Grid Connected PV System with Filtered Input

Signal Normalised Least Mean ‘p’ Adaptive

Algorithm
Shalvi Tyagi, Student Member, IEEE
Electrical Engineering Department
Indian Institute of Technology
New Delhi-110016, India
tyagi.shalvi@gmail.com
Shailendra Kumar, Member, IEEE
Electrical Engineering Department
Indian Institute of Technology
New Delhi-110016, India
er.dwivedi88@gmail.com
Bhim Singh, Fellow, IEEE
Electrical Engineering Department
Indian Institute of Technology
New Delhi-110016, India
bsingh@ee.iitd.ac.in

Abstract—This paper deals with a robust current control
technique, which improves the power quality in terms of
harmonics elimination, power factor correction, load balancing
for grid connected PV (photovoltaic) system. An incremental
conductance based peak power point tracking algorithm is
used in order to extract the maximum power due to the
intermittent nature of solar. The proposed technique is used to
evaluate the fundamental components of the load currents
connected at PCC (point of common coupling). The reference
source currents are generated by multiplying the fundamental
component with the respective in-phase unit templates. A
hysteresis current controller is used to generate the switching
pulses of IGBT (insulated gate bipolar transistor) switches. The
system model is verified through test results on a laboratory
prototype.
Keywords— Photovoltaic array, adaptive filter, DSTATCOM,
current control, grid integration, power quality
I. INTRODUCTION
There has been an increase in the demand of the
distributed energy resources (DER’s) connected to the grid
and because of their flexible nature, it is easy to implement
them in the locations where utility based generated electricity
is not possible to reach. Several DER’s are available such as
solar, wind, geothermal, hydro, biomass etc. out of which,
solar and wind are intermittent and complimentary in nature.
These DER’s need to be connected to the grid via micro-grid
or smart grid [1].
Because of the unsteady nature of the solar and wind
energy, one needs to extract maximum power out of them.
This maximum power can be extracted through various
algorithms such as perturb and observe (P&O), fractional
open circuit voltage, incremental conductance (InC)
algorithm etc. [2]. Recently, adaptive algorithms and
partially shaded algorithms have been suggested in the
literature. A robust online adaptive maximum power point
tracking (MPPT) technique employing neuro-fuzzy
considering partial shading is implemented in [3]. An
integral sliding mode control (ISMC) controller is used in [4]
for the rate of change of the control signal under rapid
variation of weather conditions. A variable step-size (VSS)
P&O method is used in [5] to handle the varying nature of
PV array. This paper implements the incremental and
conductance algorithm to draw the peak power from PV
array [6]. Solar PV systems can be grid tied or can act as
standalone systems. However, standalone systems require the
battery to compensate for the sporadic nature of the PV [7].
Moreover, the grid connected systems provide cost-effective
solution. There are different topologies to connect solar
This work is supported by the Department of Science and Technology,
Government of India under the project: Clean Energy (RP03357)
photovoltaic (PV) array to the grid ranging from transformer-
less to modular converters [8].
The use of power converters in the PV grid connected
systems, is a tradeoff as it not only eases the extraction of
peak power and control of the system but it also generates
harmonics in the system. Hence, power quality (PQ) is an
important issue in the integration of DER into the grid.
Several current control techniques have been implemented to
solve the PQ issues. Naderipour et al [9] have proposed a
novel current control technique to prevent unbalancing and
mitigation of harmonics. A multi-loop Lyapunov based
controller is presented by Aouadi et al in [10].
The photovoltaic (PV) inverter used here, helps in
mitigating the power quality issues. Moreover, it also
provides the reactive power support to the system thus
eliminating the need of reactive power from the grid and to
provide any type of reactive power support to the system. In
this paper, an active noise rejection based current control
technique is used, which eliminates the impulsive noise and
disturbances in the input signal. Some of the features of the
control algorithm implemented are [11] as,
1) It eliminates the fractional lower order moments error to
the power p.
2) It eliminates Gaussian as well as non-Gaussian noise.
3) Apart from normalizing the modified input signal, the
residual error is also minimized, which increases the
robustness of the system.
II. SYSTEM CONFIGURATION
A two stage PV system is depicted in Fig. 1, which
comprises of mainly two power converters: 1) DC–DC
converter 2) DC–AC inverter. Basically, the first converter
aids in maintaining the MPP in order regulate the duty cycle,
whereas the DC-AC converter, performs various functions
such as load balancing, feeding the solar power to the grid
and to the load, reactive power compensation apart from
maintaining the DC link voltage constant. The nonlinear
load, voltage source converter (VSC) and ripple filter are tied
to point of common coupling (PCC).
III. CONTROL ALGORITHM
Fig. 2 depicts the modified and normalized filtered input
signal least mean p algorithm, where p denotes the power of
the error. The control is divided into two parts (1) Control of
the boost converter and (2) Control of the voltage source
converter (VSC). In a two-stage conversion system, MPPT
operation is performed by the switch ‘S’ and a fractional
order filtering algorithm is used to provide switching signals

978-1-7281-0653-3/19/$31.00 ©2019 IEEE

to the IGBT (insulated gate bipolar transistor) switches of The terminal voltage Vt is estimated as,
the VSC.

L D VSC RC
Ipv VDC
S1 S3 S5 filter
Lf isa
vsa zsa
Cdc ica vsb isb zsb
Vpv S
icb vsc isc zsc
icc
iLa iLb iLc
S4 S6 S2
Nonlinear
Load
6 PWM pulses
Ipv Vpv InC Hysteresis Controller
MPPT
VSC control algorithm with
dSPACE interface

VdcVPV IPV vsa v sb iLb iLa isb isa

Fig. 1 System configuration

A. MPPT Operation
2 ( vsa2 +vsb2 +vsc2 )
In a two-stage system, the MPPT operation is performed Vt = (8)
3
by a DC-DC boost converter. There are two types of InC
The in-phase unit templates are found by dividing their
based MPPT techniques i) Voltage reference based ii) Duty
respective phase voltages by PCC voltage as,
ratio based control. Fig. 3(a) depicts the flowchart of the InC
algorithm. Here, a voltage reference based MPPT technique vsa v v
t pa = ,t pb = sb ,t pc = sc (9)
is utilized. In this algorithm, the incremental conductance is Vt Vt Vt
compared with the instantaneous conductance and the logic
is framed as shown here. The gradient at the peak power in a 1) Assessment of Fundamental Active Components of Load
P-V curve, is always equal to zero. The output of the MPPT Currents
algorithm is reference voltage from which the reference duty The reference signal of the proposed control algorithm is
ratio is calculated as, filtered using the in-phase unit template. At every rth time
Vref instant, the weight wp(r) is updated. The principle used to
Dref = 1 - (1)
Vdc update the weight is a gradient steep descent principle,
* which is used to update the weight at every rth time instant.
Ppeak = V pv I pv (2) Its weight updating equation is given [11] as,
dPpv * dI pv < p-1>
= I pv +V pv =0 (3) w
pk ( r ) = w pk ( r - 1) + μ ( r ) p ( ek ( r )) x
f (r ) (10)
dV pv dV pv
Where, xf(r) is the filtered reference signal, μ(r) is the
dI pv I pv normalized step size, p denotes the power of the error signal
Now, If >- then Dnew = Dold + ΔD (4)
dV pv V pv which is taken as eight, sgn(e(r)) represents the sign
function. The error signal is given as
dI pv I pv
Or If <− then Dnew = Dold - ΔD (5) e
k ( r ) = iLk ( r ) − t pk ( r ) wpk ( r ) (11)
dV pv V pv
p −1
dI pv I pv
w pk ( r ) = w pk ( r − 1) + μ ( r ) p ek ( )
sgn ek ( r ) xk ( r ) t pk ( r )

Or If =- then Dnew = Dold (6) (12)

dV pv V pv Now, the normalized step size is defined as,
μp
B. VSC Control μ (r ) = p (13)
p
Fig. 3 (b) depicts the active weight calculation of phase x
f (r ) + fe ( r ) + δ
‘a’ component of the load current. A modified normalized p
filtered input signal with error to the power of ‘p’ (MNLMP)
adaptive filter is used to extract the fundamental weights. Where, ( ) is the pth norm of the filtered signal,
Only two-line voltages (vsab, vsbc) are required, from which ( ) denotes residual error and is given by
phase voltages (vsa, vsb, vsc) can be derived as, [12],
p
f e p ( r ) = λf e p ( r - 1 ) + (1 - λ ) e ( r ) (14)
2v sab + v sbc -v sab + v sbc -v sab - 2v sbc
v sa = ,v sb = ,v sc =
3 3 3 Where, λ is the forgetting factor and its range lies between
(7) 0<λ<1. Similarly, the weight components for other phases,
are calculated and average value is given as,
 Vdc
Vdcref Voltage
Controller vsa vsb vsc
wpa
iLa Extraction of phase ‘a’ active power wpdc Estimation of
tpa component of load current
wpa unit templates
wpb Extraction of phase ‘b’ active power tpa tpb tpc
iLb wpb wpav wpt
component of load current 1/3 LPF Reference current
tpb wpc generation
wpc Extraction of phase ‘c’ active power
iLc wpv i*sa i*sb i*sc
component of load current isa
tpc isb Hysteresis
isc Controller
Vpv
Computation of PVFF S1-S6
Ipv
Vpv MPPT Vpvref
Ipv Controller Pulse to S
Vdc
1
Fig. 2 Modified Normalized Least Mean p power control approach

w pa + w + w pc 2V pv I pv
pb w pv = (18)
w pav = (15) 3Vt
3
The total active weight component for each phase is then
2) Assessment of Magnitude of Grid Active Power calculated by,
Components
w pt = w pdc + w pav − w pv
The DC loss component wpdc(r) is calculated by (19)
comparing the reference DC voltage Vdcref(r) and the sensed 3) Generation of Switching Signals
DC voltage Vdc(r) and passing the error through a PI voltage
controller as, After calculating the active component of the weights,
the reference currents are generated as,
Read
VPV(t), IPV(t) * * *
ispa = wpt * t pa , ispb = wpt * t pb , ispc = wpt * t pc (20)
ΔVPV = VPV(t) - VPV(t-Δt)
iLk epk
ΔIPV = IPV(t) - IPV(t-Δt)
μp

iLk*tpk y(r)
x(r) wpk
No ΔVPV = 0 Yes f(r)
δ
ΔIPV/ΔVPV = Yes Yes u p-1
-IPV/VPV ΔIPV = 0
p
No No
z-1
No ΔIPV/ΔVPV >- Yes Yes tpk
ΔIPV > 0 No
IPV/VPV
Fig. 3(b) Phase ‘a’ active power component of load current
Dnewf=Dref+ΔD Dnew=Dref-ΔD Dnewf=Dref+ΔD Dnew=Dref-ΔD These generated reference currents and the source currents
are then compared. The error generated is fed to the
hysteresis controller to generate the switching signals to the
VPV(t-Δt) = VPV(t)
IPV(t-Δt) = IPV(t)
six IGBT switches. In this controller an error band is
provided i.e. with positive and negative limits. If the error is
Return positive i.e. if the sensed current is less than the reference
Fig. 3(a) InC Flowchart value, then to increase the current value, the switch is
connected to the positive DC link is turned on. Now, as soon
Vdce ( r ) = Vdcref ( r ) − Vdc ( r ) (16) as the positive error decreases and becomes equal to the
wpdc ( r ) = wpdc ( r − 1) + K pd {Vdce ( r ) − Vdce ( r − 1)} reference value it again starts decreasing in the negative
(17) direction, which means that the actual current is more than
+ KidVdce ( r ) the reference value. To decrease the current, the switch
The PV current and voltage are sensed to perform MPPT connected to the negative DC link is turned on. This is how
and to calculate the PV feed-forward term wpv advance the switching signals are obtained. The hysteresis band is a
which is given [12] as,
trade-off between the switching frequency and how close
the actual signal is to the reference value. Load
Removal
Load
Injection
iLa(5A/div) iLa(5A/div)

IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION wpav(5A/div) wpav(5A/div)

A two-stage grid connected PV system is tested

experimentally on a DSP (dSPACE1103). Hall-Effect iloss(20A/div) iloss(20A/div)

voltage LEM (LV-25P) and current sensors (LA-55P) are ilnet(20A/div) ilnet(20A/div)
used to sense two PCC voltages (vsa, vsb), two source
currents (isa, isb), two load currents (iLa, iLb, iLc), DC link (a) (b)
voltage (Vdc), PV voltage (VPV) and current (IPV). The PV
system is designed for 4.2kW peak power, which can be Load Load
seen in Fig. 8(a) on a solar simulator. The three phase power Removal
iLa(5A/div) iLa(5A/div) Injection

quality analyzer (PQ3100) is used for monitoring various

wpa(5A/div) wpa(5A/div)
powers and list of harmonics. The system is tested under
various conditions and the results are presented here. wpb(5A/div) wpb(5A/div)

A. System Response Under Load Unbalance wpc(5A/div) wpc(5A/div)

The load unbalancing of phase ‘a’ is realised using a

mechanical switch. Figs. 4 (a)-(b) show various intermediate (c) (d)
signals such as ea(r), ra(r) and fa(r) on sudden load removal
Load Load
and reconnection of the load. It is observed that as soon as Removal iLa (5A/div) iLa (5A/div) Injection

the load is removed, error ea(r) becomes almost zero. The ipvff (20A/div) ipvff (20A/div)

residual error ra(r), which is upa*ifLa also approaches zero and i*sa (20A/div) i*sa (20A/div)

is almost sinusoidal after injection of the load. Figs.4 (c)-(d)

depict tpa, ya and wpa on sudden removal and injection of load.
isa (20A/div) isa (20A/div)
It is shown that wpa settles in less than one cycle.

(e) (f)
Load Load
Removal iLa (5A/div) Injection
Figs.5 (a)-(f) Response at sudden removal and restoration of load
iLa (5A/div)

B. System Response Under Insolation Change

ea (2A/div) ea (2A/div)
It is seen in Figs. 6(a) and (b), when the insolation is
ra (5A/div) ra (5A/div) reduced to 500W/m2, the grid current also reduces. However
fa (500mA/div) fa (500mA/div)
DC link voltage remains the same and vice-versa. Moreover,
the MPPT is tracked when the solar irradiation is reduced,
which can be seen in Fig.7 (b), the peak power reduces to
(a) (b) 2.11kWp.
Load Load
Removal iLa (5A/div) iLa (5A/div) Injection
Insolation Insolation
Decrease IPV (20A/div) IPV (20A/div) Increase

upa (2V/div) upa (2V/div) VPV and VDC VPV and VDC
VPV (500V/div) VPV (500V/div)
remains constant remains constant
ya (1A/div) ya (1A/div)
Grid current also increases
Grid current also VDC (500A/div) VDC (500A/div) for the same load
decreases for the same load
wpa (10A/div) wpa (10A/div)
isa (20A/div) isa (20A/div)

(c) (d)
(a) (b)
Figs. 4 (a)-(d) Various intermediate signals
Figs.6 (a)-(b) System response under insolation change from 1000W/m2 to
Figs. 5 (a)-(b) show average weight (wpav), (iloss) loss 500W/m2 and vice vers
component and net component (ilnet) on sudden removal and
injection of load. It is seen that on removal of load, the
average weight also reduces. Figs.5 (c)-(d) show all the
three phases weights. It is seen that as phase ‘a’ load is
removed the wpa also becomes zero and there is a slight
variation in the weights of other phases. Figs. 5 (e) and (f)
show the PV feed forward component ipvff reference source
current isa* and measured source currents isa. It is observed
that as the load is removed the source current increases and
with the injection of the load the source current decreases. Fig.7 MPPT performance of solar simulator (a) At 1000W/m2 solar
The sensed and the measured currents are found to be in irradiance (b) At 500W/m2 irradiance
phase.
C. Performance under Change of Mode from PV to
DSTATCOM

During night time or when the sun is not present, the

VSC works in the DSTATCOM (distributed static
compensator) mode, which can be seen by the VSC current
ivsc waveform in Figs.8 (a)-(b). The grid current also
decreases since the PV generation is absent. Moreover, grid
starts supplying power to the load, which can be observed
by the phase reversal at the point of removal of the load.
The DC link voltage is held constant via the DC-AC (e) (f)
controller.

PV to DSTATCOM
DSTATCOM IPV (20A/div) IPV (20A/div) to PV

VSC operation as VDC (500V/div) VDC (500V/div) Change of VSC

DSTATCOM operation
ivsc (20A/div) ivsc (20A/div)
Reversal of grid current Reversal of grid current
when PV is not present when PV occurs

isa (20A/div) isa (20A/div)

(a) (b) (g) (h)

Fig.8 PV to DSTATCOM mode and vice versa
D. System Performance under Balanced Non-linear Load
Figs. 9 (a), (b), (c) shows the waveforms of source, VSC
and load, voltages and currents of all the three phases. Figs.
9 (d), (e), (f) show the power of all the threes. The power
extracted from PV array at standard test condition (STC) is
4.2kWp In Figs. 9 (g) and (h), THD of source current is
found to be 3.18% whereas THD of load current is 29.26%,
respectively. Hence the THD of the source current is found
to be within limits i.e. below 5%.
Figs. 9 (a)-(c) Waveforms of source, VSC, load voltages and currents
respectively under balanced non-linear load, (d)-(f) Powers of source, VSC
and load respectively, Harmonic spectra of (g) source voltage and current
(h) load voltage and current.
E. System Performance under Unbalanced Non-linear Load
Figs. 10 (a)-(c) show the waveforms of all the three
phases when load of phase ‘a’ is removed. It is observed that
the grid current increases since the power being fed to the
load decreases. The VSC current of phase ‘a’ becomes
sinusoidal as the load is removed. The distribution of
powers to source VSC and load, is shown in Figs. 10 (d)-(f)
respectively. It is observed that the THD of the load current
is 38.7% whereas the THD of the source current is below
5% [13] i.e. 2.88%. Hence the controller works
appropriately.

(a) (b)

(a) (b)

(c) (d)

(c) (d)

(e) (f)
(g) (h)
Figs. 10 (a)-(c) Waveforms of source, VSC, load voltages and currents
respectively under unbalanced non-linear load, (d)-(f) Powers of source,
VSC and load respectively, Harmonic spectra of (g) source voltage and
current (h) load voltage and current.
V. CONCLUSION
Test results of modified normalized least mean ‘p’ power
based control algorithm for grid tied PV system has verified
satisfactory operation under various operating conditions.
The control algorithm has been found robust under various
dynamic conditions such as load unbalancing and change in
solar irradiance. In order to increase the convergence speed
the error has been modified. The power quality performance
of the system shows that the THD of grid voltage and
current has been maintained below 5%, which is under the
limit of the IEEE 519 standard.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors are grateful to the Department of Science
and Technology, GoI, for supporting this project under grant
number: RP03357G.
APPENDIX
Experimental Data: PV array open circuit voltage and short
circuit current Voc = 400V, Isc = 13A, L= 5mH, Ripple filter
R = 5, C = 10 μF, DC link capacitor Cdc = 2200 μF, DC link
voltage Vdc = 400V, grid voltage vs = 230V, Switching
frequency = 10kHz, Controller gain = μ =0.01, δ =0.1,
p=8, Voltage controller gains: Kp =0.2, Ki =0.02.
REFERENCES
[1] H. Sun, Q. Guo, Junjian Q, V. Ajjarapu, R. Bravo, J.Chow, Zhengsh
Li, E N.Azadani, U. Tamrakar, G. N. Taranto, R. Tonkoski, G.
Valverde, G. Yang, Q. Wu, “Review of Challenges and Research
Opportunities for Voltage Control in Smart Grids,” IEEE
Transactions on Power Systems, Early Access, 2019.
[2] T. Nahak and Y. Pal, “Comparison between conventional, and
advance maximum power point tracking techniques for photovoltaic
power system,”2016 IEEE 7th Power India International Conference
(PIICON), Bikaner, 2016, pp. 1-5.
[3] J.S. Goud, R. Kalpana, B. Singh and S. Kumar, “A Global Maximum
Power Point Tracking Technique of Partially Shaded Photovoltaic
Systems for Constant Voltage Applications,” IEEE Transactions on
Sustainable Energy, Early Access, 2019
[4] O. P. Pahari and B. Subudhi, “Integral sliding mode-improved
adaptive MPPT control scheme for suppressing grid current
harmonics for PV system,” IET Renewable Power Generation, vol.
12, no. 16, pp. 1904-1914, 2018.
[5] W. Zhu, L. Shang, P. Li and H. Guo, “Modified hill climbing MPPT
algorithm with reduced steady-state oscillation and improved tracking
efficiency,” The Journal of Engineering, vol. 2018, no. 17, pp. 1878-
1883, 2018.
[6] J. A. Ramos-Hernanz, J. M. Lopez-Guede, E. Zulueta-Guerrero, N.
Bizon, F. Oterino-Echavarri and A. Larrea, “Study of the behavior of
the incremental conductance algorithm for MPPT,”2016 8th
International Conference on Electronics, Computers and Artificial
Intelligence (ECAI), Ploiesti, 2016, pp. 1-6.
[7] P. Sreekumar and V. Khadkikar, “Adaptive Power Management
Strategy for Effective Volt–Ampere Utilization of a Photovoltaic
Generation Unit in Standalone Micro-grids,” IEEE Transactions on
Industry Applications, vol. 54, no. 2, pp. 1784-1792, March-April
2018.
[8] X. Zhang, T. Zhao, W. Mao, D. Tan and L. Chang, “Multilevel
Inverters for Grid-Connected Photovoltaic Applications: Examining
Emerging Trends,” IEEE Power Electronics Magazine, vol. 5, no. 4,
pp. 32-41, Dec. 2018.
[9] A. Naderipour, Z. Abdul-Malek, H. N. Afrouzi, V. K.
Ramachandaramurthy and J. M. Guerrero, “A Novel Compensation
Current Control Method for Grid-Connected PV Inverter to Improve
Power Quality in Micro-Grid,”2018 IEEE PES Asia-Pacific Power
and Energy Engineering Conference (APPEEC), Kota Kinabalu,
2018, pp. 143-148.
[10] C. Aouadi, A. Abouloifa, M. Aourir, Y. Boussairi, A. Hamdoun and I.
Lachkar, “Nonlinear Control Strategy of Photovoltaic System Tied
Three-phase Grid,”2018 Renewable Energies, Power Systems &
Green Inclusive Economy (REPS-GIE), Casablanca, 2018, pp. 1-5.
[11] M. T. Akhtar, W. Mitsuhashi, “Improving robustness of filtered-x
least mean p-power algorithm for active attenuation of standard
symmetric-α-stable impulsive noise,” Applied Acoustics, vol. 72, no.
9, pp. 688-694, 2011.
[12] V. L. Srinivas, S. Kumar, B. Singh and S. Mishra, “Partially
Decoupled Adaptive Filter Based Multifunctional Three-Phase GPV
System,” IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy, vol. 9, no. 1, pp.
311-320, Jan. 2018.
[13] IEEE Recommended Practice and Requirements for Harmonic
Control in Electric Power Systems,” IEEE Std 519-2014 (Revision of
IEEE Std 519-1992), vol., no., pp.1-29, 11 June 2014. pp. 1-5.