar array, which is
shown in Fig. 1. This solar module is chosen in particular in
order to easily validate the simulated I-V curve with the
experimentally available curve from the datasheet.
The I-V characteristics of a solar array, as shown in [20],
are represented by (1).
I = I
Pv
I
o
jexp [
v+R
s
I
v
thcrm
u
1[
v+ R
s
I
R
sh
, (1)
where I
Pv
and I
o
are the photo current and the diode saturation
currents, respectively. I
thcm
= N
s
kIq is the thermal
voltage of the array, N
s
is the number of cells connected in
series for greater output voltage, k is the Boltzmann constant
(1.S8u6SuS 1u
-23
[K), T (Kelvin) is the temperature of
the p-n junction of the diode, and q (1.6u217646 1u
-19
C)
is the electron charge. Also, R
s
and R
sh
in (1) are the
equivalent series and shunt resistances of the array,
respectively; and a is the ideality factor usually chosen in the
range 1a1.5. Here a is taken as 1.
The photocurrent of the PhV array depends linearly on the
solar irradiance and the cell temperature, as shown by (2) [20].
I
Pv
= (I
Pv,n
+ K
I
AI)
u
u
n
(2)
Here, I
Pv,n
is the photocurrent at the standard test condition
(STC, 2S and 1000 W/m
2
), K
I
is the short circuit
current/temperature coefficient, AI is the dtifference between
the actual and nominal temperature in Kelvin, G is the
irradiation on the device surface, and G
n
is the nominal
radiation, both in W/m
2
.

I
Pv,n
can be calculated based on (3).
I
Pv,n
=
R
sh
+ R
s
R
sh
I
sc
(3)

+

Fig. 1. One diode equivalent circuit of Solar PV.

Using these fundamental equations and parameters from
the data sheet, the PhV model is developed and verified with
the panel datasheet. The I-V characteristics of KC200GT for
different irradiance levels at the cell temperature of 25C and
various cell temperatures for a constant irradiance level of
1000W/m
2
as obtained from the simulation are shown in Fig. 2
(a and b) respectively. The similarities of the I-V curves for
different conditions with the corresponding curves in the
KC200GT panel datasheet prove the validity of the solar panel
model in MATLAB/SimPowerSystems.


a) b)
Fig. 2. The I-V characteristics of Kyocera KC200GT from simulation
with a) varying irradiance at a cell temperature of 25C and; b)
varying cell temperature at 1000W/m
2
.

B. PhV System Configurations
A system configuration of PhV with an inverter interface
considered for PQ and PV control is shown in Fig. 3. For
MPPT control, a DC-DC booster circuit is added before the
inverter stage as shown in Fig. 3b. An instantaneous active
power and nonactive power theory [18] [19] is employed to
develop the control algorithms.
The PhV system is connected in parallel with the grid
through a coupling inductor L
c
. The coupling inductor filter
out the ripples in the PhV output current. The connection point
is referred to as PCC as referred above, and the PCC voltage is
denoted as v
t
. The rest of the system denotes the IEEE 13-bus
distribution feeder which is simplified as a substation with the
feeder equivalent impedance, R + jLs. The PhV energy
source is connected to the DC link of the inverter with a
capacitor C
dc
. The PhV energy source is the active power
source, and the capacitor is the reactive power source of the
PhV system.

a) b)
Fig. 3. Integrated PhV system configuration a) PQ Control; b)
PV Control

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
0
2
4
6
8
10
V (Volts)

I

(
A
)


1000 W/m
2
800 W/m
2
600 W/m
2
400 W/m
2
200 W/m
2
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
0
2
4
6
8
10
V(volts)
I
(
A
)


25
o
C
50
o
C
75
o
C
100
o
C
3
C. Brief Review of Instantaneous Power Definitions
According to the instantaneous power definitions, for a
balanced three-phase system, if v
t
(t) and v
c
(t) denote the
instantaneous PCC voltage and the inverter output voltage
(harmonics are neglected), respectively, then, the average
power of the PhV denoted as P(t), the apparent power S(t) and
the average nonactive/reactive power Q(t) of the PhV are as
given below [19]:

P(t) =
2
1
] :
t
()i
c
()J
t
t-
T
2
=
v
t
v
c
oL
c
sinu (4)
S(t) = I
t
(t)I
c
(t) =
v
t
oL
c
I
t
2
+ I
c
2
2I
t
I
c
cos o (5)

(t) = I
t
(t)I
cn
(t) = S
2
(t) P
2
(t) =
v
t
oL
c
(I
c
cos o I
t
)
(6)

Here, is the phase angle of v
c
(t) relative to the PCC
voltage. P(t) and Q(t) in (4) and (6) can be approximated by
the first terms of the Taylor series if the angle is small, as
shown in (7) and (8):

P(t) =
v
t
v
c
oL
c
o (7)

(t) =
v
t
oL
c
(I
t
I
c
) (8)

III. CONTROL METHODS FOR SOLAR PHV GENERATORS
In this section, an active and reactive power (PQ) control
algorithm is proposed in the case of solar PhV generators to
control the desired amount of active and reactive power as
demanded by the local load.
Then, a more complicate control approach is proposed for
MPPT/PV control for solar PhV generators such that the solar
PhV system may act as a PV bus with MPPT.

A. Active and Reactive Power (PQ) Control Algorithm
This control method is based on a popularly used
Proportional and Integral (PI) controller and hence, is a
simple, however very effective measurement based method of
controlling the power injections from the PhV generator. The
three phase instantaneous active and reactive power from the
PhV generator can be calculated directly from the
measurement of the terminal voltage, v
t
and the inverter
current, i
c
. The PQ control problem can be considered to be
the case in which PhV generator is part of an islanded
microgrid and it has to generate the power with the set point
provided by the central controller so as to supply some local
loads.
In (7) and (8), with the assumption that the variation of V
t

can be neglected, that is, V
t
is constant, then the average
nonactive/reactive power Q(t) is proportional to the magnitude
of the inverter output voltage v
c
(t). However, the average
active power P(t) is dependent on both the amplitude V
c
and
the phase angle of v
c
(t).
A control scheme is developed accordingly with two
feedback control loops as shown in Fig. 4. The inner loop 1
controls the reactive power Q(t) by controlling the amplitude
of v
c
(t) while the outer loop 2, the active power P(t) by
controlling the phase angle of v
c
(t). The active power and
reactive power are considered as the variables to be controlled.
The instantaneous inverter output voltage v
c
(t) is controlled
to be in phase with the PCC voltage v
t
(t). A PI controller PI
1
is
used to control the magnitude of the inverter output voltage,
v
c
(t) using (9)

:
c1
-
= _1 +K
P1
(
c]

uct
) + K
I1
_ (
c]

uct
)Jt
t
0
_ :
t
(t)
(9)

In (13), 1 is added to the right-hand side of the expression
so that when there is no injection from the PhV generator, the
PhV output voltage is exactly the same as the terminal voltage.
The inverter active power control is realized by controlling
the phase angle of the inverter output voltage. The active
power control loop is described by (10). The phase angle of
v
c
(t) is controlled by the PI controller PI
2
, where P
ref
is the
reference, and P
act
is the actual value.
o
-
= K
P2
(P
c]
P
uct
) + K
I2
] (P
c]
P
uct
)Jt
t
0
(10)



Fig. 4. Active power and reactive power control diagram.

B. PhV MPPT (P) and Voltage (V) Control algorithm
This subsection describes the MPPT and voltage (PV)
control algorithm which is shown in Fig. 5. A DC-DC booster
circuit is added in front of the inverter making it is as a two
stage configuration. This MPP operation of PhV can be the
case when these PhV generators are connected to the utility
grid and try to support the grid by supplying the clean power
and at the same time avoiding the installation of the expensive
storage system. Since it is connected to a utility system, the
PhV generator, only a small portion of the total energy
suppliers, is assumed to be dispatched at its maximum power
point for economic consideration. With this configuration, the
loads equal to the MPP of the installed PhV generator would
4
be supplied by these generators and only the remaining portion
of the loads would be supplied by utility.



Fig. 5. MPPT and voltage (PV) control diagram of solar array.


a) b)

Fig. 6. PV Curves of KC200GT panel: a) with varying irradiance; b)
with varying cell temperature


a) b)

Fig. 7. Relationship of KC200GT panel Maximum Power Point
(MPP) with a) irradiance; b) Cell Temperature.

The P-V curves of KC200GT solar panel for varying
irradiance and varying temperature are shown in Fig. 6a and
6b, respectively. Also, Figs. 7a and 7b show the relationship
between maximum power point (MPP) of the solar panel with
irradiance and cell temperature respectively. MPP seems to be
directly proportional to the irradiance level and inversely
proportional to the panel cell temperature, however, both the
relationships are linear. Hence, a look up table with a linear
approximation to find the missing data is a reasonable
assumption to make. In this work, the MPP is obtained from
the look up table for the corresponding irradiance level and
cell temperature at first. Then, three different control loops are
used for the MPPT and voltage control as shown in Fig. 5. The
loop 1 is a MPPT control at the PV array side which uses the
reference MPP, P
MPPref
from the look up table, compares the
actual PhV power output (P
PV
) with this reference, and feeds
this error to a PI controller, PI
1
which outputs the duty cycle
*

for the DC-DC booster such that the array always operates at
the referenced point by changing this duty cycle. The equation
for this control loop is given by (11). Here, K
p1
and K
i1
are the
controllers proportional and integral gains, respectively, for
this particular control loop.

o
-
= K
p1
- (P
MPPc]
P
Pv
) + K
1
- _ (P
MPPc]
P
Pv
)
t
0
Jt
(11)

At the inverter side, there are three PI control loops in order
to transfer this maximum active power to the output of the
inverter. The control loops comprise of the inner loop 2 for
voltage control at the AC side [10] and the outer loop 3
comprising of other two PI controllers for the control of active
power output of the inverter and indirect control of DC side
voltage. These control methods are developed for the inverter
connected to the IEEE 13 bus distribution feeder.
For voltage control at the AC side, feedback PI controller,
PI
2
is used. As shown in the control diagram in Fig. 5 (loop 2),
the PCC voltage is measured and the rms value of v
t
(t) is
calculated. Then, the rms value V
t
(t) is compared to a voltage
reference V
t
*
(t) (which could be a voltage specified by the
utility) and the error is fed to a PI controller. The inverter
output voltage V
c
(t)
*
is the reference to generate pulse width
modulation (PWM) signals to drive the inverter. The output
voltage of the inverter is controlled so that it is in phase with
the PCC voltage, and the magnitude of the inverter output
voltage is controlled so that the PCC voltage is regulated at a
given level V
t
*
(t). The control scheme can be specifically
expressed as (12).

:
c
-
(t) = :
t
(t) j1 +K
P2
(I
t
-
(t) I
t
(t)) + K
I2
] [(I
t
-
(t)
t
0
I
t
(t))Jt[ (12)
where K
P
, K
I
are the gains of the PI controller 1. Note, in (12),
1 is added to the right-hand side for the same reason as
described for the value 1 in Eq. (9).
The loop 3 is the outermost loop to control the active power
output at the inverter side. The basic control methodology is
the same as previously described in subsection III-A.
However, it comprises of two different control loops to control
the active power at the AC and DC sides, respectively. The
control of the active power at the DC side is denoted by (13).
Here, the reference signal is obtained from the output power of
the PhV array, P
PV
multiplied by efficiency of the DC-DC
booster which is taken here as 98% in order to account for the
losses in the converter circuit. This reference is then compared
with the measured DC power output of the booster, P
DC
shown
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
180
200
220


V (Volts)
P
o
w
e
r
(
W
)
1000 W/m
2
800 W/m
2
600 W/m
2
400 W/m
2
200 W/m
2
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
0
50
100
150
200
V (Volts)
P
o
w
e
r

(
W
)


25
o
C
50
o
C
75
o
C
100
o
C
200 400 600 800 1000
0
50
100
150
200
Irradiance (W/m
2
)
M
a
x
i
m
u
m

p
o
w
e
r

p
o
i
n
t

(
W
)
20 40 60 80 100
120
140
160
180
200
220
Cell Temperature (
o
C)
M
a
x
i
m
u
m

P
o
w
e
r

P
o
i
n
t

(
W
)
5
in Fig. 5 and the error is fed to the PI controller, PI
3
. The
output of this loop is a phase shift contribution o
1
-
from the
DC side of the inverter. Similarly, another PI controller loop,
PI
4
is used to obtain the phase shift contribution, o
2
-
required
to control the active power at the output of the inverter to be
equal to 96% of the P
PV.
This value of efficiency is considered
so as to account for the combined losses of the DC-DC booster
and inverter circuits. The equation for this control loop is
given by (14). The phase shift contributions from DC and AC
sides, o
1
-
and o
2
-
are then averaged as given by (15) to obtain
the final phase shift, o
-
of the voltage waveform , v
c1*
which
will then generate the voltage reference signal v
c*
for the
inverter PWM.
o
1
-
= K
P3
(u.98 - P
Pv
P
C
) + K
I3
_ (u.98 - P
Pv
P
C
)Jt
t
0

(13)
o
2
-
= K
P4
(u.96 - P
Pv
P
AC
) + K
I4
_ (u.96 - P
Pv
P
AC
)Jt
t
0

(14)
o
-
= (o
1
-
+ o
2
-
)2 (15)

Here, the reason behind considering phase shift
contributions from both DC and AC side active power is to
control the DC side voltage to the desired value. By making
o
1
-
and o
2
-
in a close range through the controller gains, it can
be assured that the active power at the DC and AC sides is
balanced. This coupled with the voltage control loop assures
that the DC side voltage is maintained at the value desired by
the AC side voltage. This is a very unique characteristic of the
proposed control algorithm in that the DC side voltage is
controlled indirectly through other control loops. A simple
explanation follows next.

Since the inverter is considered to be 98% efficient, we have:
P
AC
= u.98 - P
C
(16)
which means ,
P
C
= 1.u2u4 - P
AC
(17)
Substituting the value of P
AC
,
P
C
= 1.u2u4 -
v
t
v
c
oL
c
o (18)
That is,
I
C
=
[1.0204-
v
t
v
c
nL
c
u
I
DC
(19)
From (18), P
DC
is also dependent on all the parameters at
the AC side of the inverter. Hence, it is clear that DC side
active power is also directly related to the phase shift of the
AC side voltage waveform for the given V
t
(t) and V
c
(t).
Since the voltage at the AC side, V
t
(t) is being controlled,
the active power control loop at the AC side determines the
current being drawn from the DC side and the active power
control loop at the DC side assures that the required amount of
current, I
DC
is being drawn from the PhV array. But, since the
DC side voltage is dependent on all other quantities being
controlled as given by (19), V
DC
will be indirectly controlled
to a value required to maintain the voltage at the AC side at
the referenced utility voltage which would be verified from the
results presented in the following section. Note, the controller
gain values for the DC active power control loop should
follow the pattern of the AC side active power loop so that the
phase shifts, o
1
-
and o
2
-
can be reasonably averaged to obtain
o
-
.
IV. SYSTEM CONFIGURATION AND SIMULATION RESULTS
The system diagram of the IEEE 13 bus distribution test
system is shown in Fig. 8 consists of a substation, 13 buses or
nodes, 11 lines, and 8 loads. The loads comprise of a
combination of constant impedance, constant current and
constant power (ZIP) loads as shown in the figure. The
substation is connected to the 115 kV transmission system and
the voltage is stepped down to 4.16 kV (RMS, line-to-line) by
a distribution transformer (T1). There is one more transformer
(T2) which steps down 4.16 kV to 480V to supply a particular
load.


Fig. 8. Diagram of IEEE-13 bus distribution feeder.

A. PQ Control
In order to demonstrate the PQ control algorithm in the
IEEE 13-bus distribution feeder, Bus 675 is chosen for study.
The P and Q references of the inverter-based PhV generators
are taken from the active power load, P
load
, and the reactive
power load, Q
load
, of Bus 675. The base case load of Bus 675
is 29kW and 25kVar. Two cases are considered for this study.
Case1: P
load
is increased to a peak value of 43.5kW at t =
5 s and Q
load
is increased to a peak value of 34.5kVar at t
= 9 s.
Case 2: both P
load
and Q
load
are increased to the above
mentioned values at t = 5 s.
Fig. 9 (a and b) shows the active and reactive power profiles
of the PhV generator as compared to the local load profile of
6
Bus 675 for Case 1. As shown in the figures, both active and
reactive load profiles at both loading levels are closely tracked
by the PhV generators installed at that bus. The ripples seen in
Fig. 9(a) at t = 9s is an effect of reactive load change at that
instant. Similarly, Fig. 10 (a and b) shows similar profiles with
both the loads increasing at the same instant in time. It is
observed that the active and reactive power injection from
inverter-based PhV systems closely tracked the load profiles
before and after the load increase. Thus, with the proper
inverter control proposed in Subsection III-A, the PhV
systems can supply the local load through their dynamic
behavior.


a) Active power b) Reactive power

Fig. 9. Case 1: Active power and reactive power at Bus 675.

a) Active power b) Reactive power

Fig. 10. Case 2: Active power and reactive power at Bus 675.

B. MPPT and voltage (PV) Control
The proposed MPPT and voltage (PV) control is also tested
for a PhV generator connected to the same bus 675 of the
IEEE 13-bus feeder. With the topology as shown in Fig. 5, the
PhV generator with the booster and inverter is connected to
the system. Since, the IEEE 13-bus distribution feeder at Bus
675 is at 4.16kV (RMS, line-to-line), this voltage is stepped
down to 480V (RMS, line-to-line) while connecting the PhV
array/converters assembly in order to avoid a large DC voltage
requirement.
Two scenarios are considered for simulation to prove the
effectiveness of the proposed control method.
Case 1: Change in solar irradiance level
Case 2: Change in PhV cell temperature
Both of the above cases directly impact the power output of
the PhV array and hence, affect the MPP.
The PhV array under study for the proposed PV control has
125 strings with each string having 4 panels in series. The
MPP for a single panel of KC200GT at 1000W/m
2
and 25
o
C
(STC) is 200 W. Hence, the MPP reference power for the
entire array at STC is 125*4*200 = 100 kW. The value of
MPP reference point for all the values of considered irradiance
are obtained from the lookup table approach as described in
Section III.
Fig. 11 (a through e) shows the simulation results for the
case when there is an increase in solar irradiance from 800
W/m
2
to 1000 W/m
2
at time t = 15s. Fig. 11a shows the PhV
array active power output. The MPP reference for the
irradiance of 800 W/m
2
is 79.25 kW. With the controller loop
1 in Fig. 5, the duty cycle, o
-
for the operation of DC-DC
booster is obtained because of which the PhV array is capable
of operating at the referenced MPP point as evident from the
plot. It is clear that the actual PhV array power output follows
the reference very closely. Fig. 11b shows the inverter active
power output which clearly reveals the effectiveness of the
active power control strategy in tracking the referenced
waveform which is about 96% of the output of the PhV array
as explained in Section III. Hence, this value is around 4% less
than the one shown in Fig. 11a.
From Fig. 11c, it is clear that the AC side RMS voltage is
maintained at 273V (0.98pu) before and after the change in
irradiance. Fig. 11d shows the plot of DC side voltage or
inverter input voltage. It can be seen that it is stably
maintained in the range of 700V to 800V before and after the
irradiance level is increased. This is in the range of a value
which is theoretically desired in order to achieve 480V
RMSLL
at
the AC side of the inverter. From theory, I
C
1.6S4 -
I
LLRMS
which would be: 1.6S4 - 48u 78S I in the
present system. Hence, the indirect control of DC side voltage
considering the power balance between the AC and DC side of
the inverter is clearly demonstrated in this case. Fig. 11e
shows the average active power at the DC and AC sides of the
inverter. It can be seen that the active power is properly
balanced while considering the inverter losses. Hence, the DC
side active power is slightly greater than the AC side power.



a) PhV array active power output b) Inverter active power output


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c) Voltage at PCC (RMS) d) DC-DC booster output voltage



e) Active power at DC and AC sides

Fig. 11. MPPT and Voltage (PV) control results with varying
irradiance.

Fig. 12 (a through e) shows the results for Case 2 when the
cell temperature of the PhV array increases from 25
o
C to 75
o
C
at time t = 13s at the irradiance level of 1000 W/m
2
. There is
an inverse relationship between the cell temperature and MPP.
Hence, with the temperature increase, the MPP reference
decreases from 100 kW to 75.7 kW. Fig. 12a shows the plot of
active power output of the PhV array. It is clearly visible that
the controls act effectively in tracking the referenced MPP
very closely even for the decrease in MPP as in this case. The
inverter active power output also closely tracks the reference
which is 96% of the PhV power as shown in Fig. 12b. It can
be observed from Fig. 12c that the AC side RMS voltage is
maintained at 273V (0.98 pu) throughout the simulation
period. Most importantly, Fig. 12d shows the effectiveness of
indirect DC side voltage control with the proposed method in
this scenario as well. The voltage is maintained at around
700V which is a reasonable value according to the discussions
in Case 1 above. Fig. 12e shows the active power at the DC
and AC sides of the inverter. It clearly proves the effectiveness
of the proposed control strategy in maintaining the power
balance considering the inverter losses.



a) PhV array active power output b) Inverter active power output

c) Voltage at PCC d) DC-DC booster output voltage


e) Active power at DC and AC sides

Fig. 12. MPPT and Voltage (PV) control results with varying cell
temperature.
V. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, PQ and PV controls for solar arrays are
discussed. The contribution of this paper can be summarized
as follows:
The paper first investigated the capability of active and
reactive power control in the IEEE 13-bus distribution
test feeder. The dynamic behavior of solar PhV
generators in following the local load pattern is
presented. It is believed to help in power flow control
and in maintaining the voltage stability in future power
systems.
Next, in this research work, a unique algorithm for
MPPT and voltage control for PhV generators is
proposed in a two stage configuration. The reference
value of MPP is procured by plotting series of PV curves
for different irradiance levels and cell temperatures.
Then, feeding this data into a look up table to linearly
approximate the value of corresponding MPP with
respect to the change in these parameters. The DC side
voltage is controlled indirectly through the power
balance of the DC and AC stages which is a unique
characteristic of the proposed method.
These controls ensure that the demands are properly
served and the voltage at the AC and DC sides are
properly maintained at the desired values as required by
the utility. Moreover, the MPPT control ensures that the
installed solar PhV generators are optimally utilized for
the given irradiance level. The simplicity of the
proposed control algorithms and popularity of PI
controllers support a wide acceptance of the control
methods presented.
Note, the proposed control methods, which are based on
instantaneous non-active power theory, can be implemented in
the grid integrated solar PhV generators for efficient PQ and
PV controls. The significance of both the proposed control
methods is that these are entirely developed in abc reference
frame considering the measurement based approach. Hence, it
leads to a simple control approach that avoids the conversions
between the reference frames if abc and dq0. Furthermore, the
approach is not sensitive to measurement noise as it is
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0.98
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dependent on the measurements of the past cycle rather than at
a particular time instant.
The challenge and future work related to the proposed
method, however, is the proper choice of controller gains for a
good response speed without any over or undershoots which
could be one of the future directions of this research. Solutions
such as adaptive control proposed in [11-12] may be combined
to the control approaches proposed in this paper.
VI. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This work was financially sponsored by the Office of Electricity
Delivery & Energy Reliability, U.S. Department of Energy and
conducted at ORNL and UT Knoxville. This work also made use of
the Shared Facilities and the Industry Partnership Program supported
by CURENT, an Engineering Research Center (ERC) Program of the
NSF and DOE.
VII. REFERENCES
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on/Documents/White%20Paper%20on%20Distributed%20Generation.p
df
[2] T. Basso, J. Hambrick and J. DeBlasio, Update and Review of IEEE
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[3] S. Iyer, A. Ghosh, and A. Joshi, Power Flow Control in a Distribution
System Through and Inverter Interfaced Distributed Generator, in Proc.
IEEE Power Engineering Society General Meeting, 2006
[4] R. Majumder, A. Ghosh, G. Ledwich, and F. Zare, Power Management
and Power Flow Control With Back-to-Back Converters in a Utility
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[5] F. Delfino, G.B. Denegri, M. Invernizzi and R. Procopio, Performance
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[6] H. Wu, H. Sun, L. Cai, and X. Tao, Simulation on Control Strategies of
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[7] L. Piegari and P. Tricoli, A control algorithm of power converters in
smart-grids for providing uninterruptible ancillary services, in Proc.
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[8] S. Ko, S.R. Lee, H. Dehbonei, and C.V. Nayar, Application of voltage-
and current-controlled voltage source inverters for distributed generation
systems, IEEE Trans. Energy Convers. vol.21, pp.782792, 2006.
[9] J. Morren, S.W.H. de Haan, and J.A. Ferreira, Distributed generation
units contribution to voltage control in distribution networks, in
Proc.39th Int. Universities Power Engineering Conf. (UPEC),2004.
[10] F. Li, J. Kueck, T. Rizy, T. King, 2006, A preliminary analysis of the
economics of using distributed energy as a source of reactive power
supply, Oak Ridge National Laboratory First Quarterly Report for
Fiscal Year 2006, Oak Ridge, TN.
[11] H. Li, F. Li, Y. Xu, D.T. Rizy, and J.D. Kueck, Adaptive Voltage
Control with Distributed Energy Resources: Algorithm, Theoretical
Analysis, Simulation and Field Test Verification. IEEE Trans. Power
Systems, vol. 25, pp. 16381647, Aug. 2010.
[12] H. Li, F. Li, Y. Xu, D.T. Rizy and S. Adhikari, "Autonomous and
Adaptive Voltage Control using Multiple Distributed Energy
Resources," IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, In-Press, 2013.
[13] R. A. Messenger. (2010). Photovoltaic systems engineering (3rd ed.).
[14] H. Chihchiang and S. Chihming, "Study of maximum power tracking
techniques and control of DC/DC converters for photovoltaic power
system," in Proc. Power Electronics Specialists Conference,PESC 98
Record. 29th Annual IEEE, vol.1, pp. 86-93 ,1998.
[15] J. L. Santos, F. Antunes, A. Chehab, and C. Cruz, "A maximum power
point tracker for PV systems using a high performance boost converter,"
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[16] X. Liu and L. A. C. Lopes, "An improved perturbation and observation
maximum power point tracking algorithm for PV arrays," in Proc. IEEE
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[17] T. Tafticht, K. Agbossou, M. L. Doumbia, and A. Chriti, "An
improved maximum power point tracking method for photovoltaic
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I. BIOGRAPHIES
Sarina Adhikari (S 08) is a Ph.D. student in Electrical Engineering at The
University of Tennessee. She received her B.E (Electrical Engineering) from
Institute of Engineering, Pulchowk Campus, Pulchowk, Lalitpur, Nepal in
2002 and her M.E. in Electrical Power Systems Management from Asian
Institute of Technology (AIT), Pathumthani, Thailand, in 2005. She worked as
a Research Associate in Energy Field of Study at AIT after completing her
Masters degree. Her research interests are voltage stability, distributed energy
resources, and control of renewable energy in distribution systems.
Fangxing (Fran) Li (M01, SM05) received his Ph. D. degree from Virginia
Tech in 2001. He is presently an Associate Professor at The University of
Tennessee at Knoxville and the Director of the Education Program of the
CURENT research center. He was a principal engineer at ABB Consulting,
Raleigh, NC, prior to joining UT. He is a registered Professional Engineer in
North Carolina, an Editor of IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy, and a
Fellow of IET.
Yan Xu (S02, M06) received her Ph. D. degree in electrical engineering at
The University of Tennessee at Knoxville in 2006. She is presently a research
staff member in the Power & Energy Systems Group at ORNL.
Huijuan Li (S07, M11) received her Ph. D. degree from The University of
Tennessee (UT) at Knoxville in 2010. She is presently a postdoc research
associate with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). She won the First
Place Prize award at the Student Poster Contest during the IEEE PES General
Meeting, Calgary, Canada, in July 2009.