Grid Voltage Sags Control Strategy for Photovoltaic Inverter Based

on Adaptive Dynamic Reactive Power Compensation

Xiaolin Zhang*, Fei Zheng*, Junjun Zhang*, Jingsheng Huang*

* China Electric Power Research Institute, Nanjing, Chinaˈ210003

Keywords: Photovoltaic inverter, Low voltage ride photovoltaic power plants must have zero voltage ride
throughˈAdaptive dynamic reactive power compensationˈ through capability [6]. In China GB/T 19964-2012 “Technical
PIR current controller. requirements for connecting photovoltaic power station to
power system” also prescribes large-scale photovoltaic power
Abstract station must have zero voltage ride through capability. and for
different drop depth dynamic reactive current compensation,
[7]
According to national standard GB/T 19964-2012 “Technical response time are made detailed provisions .
requirements for connecting photovoltaic power station to Grid faults include symmetric and asymmetric faults, and
power system”, a grid voltage sags control strategy for photovoltaic grid connected inverter usually doesn’t have the
photovoltaic inverter based on adaptive dynamic reactive hardware circuit of Crowbar to consume the excess energy
power compensation is proposed. First, voltage and current during the power grid fault, mainly depends on its own
dual loop control strategy for photovoltaic inverter is adopted control to achieve low voltage ride through. Domestic and
when grid voltage is normal, voltage sags is detected by foreign documents with the control strategy of low voltage
monitoring positive sequence component of grid voltage. And ride through mainly present that output active power of the
then, based on the traditional voltage and current dual loop grid side is constant or negative sequence component of grid
control strategy for photovoltaic inverter, a novel grid voltage connected output current is zero using vector control under
sags control strategy is proposed, which uses PIR current current dual dq coordinate system. However, there are the
controller and adaptive reactive power regulator based on sag following questions: 1) no excessive consideration is given to
depth of positive sequence component of grid voltage. Finally, the grid voltage sag during the period of PV grid connected
LVRT experiment test results on a 500kVA photovoltaic inverter to issue a dynamic reactive current support; 2) dual
inverter shows that the voltage sags control strategy can dq coordinate vector current control in unbalanced fault is not
achieve good dynamic performance, and fast, accurately serious, has better control performance; but severe
realize adaptive dynamic reactive power compensation during unbalanced grid faults, the positive and negative sequence
low voltage ride through. current separation filters which is introduced, increase the
delay time of control system, grid voltage fault occurrence
1 Introduction and recovery of instant usually produce impulse current
greatly affect transient performance of the system, low
With the rapid growth of the number of grid connected voltage ride through capability of the photovoltaic inverter is
photovoltaic power plants, the impact of the photovoltaic decreased. In this paper, based on the traditional voltage and
power generation system on the stability of power grid is current dual loop control strategy for photovoltaic inverter, a
increasingly prominent [1][2]. Especially for transient grid fault, novel grid voltage sags control strategy is proposed, which
photovoltaic power plants exist the reverse power flow and uses PIR current controller and adaptive reactive power
large-scale off grid, and will lead directly to the power grid regulator based on sag depth of positive sequence component
instability, seriously affect the power grid security and of grid voltage, and LVRT experiment test results on a
stability. Therefore, photovoltaic power plants need to have 500kVA photovoltaic inverter shows that the voltage sags
certain fault ride through capability [3]-[5]. control strategy can achieve good dynamic performance, and
In 2008 Germany promulgated the new energy grid connected fast, accurately realize adaptive dynamic reactive power
low voltage ride through the relevant standards, in the compensation during low voltage ride through.
standard clear requirements is presented: voltage drop during
the new energy power generation device must have reactive 2 Conventional control strategy
current support ability, and the relationship between reactive
current and voltage drop depth is specified in detail. Photovoltaic inverter topology is shown in Figure 1.
Technical guide “Generating Plants Connected to the Photovoltaic inverter is mainly composed of photovoltaic
Medium-Voltage Network” developed by German Federal array, DC capacitor, converter, AC filter, transformer and
Energy and Water Resources Association in 2010, special control system.
instructions for the low voltage ride through of photovoltaic
power station are made. The standard requires that

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 As shown in fig.2, the output dq two phase modulation signal
ia L of the PI regulator is converted to ¢£modulated wave, and
ib the SVPWM algorithm is used to drive three-phase inverter
Vdc
Cdc ic bridge.
C T
3 A novel grid voltage sags control strategy
Fig.1 Topology of PV inverter
A mathematical model of photovoltaic inverter is established When power grid voltage sags, the imbalance between the
in the dq coordinate system: front and rear ends of PV inverter will lead to an increase of
­ did the inverter DC bus voltage. But due to its characteristics of
°°urd =ud +L dt -Z Liq the PV array, when DC side voltage is higher than the
® (1) maximum power point voltage, the output power decreases
°u =u +L diq +Z Li with the increase of the DC side voltage. The output power of
°̄ rq q dt
d
the inverter is zero when the DC voltage reaches the open
In Equation (1), urdǃurq are dq axis component of inverter circuit voltage. Therefore, the key is to control the output
output voltage , udǃuq are dq axis component of power grid current of the inverter during voltage sag.
voltage, idǃiq are dq axis component of inductor current , if
3.1 Adaptive dynamic reactive power compensation
we ignore the effect of the capacitive current, they can be
considered as the grid current, L is AC filter inductance value. GB/T 19964-2012 "Technical requirements for connecting
Control objective of photovoltaic inverter is to output stability, photovoltaic power station to power system" rules that the PV
high quality sinusoidal current, and current and voltage with inverter must issue the dynamic reactive current to support
the same frequency in phase, power factor to meet the the grid voltage during power grid fault. As a result, when the
requirements. PV inverter is the core of the photovoltaic power grid fault, the control strategy is shown as Figure 3.
power plant, when the power grid is normal, the dual loop
control strategy of voltage outer loop current loop based on PV

the voltage directed is adopted current loop current loop is

adopted. The control block diagram is shown in figure 2. abc/dq
SVPWM
abc/dq
PI-R
PV regulator
Positive and negative
sequence separation Equation(5)

driven signals adaptive PI-R

control regulator
MPPT SVPWM
PLL

3,Uegulator Fig.3 Control diagram of PV inverter when grid voltage sags

3,regulator (1) Determine the status of the power grid. As the grid voltage
3,regulator
fault is detected, record DC voltage outer loop reference value
Vdc* and current inner loop reference value I d* , cut off the DC
Fig.2 Conventional control diagram of PV inverter voltage outer loop, and calculate the percentage h of positive
The reference value of the voltage outer loop is obtained by sequence grid voltage dropping to the rated voltage .
the maximum power tracking. On the one hand voltage (2) The positive phase T is obtained by three-phase positive
regulator controls the inverter DC side voltage output value sequence voltage phase locked loop PLL, and get the positive
tracking the value, on the other hand get the reference value
sequence voltage component ud by Park transform, Clark
of the active current component idref. In the inner loop, the
decoupling control of active current id and reactive current iq transform and separation of positive and negative sequence
is realized. The current regulator is used to adjust the id and iq voltage, the error of the grid voltage ratings d axis component

so that the output current can track the current reference value. udn with ud is calculatedˈand the reactive current reference
After the dq transform, the current is a straight flow, the value i
qref is obtained by the adaptive regulator, the adaptive
current regulator is usually used as the PI regulator, and the
regulator is P regulator. Considering the requirement of
control Equation of urq and urd can be obtained according to
reactive current to the output of inverter as the voltage sag,
the mathematical model.
the adaptive threshold adjustment is used in the grid voltage
­ Ki outer loop.
°°urd =(K p  s )(idref -id )+ud -Z Liq
(2) (3) Assuming that the maximum short-circuit current flowing
®
K
°u =(K  i )(i -i )+u +Z Li through the inverter is 1.1 times rated current In and active
°̄ rq p
s
qref q q d current need to be greater than zero, the upper limit of the
In Equation (2), Kp, Ki is current inner loop PI coefficient, reference value of reactive current is shown as Equation (3).
idrefǃiqref is current reference value. I q _ max 1.08 I n (3)

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 The lower limit value is calculated according to the standard
requirement of dynamic reactive power compensation for
different drop depth h:
­ I q _ min 0 (h ! 0.9)
° voltage Vdc*, improving MPPT tracking speed and dynamic
® I q _ min 1.5(0.9  h) I n (0.2 d h d 0.9) (4)
° performance of bus voltage regulation
¯ I q _ min 1.05I n (h  0.2)
(4) In the control strategy, the reactive current is the main
control object, and the active current reference value Idref is
obtained by Equation (5).
I dref (1.1I n ) 2  I qref 2
(5) The current loop adopts PI-R regulator to control the
current positive sequence component, the output dq two phase
modulation signal of the PI-R regulator is converted to ¢£
modulated wave, and the SVPWM algorithm is used to drive
three-phase inverter bridge.
3.2 Grid voltage sags control
The different control strategies are used when power grid
voltage is normal and fault. Therefore, it is necessary for fast
detection of voltage and the handoff of a certain logic
processing, in order to ensure grid voltage sags and
momentary recovery, without overcurrent, overvoltage
phenomenon.
By detecting positive sequence voltage component ud , the
drop and recovery of the grid voltage can be quickly
determined. According to the change of ud control strategies
are switched, the flow chart is shown in figure 4.
ud is involved in the control loop, providing the grid
dynamic reactive current support; When detecting the grid
voltage returns to normal, DC voltage latched value is
assigned to the maximum power point tracking reference
4 Simulation results
In order to verify the correctness of the proposed low voltage
ride through control strategy, the paper establishes a model of
(5) 500kVA photovoltaic grid connected inverter based on
Matlab/Simulink. PV Inverter parameters are as shown:
Photovoltaic array open circuit voltage Uoc=910V, short-
circuit current Isc=789.36A, maximum power point voltage
Um=720V, maximum power current Im=710.4A; DC side
capacitor 13200uF; power device IGBT, the switching
frequency is 4.5khz; output filter inductor 200uH, filter
capacitor 200uF; DC bus voltage PI controller parameters
Kp=3, Ki=200, current inner loop PI controller proportional
coefficient Kp=3, integral coefficient Ki=300 and grid
voltage drop fault during the current loop controller of PIR
proportional coefficient Kp=3, integral coefficient Ki=300
and resonance coefficient Kr=300, resonant frequency ¹
=628rad/s.
(1) Three phase grid voltage drop to 0% rated voltage.
Photovoltaic inverter is under steady-state operation, active
power is 0.995p.u when t is 6.2s, three-phase grid voltage
drop to 0%, duration 150ms, photovoltaic grid connected
inverter key simulation waveform as shown in Figure 5.
2
Ua(p.u.)

0
Starting
-2
0 5 10
2
Ub(p.u.)

0
Normal operation of
photovoltaic inverter -2
0 5 10
2
Uc(p.u.)

0
Judgment the drop N
of power grid -2
0 5 10
voltage
2

Y
Ia(p.u.)

0
The instruction value of the Dc
-2
voltage outer loop and the current 0 5 10
inner loop was latched 2
Ib(p.u.)

0
A switch to the control
strategy when the drop -2
0 5 10
of power grid voltage
2
Ic(p.u.)

0
The recover of power- N -2
grid voltage in Standard 0 5 10
time t(s)

Y Fig.5 Key simulation waveforms when grid voltage sags to 0% of

The latch of the dc voltage
instruction value before the
Stop
drop assigned to the MPPT
reference voltage
The normal control
strategy of PV inverter
Fig.4 Flow diagram of grid voltage sags control
In Fig. 4, when a voltage sag is detected, latch the DC bus
voltage command value and the current command value at the
moment, and the control strategy is switched to the grid drop
mode control strategy, positive sequence voltage component
the nominal value
Through the analysis of the data of Figure 5, we can see
that control strategy adopted in this paper, when grid voltage
sags, fault is detected quickly by positive sequence voltage
ud , PV inverter can continue to run during the fall, and
reactive current can be injected into the power grid according
to the requirements of the standard, reactive current is
1.06p.u.. When the grid voltage is restored, the grid side spike
current is not generated, and the PV inverter is fast to reach
the steady state and has a fast dynamic response capability.

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 (2) phase A grid voltage drop to 0% rated voltage. 2

Ua(p.u.)
Photovoltaic inverter is under steady-state operation, active 0

power is 0.94p.u., when t is 6.8s, phase A grid voltage drop to -2

0 5 10 15
2
0%, duration 150ms, photovoltaic grid connected inverter key

Ub(p.u.)
0
simulation waveform as shown in Figure 6.
-2
2 0 5 10 15
2
Ua(p.u.)

Uc(p.u.)
0
-2
0 5 10
-2
2 0 5 10 15
2
Ub(p.u.)

Ia(p.u.)
0
-2
0 5 10
-2
2 0 5 10 15
2
Uc(p.u.)

Ib(p.u.)
0
-2
0 5 10 -2
1 0 5 10 15
2
Ia(p.u.)

Ic(p.u.)
0
-1
0 5 10 -2
1 0 5 10 15
t(s)
Ib(p.u.)

0
Fig7 Experimental waveforms when grid voltage sags to 0% of the
-1
0 5 10 nominal value
1
2
Ic(p.u.)

Ua(p.u.)
0
0

-1
0 5 10 -2
0 5 10 15
t(s)
2
Fig.6 Key simulation waveforms when phase A voltage sags to 0%
Ub(p.u.)
0
of the nominal value
-2
Through the analysis of the data of Figure 6, we can see that 2
0 5 10 15

when grid voltage sags, fault is detected quickly by positive

Uc(p.u.)

sequence voltage ud , PV inverter can continue to run during -2

0 5 10 15
1
the fall, and reactive current can be injected into the power
Ia(p.u.)

0
grid according to the requirements of the standard, reactive
-1
current is 0.55p.u.. When the grid voltage is restored, the grid 1
0 5 10 15

side spike current is not generated, and the PV inverter is fast

Ib(p.u.)

to reach the steady state and has a fast dynamic response -1

0 5 10 15
capability. 1
Ic(p.u.)

5 Experiment results -1
0 5
t(s)
10 15

The proposed low voltage ride through control strategy is Fig8 Experimental waveforms when phase A grid voltage sags to
applied to a 500kW photovoltaic grid connected inverter, 0% of the nominal value
field test is carried out. The experimental waveforms of three
phase grid voltage sags to 0% rated voltage are shown in 6 Conclusion
Figure 7, the experimental waveforms of phase A grid voltage
(1) Based on the traditional voltage and current dual loop
sags to 0% rated voltage are shown in Figure 8.
control strategy for photovoltaic inverter, a novel grid voltage
According figure 7 and figure 8, we can see that, during the
sags control strategy is proposed, which uses PIR current
voltage sag, the PV inverter is not out of the network, and the
controller and adaptive reactive power regulator based on sag
reactive current to the grid is 1.05p.u., 0.53p.u., meet the
depth of positive sequence component of grid voltage.
standard requirements; when the grid voltage recovery, the
(2) LVRT simulation and experiment test results on a
AC current and voltage can quickly returned to normal, the
500kVA photovoltaic inverter shows that the voltage sags
display during fault voltage across during the double loop
control strategy can achieve good dynamic performance, and
controller has better control effect. Compared with the
fast, accurately realize adaptive dynamic reactive power
simulation waveforms, figure 5 and figure 6, the simulation
compensation during low voltage ride through.
results are basically consistent with the experimental
waveforms.

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