2008 Workshop on Power Electronics and Intelligent Transportation System

Unified Control of Photovoltaic Grid-connection

and Power Quality managements
Xiaogao Chen, Qing Fu, Shijie Yu, Longhua Zhou
Institute for Solar Energy Systems
Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 510275, China
Chenxiaogao99@163.com, fuqing@mail.sysu.edu.cn, yushijie_zsu@163.com, zlhmaster@126.com
power filter. Besides, the system is equipped with large
capacity storage batteries so that it can not only realize
PV generation, harmonics suppression and reactive power
compensation, but also compensate voltage sags or swells
and instantly power interruption. The system is modeled
in the rotating dq frame with a decoupled control strategy
for reducing the control complexity. The simulation
results show that the proposed controller yields good
performances.

Abstract
This paper presents a control system that combines
photovoltaic (PV) grid-connected generation and power
quality managements. With the proposed structure, the
system can not only realize photovoltaic generation, but
also suppress current harmonics, compensate reactive
power, eliminate voltage sags or swells and mitigate
instantly power interruption and other power quality
problems. An adaptive predictive maximum power point
tracking (MPPT) algorithm is employed to improve the
efficiency of PV generation. To simplify the control, the
synchronous reference frame method is applied in
modeling the inverter. The structure of a faster internal
current control loop and a slower external voltage control
loop is used in order to obtain a good dynamic response.
The simulation results verify the good performance of the
proposed controller.

2. The proposed grid-connected PV System

The unified system (as shown in fig.1) is composed of
PV generation and energy storage system and the power
quality comprehensive compensator.

1. Introduction
Nowadays the solar energy has become one of the
most promising renewable energy due to its inexhaustible
and environmental advantages.
The photovoltaic
technology has been deeply researched and
popularized[1]. Grid-connected PV generation is one of
the major development trends of photovoltaic
applications. Meanwhile, with the development of the
power electronics industrialization process, a large
number of nonlinear loads have appeared. Harmonics and
reactive current from nonlinear load induce that the power
quality problems become more and more serious.
PV grid-connected generation operates during the day
and has to stop at night. This affects the stabilization of
power system and the utilization of equipment. Therefore,
in order to increase the utilization, the PV system can be
designed to also provide the function of power quality
managements [2]-[3].
This paper combines PV grid-connected generation
device and shunt active power filter. The unified system
can supply active power as well as current harmonics and
reactive power compensation when sunshine is available.
At weak irradiation, it has the all function of shunt active

978-0-7695-3342-1/08 $25.00 2008 IEEE

DOI 10.1109/PEITS.2008.66

Fig.1 Grid-connected PV system with power quality

comprehensive compensator
Solar energy is converted into electricity through PV
array. Then the voltage across PV array is amplified with
a unidirectional DC/DC boost converter so as to track the
maximum power point of PV array conveniently[4]. After
that, the DC/AC inverter converts DC power into AC
power which is injected into the utility grid or directly
supplies to local loads. At the same time the system can
provide a strongly voltage compensation when the grid
voltage sags or swells because it is equipped with large

360

sin t

is1

iL1

e2

is 2

iL 2

e3

is 3

iL 3

cos t

e1

RL
LL

i1 i2 i3

iLdh +

iLqh

v1M v2 M v3M

fd

id

ipv
upv

fq
*
dc

v
vdc

uq

+
*
d

iq

cos t

iLq

ud

sin t

cos t

Lc

sin t

Rc

iLd

*
q

+
*
ido

udc

Fig.2 The control block diagram of the proposed system

capacity storage devices. PV array also enhances the
ability of its power compensation. When the grid voltage
rises suddenly, the batteries are charged quickly,
absorbing energy from the grid, thereby the grid voltage
swells is restrained. In the same way, when the grid
voltage drops suddenly, the batteries release energy
quickly to grid, suppressing the voltage sags. Compared
to the conventional photovoltaic generation devices[5], it
can not only inject active power into grid, also has the
functions of reactive power compensation and harmonic
suppression, eliminating grid voltage sags and swells. In
addition, the system can act as shunt active power filter
and UPS in the absence of sunshine or the weak sunshine.
Fig.2 shows the control block diagram of the proposed
unified control system.

In the figure 3,
X (n 1) = [ x(n 1), x(n 2),", x(n N )]
(1)

X
(
n
)
=
x
(
n
),
x
(
n

1),
"
,
x
(
n

N
+
1)
[
]

where the x(n) is the current voltage of PV array and

x ( n 1), " , x ( n N + 1) are the historical voltages.
y (n) is the actual output power at the current sampling
moment. y(n) and y( n + 1) are the predictive output
powers at the current sampling moment and next moment
respectively. The error is
(2)
e(n) = y(n) y (n)
The adaptive prediction [6]-[7] is based on the Finite
Impulse Response (FIR) model.
N 1

y(n + 1) = hk x(n k ) = H X (n)

k =0

3. MPPT Control

where,H = [ h0 , h1 ," , hN 1 ] is adaptive predictive coefficient

matrix.
The adaptive adjustment algorithm is based Least
Mean Square (LMS) criterion, the aim of which is to
solve the optimum hk (k = 0,1,", N 1) by minimizing
the mean square error of e(n) .
The difference from the conventional P&Q MPPT
control method[8] is that the PV output power of next
sampling time is observed by prediction mechanism
instead of voltage perturbation, so that it eliminates the
loss power suffered from voltage perturbation. The
MPPT control is implemented in the boost DC/DC
independently. Fig.4 shows the control flow of the
proposed MPPT.

MPPT control technology is one of the important

problems and one of the key technologies in photovoltaic
system. An adaptive predictive MPPT control algorithm is
put forward which is based on the Perturbation and
Observation (P&Q) idea. The preliminary principle of the
adaptive predictive control is shown in fig.3.
( n + 1)
y

X(n)

e( n )
z 1

X ( n 1)

(3)

(n )
y
y( n )

Fig.3 Adaptive predictive control of output

power of PV array

361

On the other hand, on the dc side the following

equation holds:

dvdc 1
1 3
= idc = smim
dt
C
C m =1

(9)

and it can be verified that:

3

i = smim

(10)

m m

m =1

m =1

which allows to obtain the equation (11),

T

f1
dvdc 1
1
= fmim = f2
dt C m=1
C
f3
3

i1
i
2
i3

(11)

After the coordinate transformation to the synchronous

reference frame:

dvdc 1 dq f d
= C123

dt
C
fq

dq id
C123
iq

(12)

where the coordinate transformation matrix is:

dq
123

Fig.4 Flow of the proposed MPPT control

4. Inverter modeling

the following is obtained:

dvdc f d id f qiq
=
+
dt
C
C

According to Kirchoffs rules for voltages and currents,

differential equations (4) in the stationary abc frame can
be obtained at the connection point of the inverter. See in
the fig2.

di
ek = Lc k + Rcik + vkM + vMN
dt

R 1 0 i1 1 f1
1 e
d i1
= c
vdc + 1 (14)

dt i2
Lc 0 1 i2 Lc f 2
Lc e2
Applied the coordinate transformation [9], equation (14)
can be written in the dq frame as the following equation,

(k = 1, 2,3) (4)

1 ed
d id Rc / Lc id 1 fd
i =
i f vdc + e (15)

dt q Rc / Lc q Lc q
Lc q

1
(5)
vmM
3 m =1
th
Define the switch function sk of the k leg of the
inverter as in (6),
1, if the upper device is On and the lower one is Off
sk =
0, if the upper device is Off and the lower one is On
Hence, from Eq. (4), (5), (6) one can derive:

dik
R
e
1
1 3

= c ik sk sm vdc + k
dt
Lc
Lc
Lc
3 m =1

Finally, the whole dynamic model in the dq frame is

obtained from (13) and (15),

fd / Lc id

ed
id Rc / Lc
d
1
iq = Rc / Lc fq / Lc iq + eq
dt
L
vdc fd / C
fq / C
0 vdc c 0

(6)

(16)

5. Inverter control

(7)

In order to achieve better performance, a faster inner

current tracking loop and a slower outer dc voltage
regulation loop are adopted. The current and voltage
control loops are designed using PI compensators. The
phase-locked-loop (PLL) detects the amplitude and the
position of the grid voltage vector.

Further, a switching state function f k is defined as

follows.

1 3

f k = sk s m
3 m =1

(13)

According to equation (7) and (8), one can obtain:

With the assumption that the zero-sequence is absence

and the ac voltages are balanced, one can write the
relation:

vMN =

sin t
cos t

= 2 / 3 sin(t 2 / 3) cos(t 2 / 3)

sin(t + 2 / 3) cos(t + 2 / 3)

(8)

362

5.1. Current tracking control

From the model (16), one can write:
d id

L c d t + R c i d = L c i q v d c f d + e d

L d iq + R i = L i v f + e
c
c q
c
d
dc q
q
dt

We define the equivalent inputs as following:

u d = Lc iq v dc f d + e d

u q = Lc id v dc f q + eq

f d vdc ed , f q vdc eq .
So the control effort is derived according to (21) and (24),
*
ido
=

(17)

current

*
ido
is added to the reference

id* of the current loop as shown in fig.2 in order

E = 220 2V , f = / 2 = 50Hz

RL = 100 , LL = 1mH ; Rc = 0.1 , Lc = 5.5mH

PV : I sc = 12.75A,Voc = 93.5V I m = 10.7A,Vm = 74.5V
Cdc = 1000 F Cpv = 470 F

k p89 k i = 3000 ; kp1 = 0.056, ki1 = 4.68

With the adaptive predictive algorithm mentioned

above, the predictive power of PV array is almost the
same as the measured power as shown in fig.5. It
demonstrates that the adaptive predictive algorithm is of
high accuracy. From the fig.6, the maximum power can
be maintained at about 766W under the irradiation of
800W/m2 although has small oscillations. During the
simulating, PV generation starts at 0.1s. Seen from the
fig.7, only the current harmonics is compensated before
0.1s, and the grid current is greatly improved. After 0.1s
the current harmonics suppression, reactive power
compensation and PV generation start simultaneously.
The grid current and the load current are displaced 180
degrees because the power generated by the PV array is
greater than the load consumption. Fig.8 shows the
current control loop (d-axis and q-axis) has the good
tracking performances before and after the PV generation
works.

5.2 DC bus voltage control

The inverter dc link voltage controller calculates the
current to maintain the dc link voltage by passing the dc
link voltage error through a PI compensator.
An equivalent input udc is defined:
(21)

*
vdc = vdc
vdc is passed through a PI

compensator, so the voltage controller output is:

Assuming the grid voltage are given by (23),
e1 = E s i n t

e 2 = E s i n ( t 2 / 3 )
e = E s i n ( t + 2 / 3 )
3
So we can get:

2 vdc
udc (25)
3 E

According to the control structure shown in fig.2, the

proposed system is simulated in Matlab/Simulink with the
parameters listed in Table 1.
Table 1 Simulation parameters

acting upon inputs ud and uq respectively.

udc = kp1vdc + ki1 vdc dt

f d vdc

6. Simulation results

reference of id and iq respectively.

Then control inputs (20) can be derived from (18):
f d = ( e d + L c i q u d ) / v dc
(20)

f q = ( e q + L c id u q ) / v dc
Thus, through the input transformation (20), the
coupled dynamics of the current tracking problem have
been transformed into decoupled dynamics[9]. Hence, the
currents id and iq can be controlled independently by

The error

udc vdc f q vdciq

to inject active power from PV array to the grid.

(18)

= id* id , iq = iq* iq , id* , iq* are the

udc = f d id + f qiq

fd

The reference current

Here, ud and uq can be get by using PI compensators for

achieving a fast dynamic response.
u d = k p id + k i id d t

(19)

u
k
i
k
i
d
t
q
p
q
i
q
Where, id

udc f q iq

(22)

(23)

T
e d , e q = C 1d2q3 [ e1 , e 2 , e 3 ] = [ 3 / 2 E , 0 ] T (24)
Given that the current loop is ideal, the following
approximations hold:

Fig.5 The actual and the predictive

power curves of PV array

363

Fig.6 The output power of the PV array

(a) When a drop change in the nonlinear load

Fig.7 PV generation and improving current quality

(b) When a step change in the nonlinear load

Fig.9 Compensation characteristics under the

variations of the nonlinear load

Fig.8 Tracking performances of the current loop: daxis and q-axis

When the nonlinear load has 30% drop and 30% step
at 0.1s respectively, the current harmonics compensation
waveforms are shown in fig.9. From the fig.9 (a) and (b),
when there are variations in nonlinear load, current
harmonics can be detected quickly and the compensation
currents can track the reference currents efficiently.

364

(a) Eliminating grid voltage sags

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maximum power point tracking controller for

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(b) Eliminating grid voltage swells

Fig.10 Compensation characteristics when the

grid voltage sags or swells
When the grid voltage is suffered from 150V sags and
swells at 0.1s respectively, the power compensation
characteristics are shown in fig.10. When the grid voltage
sags, active power from dc bus link is needed to be
injected into the grid in order to maintain the load current.
Likewise, when the grid voltage swells, the dc bus link
absorbs active power from the grid.
The prototype of the system is under construction and
the experiment results will be shown in the later paper.

7. Conclusion
The proposed PV system in this paper has the functions
of PV grid-connected generation and power quality
compensation. An adaptive predictive algorithm based on
P&Q control idea is employed and achieved good results
in MPPT control of PV generation. Voltage vector
oriented reference frame models are used to control the
inverter. Theoretical analysis and MATLAB simulations
show that the control structure of double loop has good
dynamic performances and the proposed system can
realize PV generation, harmonics suppression and
reactive power compensation, as well as eliminating
voltage sags or swells.

8. References
[1]. BARKER, P.P, BING, J.M. Advances in solar
photovoltaic technology: an applications perspective,
Proceedings of IEEE Power Engineering Society General
Meeting, vol.2, 2005, pp.1955-1960.
[2]. M. C. Cavalcanti, G. M. S. Azevedo, B. A. Amaral, K. etc,
Efficiency Evaluation in Grid Connected Photovoltaic
Energy Conversion Systems, Proceedings of the2005

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