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A Single-Stage Three-Phase Grid-Connected Photovoltaic System With Modied MPPT Method and Reactive Power Compensation
Wu Libo, Zhao Zhengming, Senior Member, IEEE, and Liu Jianzheng
AbstractSingle-stage grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) systems have advantages such as simple topology, high efciency, etc. However, since all the control objectives such as the maximum power point tracking (MPPT), synchronization with the utility voltage, and harmonics reduction for output current need to be considered simultaneously, the complexity of the control scheme is much increased. This paper presents the implementation of a single-stage three-phase grid-connected PV system. In addition to realize the aforementioned control objectives, the proposed control can also remarkably improve the stability of the MPPT method with a modied incremental conductance MPPT method. The reactive power compensation for local load is also realized, so as to alleviate grid burden. A DSP is employed to implement the proposed MPPT controller and reactive power compensation unit. Simulation and experimental results show the high stability and high efciency of this single-stage three-phase grid-connected PV system. Index TermsGrid-connected inverters, maximum power point tracking (MPPT), photovoltaic (PV), solar energy.

I. INTRODUCTION

HOTOVOLTAIC (PV) systems are solar energy supply systems, which either supply power directly to an electrical equipment or feed energy into the public electricity grid. Generally, PVs are considered as an expensive method of producing electricity. However, in stand-alone situations, PVs are the most economic solutions to provide the required power service. Moreover, with the development of PV technologies, applications of PVs in grid-connected situations have grown rapidly, indicating that PVs are very attractive to produce environmentally benign electricity for diversied purposes [1][3]. Power electronic conversion is the key to improve the efciency of PV panels and the system stability in grid-connected PV systems. One task of power electronic conversion is to continuously adapt the system such that it can draw the maximum power from the PV panels regardless of weather or load conditions. Since the PV panels have a nonlinear voltagecurrent characteristics, and the insolation and ambient temperature are unpredictable, the maximum power point tracking (MPPT) controller tends to be a nonlinear and time-varying system. Many MPPT techniques have been developed such as the perturb and observe method [4], [5], the incremental conductance method [6], etc. The perturb and observe method is simple for

Manuscript received October 25, 2005; revised June 28, 2006. Paper no. TEC-00363-2005. The authors are with the State Key Laboratory of Power Systems, Department of Electrical Engineering and Applied Electronic Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China (e-mail: wulibo@tsinghua.org.cn; zhaozm@tsinghua.edu.cn; liujianzheng@263.net). Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TEC.2007.895461

implementation, but its accuracy is low because the perturbation process would make the operation point of the PV panels to oscillate around the maximum power point (MPP). Furthermore, when insolation changes rapidly, the perturb and observe method would probably fail to track the MPP. The incremental conductance method offers good performance under the conditions of rapidly changing insolation. However, high complexity of the method requires high sampling accuracy and fast control speed, which adds to the cost of the total system. Generally, a grid-connected PV system has two control loops. The inner loop is a pulse width modulation (PWM) loop, which modulates output currents of the inverter, to meet the requirements of the waveform and phase. The outer loop determines the output power of the inverter according to the MPP of PV panels. Conventionally, these two loops are realized respectively in two stages of power conversion [7]. One is a dc/dc converter with MPPT control and the other is a dc/ac inverter. But two stages may result in more power loss than that of the single-stage conversion. In single-stage grid-connected PV systems, both loops are realized simultaneously in one power conversion stage, thus, simplifying the system topology. However, to maintain the sinusoidal waveform of output currents, the minimum period to change the reference output power should be half of the grid voltage period, thus, the outer loop here has a much lower speed than that of the PWM loop. To maintain the system stability, the MPPT method should be modied to work at low speed. This paper presents a modied incremental conductance MPPT method applied in a single-stage grid-connected PV system [8]. With voltage and current sensors, the controller adopting this method calculates the recent power point of PV panels and decides the output power of the inverter. To avoid voltage collapse phenomena, the minimum step length to modify the reference value of the output power varies according to the tracking direction. However, because the tracking speed is limited by the step length and the control period, the variable-step method still cannot assure the stability of the dc-link voltage when there is a rapid change of insolation. In the modied method, if the output power of PV panels is detected to be decreasing rapidly, the controller will presume that a step change of insolation occurs, and then, reset the reference output power of the inverter according to the current PV output power. The control objective of this method is to balance the input and output current of the dc-link capacitor and maintain its voltage so as to track the MPP for maximizing the energy capture. Generally, a single-stage grid-connected PV system consists of voltage and current sensors, a power electronic converter, and

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Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the proposed grid-connected PV system. v P V : output voltage of PV panels; iP V : output current of PV panels; iP V U / V / W : output currents of the inverter in three phases; iG R ID U / V / W : currents drawn from grid in three phases; iL O A D U / V / W : local load currents in three phases; S1 S 6 : switching devices in the inverter; C : dc-link capacitor; LU / V / W : inverter output lters.

a control system with a DSP or micro controller unit (MCU). If load current sensors are included, the PV system can also serve as a static var generator to compensate reactive power of local load. Integration of a reactive power compensation unit in the system can reasonably improve system performance with few additional costs. The proposed PV system in this paper has realized the function of detecting and compensating reactive power. The proposed grid-connected PV system consists of PV panels, an inverter, a controller, and lters, which will be discussed in Section II. Section III will introduce the electrical characteristics of PV panels and discuss the operation principle of the modied MPPT method. Simulation of the stability will also be presented to explain the performance of this MPPT method in Section IV. Section V will discuss the implementation of a reactive power compensation unit in the system. The experimental results and conclusions will be included in the Sections VI and VI1, respectively. II. OVERALL SYSTEM CONFIGURATION The proposed three-phase single-stage grid-connected PV system consists of PV panels, an inverter, a controller, and lters, which is shown in Fig. 1. In the proposed grid-connected PV system, output currents of the inverter are the control objects of MPPT, PWM, and reactive compensation. Currents drawn from grid or local load currents also need to be sampled for the calculation of local reactive load. III. PROPOSED MODIFIED MPPT METHOD Fig. 2(a) and (b) shows the simulated I V and P V characteristics of the ideal PV panels, respectively. The series of

Fig. 2. Simulated characteristics of PV panels under different insolation conditions. (a) I V characteristics. (b) P V characteristics.

curves show the output characteristics under different insolation conditions [9], [10]. The output voltage, current, and power of the PV panels in the grid-connected system are dened as VPV , IPV , and PPV , respectively. When the PV panels operate at the MPP, (1) must be satised. In a PV system, see Fig. 2(b), there are three kinds of operating states, which are discussed herein as follows. 1) If (2) is true, the PV panels operate in the voltage-source region, and the reference output power of the inverter PREF should be increased to approach the MPP. 2) If (3) is true, the PV panels operate in the current-source region, and PREF should be decreased rapidly to avoid a voltage collapse and to approach the MPP simultaneously. 3) If (1) is true, PREF should be unchanged since the PV panels operate already at the optimal point. Also PPV IPV VPV (VPV IPV ) = = VPV + IPV = 0 (1) VPV VPV VPV VPV VPV VPV IPV VPV + IPV <0 VPV VPV IPV VPV + IPV > 0. VPV VPV (2) (3)

In the proposed single-stage PV system, if the reference output power of the inverter is increased or decreased by a xed step length, the method could be called a constant-step MPPT

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Fig. 3. Simulation of the constant-step MPPT method (steady state). (a) PV output power. (b) Inverter output current.

method. Fig. 3 shows the steady-state simulation waveforms of a single-stage grid-connected PV system with the constant-step MPPT method. The PV panels in simulation are 300 WP (peak watt), 23-V open voltage, and 17 V at the MPP. The dc-link capacitance is 2200 uF. Fig. 3 shows that, in a steady state, the constant-step MPPT method can balance the input and output current of the dc-link capacitor, so as to track the MPP of PV panels. The PV output power is very close to the maximum power. The MPPT control objective in PV systems is to regulate the actual operating voltage of the PV panels according to the voltage at MPP, by adjusting the output power of the inverter. In the tracking process, if the operating voltage of PV panels is greater than the MPP voltage, the system controller will increase the output power of the grid-connected inverter to pull it down; if the operating voltage of PV panels is less than the MPP voltage, the system controller will decrease the output power of the grid-connected inverter to push it up. However, in the latter case, if insolation decreases at the same time, after the value of PREF has been set lower, inverter output power may be still greater than the actual PV output power, which will pull down the dc-link voltage further. From Fig. 2(b), when the operating point of PV panels moves from MPP to its left side, the output power will decrease at the same time, which will cause the dc-link voltage to collapse nally. To avoid a dc-link voltage collapse phenomenon in the PV grid-connected system, a novel MPPT method with a variablestep method is proposed. The modication of this method focuses on the closed-loop control of power. The modied method can fulll the requirement of high efciency and high stability. When the insolation of sunlight is smooth and steady, the tracking process of the modied MPPT method is similar to the constant-step MPPT method. Both of them track the MPP of PV panels by increasing or decreasing the reference output power of

Fig. 4. Flow process diagram for determination of P R E F in the modied MPPT method.

the inverter. The difference between them is that, in the modied method, the step length is different in the increasing case and the decreasing case. In the increasing case, it is smaller. Therefore, when PREF exceeds the current maximum output power of PV panels, the system controller can rapidly decrease it so as to maintain dc-link voltage, to operate PV panels near its MPP, and to assure the system stability. However, when there is an insolation disturbance or step change of sunlight, decreasing PREF by a large step length still cannot assure the stability of the dc-link voltage. In the modied method, the system controller samples the PV output voltage VPV and current IPV , and then calculates output power PPV . If PPV is detected to be decreasing rapidly, the controller will presume that a step change of insolation occurs, and the reference value of inverter output power will be reset according to the current PV output. This method can keep the system operating stably in an insolation step change process. Fig. 4 is the ow process diagram for determination of PREF in the modied MPPT method. P is the step change threshold value of PV panels output power, P1 is the minimum step length to modify PREF , K is a constant with a value greater than 1, and P0 is the PV output power in the previous control period. In the simulation, K is set between 2 and 3. IV. STABILITY COMPARISON To test the stability of the proposed modied MPPT method, the simulation results of a single-stage grid-connected PV system that uses the modied method are compared to the results of the constant-step method.

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Fig. 5. Simulation of the dc link voltage collapse process. (a) Step change of insolation. (b) The dc-link voltage collapse process.

Fig. 6. Simulation of tracking process during step change of insolation with the modied MPPT method. (a) Step change of insolation. (b) dc-link voltage. (c) Output current of inverter after insolation step change.

Fig. 5 shows a simulated dc-link voltage collapse process in the PV system with the constant-step method. From Fig. 5, when there is a negative step change of insolation for 0.1 s, PREF will deviate from the current MPP of PV panels, which will pull down the dc-link voltage until the inverter output current is distorted. The voltage of the dc-link capacitor will rise slowly after its input and output currents balance again. The modied MPPT method is also simulated to test its stability. Circuit parameters are the same as the aforementioned simulation. Fig. 6 shows the simulation waveforms of a tracking process during step change of insolation. Fig. 6 indicates that systems with the modied method can detect step change of insolation, modify the reference value of output power, and prevent the dc-link voltage collapses. Simulation results show that the system can remain stable in case of a 50% step change of insolation. The high stability of the MPPT method will also ensure the high efciency of the system by drawing the maximum power from the PV panels under different insolation conditions. V. REACTIVE POWER COMPENSATION UNIT For three-phase power systems with sinusoidal voltages and sinusoidal currents, quantities such as active power, reactive

Fig. 7. Diagram of calculation for output current reference value in the threephase grid-connected PV system.

power, active current, and reactive current are conventionally dened on the average concept. But for systems with unbalanced and distorted currents, average concept is not suitable. The concept of instantaneous reactive power, which has been established by Akagi et al. [11], provides an effective method to calculate and compensate the reactive power for three-phase systems. In the proposed grid-connected PV system, the owchart for the calculation of the output current reference value is shown in

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Fig. 8. Photographs of the experimental system. (a) Inverter in the proposed PV system. (b) PV panels installed in Tsinghua University.

Fig. 9. Experimental waveform of dc-link voltage during a step change of insolation.

Fig. 7, which includes both the MPPT algorithm and a reactive power compensation unit. In Fig. 7, the detected load currents iLOAD U , iLOAD V , and iLOAD W are transformed into p q coordinates by the block (Cpq) after the coordinate transformation. The dc components ip 0 and iq 0 with extremely low-frequency components are extracted from the currents ip and iq on p q coordinates by a low-pass lter (LPF). They are then transformed into coordinates again by the block Cpq 1 , after which the fundamental currents iF U , iF V , and iF W are obtained by retransforming

Fig. 10. Experimental waveforms of the proposed three-phase grid-connected PV system. (a) Output voltages and currents without reactive power compensation. (b) Output voltages and currents with positive reactive power compensation. (c) Output voltages and currents with negative reactive power compensation. (d) Output current with deadbeat algorithm. (e) Currents drawn from the grid.

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iF and iF into U V W coordinates. Finally, the reference currents iREF U , iREF V , and iREF W are calculated by block (CAL). The equations are listed as follows: iREF U = iLOAD U iF U + iPV U iREF V = iLOAD V iF V + iPV V (4) iREF W = iLOAD W iF W + iPV W . With the proposed method, it is simple to determine the reference currents of the three-phase grid-connected PV inverter with minute uctuations. VI. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS Based on the earlier theoretical analysis, a 300-WP experimental system was designed and implemented. Fig. 8 presents photographs of the inverter and PV panels in the proposed PV system that was installed on the West Main Building, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. The experimental waveform of the proposed modied MPPT method applied in the single-stage grid-connected PV system is shown in Fig. 9. After a step change of insolation, the MPPT controller can maintain the dc-link voltage and keep it close to the MPP. In Fig. 10, experimental waveforms of the proposed PV system are shown. A deadbeat control algorithm [12] is also employed in the system for PWM generation. The current waveform of the inverter adopting this deadbeat algorithm is shown in Fig. 10(d). The currents drawn from the grid are included in Fig. 10(e) to indicate that there is no reactive power drawn from the grid after the compensation. VII. CONCLUSION Implementation of a single-stage three-phase grid-connected PV system is presented in this paper. The novel modied MPPT method applied in the system can remarkably improve system stability during rapidly changing process of insolation. Due to its improvement on the dynamic response, the step length of output power reference is reduced, which can also increase the steadystate accuracy of the method. A reactive power compensation unit based on the instantaneous reactive power theory is also realized in the same system, which can compensate the reactive power of local load without increasing total system cost. REFERENCES
[1] J. C. Schaefer, Review of photovoltaic power plant performance and economics, IEEE Trans. Energy Convers., vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 232238, Jun. 1990. [2] Y. Chen and K. M. Smedley, A cost-effective single-stage inverter with maximum power point tracking, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 5, no. 19, pp. 12891294, Sep. 2004. [3] E. V. Solodovnik, S. Liu, and R. A. Dougal, Power controller design for maximum power tracking in solar installations, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 19, no. 5, pp. 12951304, Sep. 2004. [4] O. Wasynczuck, Dynamic behavior of a class of photovoltaic power systems, IEEE Trans. Power App. Syst., vol. PAS-102, no. 9, pp. 3031 3037, Sep. 1983. [5] P. Huynh and B. H. Cho, Design and analysis of a microprocessorcontrolled peak-power-tracking system, IEEE Trans. Aerosp. Electron. Syst., vol. AES-32, no. 1, pp. 182190, Jan. 1996.

[6] K. Hussein, I. Muta, T. Hoshino, and M. Osakada, Maximum photovoltaic power tracking: an algorithm for rapidly changing atmospheric conditions, Proc. Inst. Electr. Eng., vol. 142, no. 1, pp. 5964, Jan. 1995. [7] A. Lohner, T. Meyer, and A. Nagel, A new panels-integratable inverter concept for grid-connected photovoltaic systems, in Proc. IEEE Int. Symp. Ind. Electron., Warsaw, Poland, vol. 2, Jun. 1720, 1996, pp. 827 831. [8] W. Libo, Z. Zhengming, and L. Jianzheng et al., Modied MPPT strategy applied in single-stage grid-connected photovoltaic system, in Proc. 8th Int. Conf. Electr. Mach. Syst. Conf., Sep. 2729, 2005, vol. 2, pp. 1027 1030. [9] W. Libo, Z. Zhengming, and L. Jianzheng, Intelligent controller for photovoltaic lighting systems, J. Tsinghua Univ., vol. 43, no. 9, pp. 1195 1198, 2003. [10] C. Kunlun, Z. Zhengming, and Y. Liqiang, Implementation of a standalone photovoltaic pumping system with maximum power point tracking, in Proc. ICEMS, Aug., vol. 1, pp. 612615. [11] H. Akagi, Y. Kanazawa, and A. Nabae, Instantaneous reactive power compensators comprising switching devices without energy storage components, IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl., vol. IA-20, no. 3, pp. 62530, May/Jun. 1984. [12] T. Kawabata, T. Miyashita, and Y. Yamamoto, Dead beat control three phase PWM inverter, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 21 28, Jan. 1990.

Wu Libo received the B.S.E.E., M.S.E.E., and Ph.D. degrees from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 2001, 2003, and 2006, respectively. His current research interests include power electronics applications, inverter design, and stand-alone and grid-connected photovoltaic systems.

Zhao Zhengming (M02SM03) was born in Hunan, China. He received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering from Hunan University, Changsha, China, in 1982 and 1985, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 1991. He was in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua University, where he is currently a Professor. From 1994 to 1996, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Ohio State University. He has also been a Visiting Scholar at the University of California at Irvine. His current research interests include power electronics and motor control, high power conversion, motor design and drive, adaptive parameter identication, solar energy applications, etc.

Liu Jianzheng received the B.S.E.E. and M.S.E.E. degrees from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 1985 and 1988, respectively. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua University. His current research interests include power electronics applications, grid-connected photovoltaic systems, and wind generation systems.