IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 54, NO.
5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2018
An Improved Feedforward Control Method
Considering PLL Dynamics to Improve Weak Grid
Stability of Grid-Connected Inverters
Xueguang Zhang , Member, IEEE, Danni Xia, Zhichao Fu , Gaolin Wang , Member, IEEE,
and Dianguo Xu , Fellow, IEEE
Abstract—Phase-locked loop (PLL) is commonly used for three-
phase grid-connected inverters to obtain the information of grid
synchronization, and PLL dynamics are the key factors for stable
operation of the inverters. Under weak grid conditions, the cou-
pling between PLL and grid impedance can result in harmonic
resonance, or even instability in the system. In this paper, the effect
of PLL dynamics and grid impedance on the stability of three-
phase grid-connected inverters is studied with the d–q impedance
model. Besides, the variable transfer relationship is used to analyze
the influence of PLL perturbations on output current under weak
grid conditions. To suppress low-order harmonics of the network
current caused by PLL perturbations under weak grid conditions,
a novel feedforward control method is proposed to compensate
PLL perturbations and revise the output impedance, where the
operation of the inverter and PLL dynamics have been taken into
account in the design process. By analyzing the impedance char-
acteristic of the system, it can be demonstrated that the proposed
method can enhance the stability of grid-connected inverters under
weak grid conditions and reduce the impact of PLL perturbations
on grid-connecting current. The experimental results indicate that
the low-order harmonics of the network current can be suppressed
effectively, which verifies the analysis.
Index Terms—Grid-connected inverters, impedance model,
Phase-locked loop (PLL) dynamics, system stability, weak grid.
I. INTRODUCTION
ITH the development of distributed power generation
W systems based on renewable sources, three-phase grid-
connected inverters are widely used to connect the systems to
the public grid [1]. The interaction between the control system
of grid-connected inverters and the grid may cause stability
problems, especially under weak grid conditions. Some recent
literature works [2]–[9] have pointed out that the phase-locked
Manuscript received October 14, 2017; revised December 29, 2017; accepted
February 2, 2018. Date of publication March 8, 2018; date of current version
September 17, 2018. Paper 2017-IPCC-1123.R1, approved for publication in
the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS by the Industrial Power
Converter Committee of the IEEE Industry Applications Society. This work was
supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant
51577040 and Grant 51720105008. (Corresponding author: Xueguang Zhang.)
The authors are with the School of Electrical Engineering and Au-
tomation, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, Heilongjiang 150001,
China (e-mail:, zxghit@126.com; wwwggvyu@qq.com; fzcsd92@163.com;
WGL818@hit.edu.cn; xudiang@hit.edu.cn).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIA.2018.2811718
0093-9994 © 2018 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
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5143
loop (PLL) may be one of the main reasons that affects the
stability of the gird-inverter system.
The PLL is usually used as an efficient approach to detect
grid phase angle, and the coupling effect between the PLL and
grid due to the existence of the grid impedance may produce
destabilization in the grid. Negative impact of PLL on the sta-
bility of the grid-connected inverters is owing to the negative
incremental resistors in the range of PLL bandwidth, which
could lead the inverter system to unstable conditions [2], [3].
Besides, there exists frequency coupling between the positive-
and negative-sequence impedance because of the PLL, and the
coupling is critical to the stability of the inverter [7]–[9].
The impedance-based analytical method has been widely
used to evaluate the stability of the inverter system recently
[10]–[16]. The authors in [10] and [11] employed the harmonic
linearization method to model the impedance of the inverter
in the stationary αβ-frame, which reveals the negative impact
of the PLL. The impedance model is expressed by a diago-
nal transfer matrix and constructed for the positive sequence
component and the negative sequence component separately.
Besides, other works [2], [12]–[15] develop the impedance of
three-phase grid-connected inverters in the rotating d–q frame.
Thus, the PLL dynamics can be illustrated by linearizing the
transformation between the two frames. The d–q impedances
can effectively address the stability of the three-phase ac system
considering PLL impact by means of a generalized Nyquist cri-
terion (GNC). Wang et al. [16] constructed a uniform impedance
model of grid-connected voltage-source inverters to reveal the
PLL effect, which is explicitly presented using complex transfer
functions and complex space vectors. It is proved that high PLL
bandwidth may lead to harmonic resonance, or even instability
in the system.
To avoid the grid synchronization instability caused by PLL
dynamics, several attempts have been reported in [4] and
[17]–[25]. Reducing the bandwidth of PLL to enhance the
stability of grid-connected inverters is discussed in [4]. It is
shown that gains of PLL, particularly at low short-circuit ra-
tios (SCRs), greatly affect the operation of the inverters. PLL
gain-scheduling adaptive control of the inverter based on online
grid impedance measurements is proposed in [17], and adapta-
tion rules for PLL bandwidth gains are derived to improve the
stability of the inverter-grid system. Reshaping impedance of
inverters or impedance-phased compensation for PLL has been
 5144 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 54, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2018

proven to offer an excellent means of strengthening the stability

in a weak grid [18]–[20]. An active damper is used to reshape the
grid impedance profile seen from the point of common coupling
(PCC) for stabilizing power-electronics-based ac system [21]. A
modified PLL based on the band-pass filter (BPF) is proposed to
revise the output admittance for attenuating the harmonic effect
[22]. Du et al. [23] configured self-admittance and accompany
admittance to represent the inverter including PLL effect and
proposed an asymmetric current control method to alleviate the
PLL effect, which improves the stability of a three-phase grid-
inverter system. Darari and Mohamed [24] proposed a robust
vector control method with an ac-bus voltage controller, which
considers the PLL dynamics. The proposed method can elimi-
nate the negative impact of the PLL on the converter stability.
Direct power control (DPC) scheme with a virtual synchronous
reference frame is applied for the grid-connected voltage source
inverter and the PLL can be removed from the control system. Fig. 1. Block diagram of three-phase grid-connected inverter.
The proposed approach can eliminate the low-frequency oscil-
latory behaviors during the frequency variations and improve
system stability [25].
The solutions mentioned above aim at increasing the sta-
bility margin or reshaping the output impedance for stability
enhancement, even removing the PLL from the control system.
Such control methods may have some limitations, including
a slower transient response of the inverter and complicated
parameters design. This paper builds the output impedance
model of a three-phase grid-connected inverter including current
loop, PLL, and digital control delays. Based on the established
impedance of inverter, the detailed transfer relationship between
system voltage and internal current is depicted. Considering
that the system voltage perturbation affects the performance
of current loop through PLL, an improved feedforward control Fig. 2. Small-signal circuit model of inverter in system d–q frame.
scheme, aiming to mitigate the negative impact of PLL and re-
vise the output impedance, is proposed to enhance the stability of Uca , Ucb , and Ucc denote the PCC voltages acquired by the
grid-connected inverters in a weak grid. PLL. ea , eb , and ec are the grid voltages, and iga , igb , and igc
The rest of this paper is organized as follows: The impedance represent the grid-side currents. The output angle of the PLL is
modeling of three-phase grid-connected inverters is given in θPLL . Hdel represents the time delay term.
Section II as a foundation of the following analysis. Then, the ef- The grid voltage oriented vector control method is used in
fect of grid impedance and bandwidth of PLL on the stability of the three-phase grid-connected inverter, and the current loop
grid-connected inverters is studied in Section III. An improved uses a proportional-integral (PI) controller. The expression of
feedforward control strategy is proposed and the effectiveness the current loop is
of this strategy on improving the stability of grid-inverter sys- 
usvd = −(kpi + ksi i )(id ref − id ) + ωL · iq + ud
tem is analyzed in Section IV. Experimental results are given . (1)
to verify the proposed method in Section V. Finally, Section VI usvq = −(kpi + ksi i )(iq ref − iq ) − ωL · id + uq
concludes.
Here, kpi and kii are the PI parameters. id and iq are active and
reactive currents, respectively, while id ref and iq ref are corre-
II. OUTPUT IMPEDANCE MODELING OF A THREE-PHASE
sponding current references. ud and uq are the PCC voltages in
GRID-CONNECTED INVERTER
the d–q frame, and usvd and usvq represent the output voltages
A. System Description in d and q current loops.
Fig. 1 shows the block diagram of a three-phase grid-
connected inverter with control system. Udc is the dc B. Impedance Modeling With PLL
voltage, and idc represents the dc current. S1 –S6 are the six The impedance-based analysis method is adopted in this paper
self-commutated devices of an antiparallel diode. Inverter-side to derive the impedance model of the three-phase grid-connected
currents are denoted as ia , ib , and ic . L, the parasitic resistance inverter in the rotating d–q frame. The small-signal circuit model
of which is represented by R, is the filter inductance on the of the inverter is shown in Fig. 2.
inverter-side. Cf is the filter capacitor, and Lg and Rg represent Take the model of d channel in Fig. 2 for instance. Dds is the
the grid-side inductance and resistance, respectively. Besides, steady-state value of duty ratio, and Udc is the steady value of

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 ZHANG et al.: IMPROVED FEEDFORWARD CONTROL METHOD CONSIDERING PLL DYNAMICS TO IMPROVE WEAK GRID STABILITY 5145

Fig. 4. Block diagram of SRF PLL.

Fig. 3. System and controller d–q frames.
Signal s indicates that the variable is in the system d–q frame
dc voltage. Δdsd is the small-signal perturbation of duty ratio as well as signal c indicates that the variable is in the controller
in d channel. Similarly, ΔisdL is the small-signal perturbation d–q frame. In the d–q frame, the block diagram of SRF-PLL is
of current in d channel, and Δusd and Δusdc are the small- shown in Fig. 4.
signal perturbations of grid voltage and dc voltage, respectively. Based on the block diagram of SRF PLL, the steady-state
In this paper, the converter operates in the inverter mode and relationship of variables between the system d–q frame, and
the dc side energy is supplied by a programmable dc power system d–q frame is as follows:
supply, where dc voltage perturbation can be neglected and the
dc voltage is assumed to be constant. As for the stability of U  s , Ic = Is , D
c =U c = D
 s. (7)
dc-link voltage, it is not the emphasis at present and it will be
Equation (7) shows that the angle between the system d–q
analyzed in the future work. As depicted in Fig. 2, the output
frame and the controller d–q frame is 0. Use matrix T Δ θ , and
impedance depends on both grid voltage and duty ratio of the  c can be depicted as
then V
inverter. Assume Δdsd = 0, Δdsq = 0 if only considering the
 
grid voltage. Hence, cos 0 sin 0
    s  c =
U  s.
U (8)
Δusd ωL + R −ωL ΔidL − sin 0 cos 0
= . (2)
Δuqs
ωL ωL + R ΔisqL If small-signal perturbations are added to (8), then it can be
Then, easily obtained
   c     s 
ωL + R −ωL Ud + Δucd cos Δθ̃ sin Δθ̃ Ud + Δusd
Z out = . (3) = · . (9)
ωL ωL + R Uqc + Δucq − sin Δθ̃ cos Δθ̃ Uqs + Δusq
Assume Δusd = 0, Δusq = 0 when the duty ratio of inverter
Δθ̃ in (9) is very small; hence,
operates independently. Therefore, the expression of the transfer
function matrix from duty ratio to grid current is    
Δucd Δusd + Uqs Δθ̃
  ≈ . (10)
−Udc Ls + R ωL Δucq Δusq − Uds Δθ̃
H id = . (4)
(Ls + R)2 + (ωL)2 −ωL Ls + R
Then, based on Fig. 4, the output of the PLL is
PLL is widely used for grid-connected inverters to obtain the
1
grid synchronization information, and its dynamic characteris- Δθ̃ = Δucq • HPI • (11)
tics have an effect on the stability of the system. PLL is taken s
into account in the impedance model of the inverter to analyze k
where HPI = kppll + isp l l . Substitute (11) into (10), and elimi-
the impact of PLL on the system, and evaluate the stability of nate Δθ̃. Then,
the grid-inverter system. 
Fig. 3 shows the system and controller d–q frames. The system 1
1 + Uds • HPI • Δucq = Δusq . (12)
d–q frame coincides with the controller d–q system in a steady s
state. If there are perturbations in the grid voltage, an angle
Δ θ̃ •s
exists between the two frames due to the PLL dynamics, which Replace Δucq in (12) with HP I , and Δθ̃ can be rewritten as
will have an impact on the system stability. The transfer function follows:
matrix from system d–q frames to controller d–q frames can be HPI
expressed by T Δ θ Δθ̃ = • Δusq . (13)
  s + Uds • HPI
cos Δθ sin Δθ
T Δθ = . (5) HPLL is defined as
− sin Δθ cos Δθ
HPI
Then, HPLL = . (14)
s + Uds • HPI
⎧
 c = T Δθ −
⎨ u →us Then,
→ic = T Δ θ −
− →is . (6)
⎩ 
dc = T Δ θ ds Δθ̃ = HPLL • Δusq . (15)

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 5146 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 54, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2018

Fig. 5. Block diagram of the grid-connected inverter output impedance model.

Based on (10) and (15), the result is obtained as

      Fig. 6. Bode diagrams of the d–d channel output impedances of the inverter.
Δucd 1 Uqs HPLL Δusd (red curve denotes the model result and blue curve denotes the simulation
≈ • . (16) measurement result).
Δucq 0 1 − Uds HPLL Δusq

H vPLL models the matrix of the small-signal perturbation where

from system voltage to controller voltage in the d–q frame 
H 1 = (−H ci + H dec )H iPLL + H dPLL + H vPLL
 s
 .
1 U q H PLL H 2 = H id H del (H ci − H dei )
H vPLL = . (17)
0 1 − Uds HPLL
The grid impedance Z g consists of the grid impedance Lg
Similarly, other equations can be derived as and the filter capacitor Lg . In order to access the stability of
  the system using the impedance-based method, the generalized
d
0 −Dqs HPLL Nyquist Criterion is applied to the impedance ratio as
H PLL = (18)
0 Dds HPLL L(s) = Z g • Z −1
out il PLL . (24)
 
0 iq ref H PLL The system is stable if (24) satisfies the generalized Nyquist
H iPLL = (19) criterion, and vice versa.
0 −id ref HPLL
The frequency scanning method is applied to validate the
where H dPLL models the matrix of the small-signal perturbation accuracy of the model. Fig. 6 shows the simulation result of fre-
from system voltage to duty ratio in the controller d–q frame, quency scanning, which describes the theoretical and measured
and H iPLL represents the matrix of the small-signal perturbation results of d–q channel output impedances of the inverter. The
from system voltage to the current in the controller d–q frame. conclusion can be drawn that the measured result matches the
Considering the current loop, PLL, and the filter, the impedance theoretical result within the error range and it is proved that the
model of three-phase grid-connected inverter is shown in Fig. 5. model is accurate.
H del is a transfer matrix representing time delay, where
Tdel = Ts . H dec represents the decoupling term, and H ci is III. STABILITY ANALYSIS OF GRID-INVERTER SYSTEM
the current controller matrix CONSIDERING GRID IMPEDANCE AND PLL BANDWIDTH
 1 − 0.5T d e l s  A. Influence of Grid Impedance on System Stability
1 + 0.5T d e l s 0
H del = (20) The interaction between grid impedance and the controller
1 − 0.5T d e l s
0 1 + 0.5T d e l s system of grid-connected inverters has a passive impact on
 ωL  the system stability. According to the three-phase inverter out-
0 Ud c
H dec = (21) put impedance model established above, this section uses the
ωL
Ud c 0 impedance-based analytical approach to analyze the system sta-
  bility with different grid impedances.
kpi + ksi i 0 The system parameters are shown in Table I, where Lg =
H ci = . (22)
0 kpi + ksi i 4 mH when the SCR is 12.8, and Lg = 16 mH when the SCR is
3.2. Fig. 7 shows the Nyquist plots when the PLL bandwidth is
The system closed-loop output impedance is 100 Hz and the SCR is 12.8. Fig. 7(a) depicts the overall Nyquist
diagrams, but in order to depict the surrounding correlation
Z out il PLL = (Z −1 −1
out + H id H del H 1 ) (I + H 2 ) (23) between Nyquist plots and the critical point (−1, j0) clearly, the

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 ZHANG et al.: IMPROVED FEEDFORWARD CONTROL METHOD CONSIDERING PLL DYNAMICS TO IMPROVE WEAK GRID STABILITY 5147

TABLE I
EXPERIMENTAL PARAMETERS

Symbol Quantity Value

V dc DC voltage 400 V
Ug Grid voltage 200 V
fb Fundamental frequency 50 Hz
fsw Switching frequency 5 kHz
L Inverter inductor 6 mH
Cf Filter capacitor 10 μf
Lg Grid inductor 4 mH
16 mH
k pi Current loop 0.15
0.067 Fig. 9. Nyquist plots of the impedance ratio of the grid-inverter system with
k ppll PLL 0.02(fPLL = 13 Hz) different PLL bandwidths when SCR = 3.2. (a) fPLL = 13 Hz and (b) fPLL =
0.12(fPLL = 100 Hz) 100 Hz.

Fig. 10. Bode diagram of the q–q channel output impedance of the inverter
Fig. 7. Nyquist plots of the impedance ratio of the grid-inverter system with
(blue line denotes fPLL = 13 Hz and red line denotes fPLL = 100 Hz).
SCR = 12.8 and fPLL = 100 Hz. (a) Full view. (b) Zoom in (−1, j0).

B. Effect of PLL Bandwidth on System Stability

Fig. 8. Nyquist plots of the impedance ratio of the grid-inverter system with
SCR = 3.2 and fPLL = 100 Hz.
subsequent Nyquist plots in this paper will use zoom-in partial
drawing.
In Fig. 7, none of the system’s characteristic loci encircles the
critical point (−1, j0), indicating that the system is stable. Fig. 8
shows the Nyquist plots when the grid impedance is increased
to 16 mH, where the system’s characteristic loci encircles the
critical point, indicating that the system is unstable.
Comparing Figs. 7 and 8, the increasing of grid impedance
leads to the growing interaction between the grid and the con-
troller system of inverters, which results in the reduction of
system stability.
Under weak grid conditions, increasing the PLL bandwidth
has an effect on the coupling between the PLL and the grid
impedance, which is harmful to system stability. Using Nyquist
plots, this section will analyze the effect of different PLL
bandwidths on the system stability when the SCR is 3.2. Two
different PLLs with bandwidths of 13 and 100 Hz are set to
show the influence. Fig. 9(a) shows the Nyquist plots when the
PLL bandwidth is 13 Hz, where the system’s characteristic loci
encircles the critical point (−1, j0), which means the system is
stable, while in Fig. 9(b) when the PLL bandwidth is 100 Hz, the
critical point (−1, j0) is not encircled by the system’s character-
istic loci and the system is unstable. In Fig. 10, it shows that a
higher PLL bandwidth yields a wider frequency range of nega-
tive resistance behavior. As it can be observed in Figs. 9 and 10,
the increase of the PLL bandwidth under weak grid conditions
results in the aggravation of coupling between the PLL and the
grid impedance, which reduces the system stability. Moreover,
it may destabilize the system.
As shown by the above analysis, the grid impedance and the
PLL bandwidth can lead to the instability of the grid-inverter
system, and the frequency of the harmonics can be influenced
by grid impedance and the PLL bandwidth. Besides, the current
loop bandwidth may cause high-frequency harmonics [26] and
change the harmonic frequencies.

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 5148 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 54, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2018

Fig. 11. Control block diagram of the grid-connected inverter with PLL.

Fig. 13. Block diagram of the grid-connected inverter output impedance

model with the proposed method.

Therefore, according to the relationship between the system

voltage and the controller voltage, the practical feedforward
item can be obtained by substituting the controller voltage for
the system voltage in Fig. 12
−1 HPI
Fig. 12. Control block diagram of the grid-connected inverter with the pro- fb = Y out • H filter • H Idq •
HR (26)
posed method. s
where
 
IV. IMPROVED METHOD FOR ENHANCING THE STABILITY OF 0 iq ref
GRID-CONNECTED INVERTERS CONSIDERING PLL H Idq = .
0 −id ref
According to the analysis in Section III, both grid impedance
and the PLL bandwidth have an effect on the system stability. Equation (28) indicates that the feedforward voltage is only
In order to improve weak grids stability of grid-connected in- uq in practical due to the characteristics of the practical feed-
verters, a novel feedforward control method for grid-connected forward term. The equation of practical current loop controller
inverters considering PLL dynamic under weak grid conditions with the proposed method is as follows:
is proposed in this paper. The proposed method can depress the 
usvd = −(kpi + ksi i )(id ref − id ) + ωL · iq + ud
output errors of the PLL so that the grid-connected inverter can
operate stably with high PLL bandwidth. There is no change in usvq = −(kpi + kii
s )(iq ref − iq ) − ωL · id + uq + Kfb
R
· uq
the structure and parameters of the PLL; therefore, adding the (27)
proposed method to the control system does not change the PLL
where
bandwidth.
R (iq ref − id ref ) • HPI • (Ls + R) • hfilter
Kfb = .
A. Implementation of the Novel Control Method Considering s
PLL
B. Stability Analysis of the Proposed Method
Control diagram of current loop with PLL is shown in Fig. 11,
Based on the proposed method, the impedance model of three-
1
where Y out is the filter admittance term Y out = L s+R • [10 01].
phase grid-connected inverters can be revised, and the block dia-
The system voltage affects the control current through PLL gram of the grid-connected inverter output impedance modeling
dynamics, which damages the system stability. In order to reduce is shown in Fig. 13.
PLL perturbations from system voltage to the current controller System parameters are shown in Table I, where the SCR is
output, this paper proposes a novel control method based on volt- 3.2 and the PLL bandwidth is 100 Hz. Nyquist diagrams with
age feedforward to enhance system stability for grid-connected the proposed method are depicted in Fig. 14.
inverters. The control diagram is shown in Fig. 12. A similar analysis can be obtained that the system with the
H fb in Fig. 12 is the feedforward item used to reduce the proposed method in Fig. 14(b) is stable, while without that it is
PLL perturbations unstable. Therefore, it is obvious that the method can reduce the
H fb = H iPLL • Y −1
out • H filter (25) coupling between the PLL and the grid impedance, and improve
the stability of grid-connected inverters.
where H filter represents the filter matrix: Fig. 15 shows the inverter q–q channel impedance with the
H filter = [h f i0l t e r h f i0l t e r ] where hfilter is the feedforward filter. proposed method when the SCR is 3.2 and the PLL bandwidth
The feedforward voltage in theoretical analysis is the system is 100 Hz. Comparing with the plots in Fig. 15, the frequency
voltage, but in fact, the controller voltage is used practically. range of negative resistance in the q–q channel with the proposed

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 ZHANG et al.: IMPROVED FEEDFORWARD CONTROL METHOD CONSIDERING PLL DYNAMICS TO IMPROVE WEAK GRID STABILITY 5149

Fig. 14. Nyquist plots of the impedance ratio of the grid-inverter system under
different cases when fPLL = 100 Hz and SCR = 3.2: (a) without the proposed
method and (b) with the proposed method.
Fig. 16. Picture of the laboratory setup: (a) main circuit and (b) control system.

Fig. 17. Experimental waveforms of the three-phase grid-connected inverter

Fig. 15. Bode diagram of the q–q channel output impedance of the inverter when L g = 4 mH and fPLL = 100 Hz (200 V/div, 10 A/div, 20 ms/div).
with fPLL = 100 Hz (blue line denotes the q–q channel impedance without the
proposed method and red line denotes the q–q channel impedance with the
proposed method).

method decreases obviously, and the system stability improves

effectively. Therefore, the analytic result verifies that the pro-
posed method is efficient.

V. EXPERIMENTAL VERIFICATION
In order to verify the validity of the proposed method, a Fig. 18. Experimental waveforms of the three-phase grid-connected inverter
three-phase grid-connected inverter is constructed with some when L g = 16 mH and fPLL = 100 Hz (200 V/div, 10 A/div, 20 ms/div).
specific parameters in the experiment. The inverter module is
FFI400R12IP4 of Infineon, and the proposed method is imple-
mented in a TMS320F2812 DSP from. For convenience, dif-
ferent inductors are connected in series between inverters and
the public grid to simulate different grid impedance conditions.
Experimental parameters are shown in Table I, and the hardware
used in the experiment is shown in Fig. 16.
Figs. 17 and 18 depict the experimental waveforms with the
PLL bandwidth of 100 Hz under different grid impedances.
Fig. 17 shows the waveforms of the grid-connected inverter
currents and the voltage at the PCC when grid inductor is 4 mH,
which indicates that the system is stable when grid impedance is Fig. 19. Harmonic spectra of the measured grid-connected current under dif-
low. Fig. 18 demonstrates the waveforms of the grid-connected ferent conditions: (a) L g = 4 mH and fPLL = 100 Hz; (b) L g = 4 mH and
fPLL = 100 Hz.
inverter currents and the voltage at the PCC when grid inductor
is 16 mH. The waveforms of the voltage and the current are
distorted. Waveforms in Figs. 17 and 18 show that the increase of Fig. 19(a) shows the harmonic spectra of the inverter current
grid impedance brings the aggravation of coupling between the as the grid inductor is 4 mH and the PLL bandwidth is 100 Hz,
PLL and the grid impedance, which destabilizes the system. The where the total harmonic distortion (THD) of the inverter current
measured results agree well with the impedance-based analysis is 3.57% and it is no resonant peak, which indicates that the
in Fig. 9. system is stable. Fig. 19(b) shows the harmonic spectra of the

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 5150 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 54, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2018
Fig. 20. Experimental waveforms of the three-phase grid-connected inverter
when L g = 16 mH and fPLL = 13 Hz (200 V/div, 10 A/div, 20 ms/div).
Fig. 21. Experimental waveforms of the three-phase grid-connected inverter
with the proposed method when L g = 16 mH and fPLL = 100 Hz (200 V/div,
10 A/div, 20 ms/div).
Fig. 22. Harmonic spectra of the measured grid-connected current under
different conditions: (a) fPLL = 13 Hz without the proposed method and
(b) fPLL = 100 Hz with the proposed method.
inverter current as the grid inductor is 16 mH and the PLL
bandwidth is 100 Hz, and it is clear that the THD of the inverter
currents is 16.5% and the harmonic resonances arise at 35 and
135 Hz, which implies that the system is unstable.
Fig. 20 shows the waveforms of the grid-connected inverter
currents and the voltage at the PCC when the grid inductance
is 16 mH and the PLL bandwidth is 13 Hz. A comparison
between Figs. 18 and 20 shows that higher PLL bandwidth
leads to the aggravation of the coupling between the PLL and
the grid impedance and creates instability in the grid-inverter
system. This shows that the system stability can be improved by
reducing the PLL bandwidth under weak grid conditions, but it
is needed to redesign the PLL bandwidth.
Fig. 21 shows the experimental waveforms with the proposed
method when the grid inductor is 16 mH and the PLL bandwidth
is 100 Hz. A comparison between Figs. 18 and 21 shows that
the proposed method can depress the coupling between the PLL
and the grid impedance without redesigning the PLL bandwidth
so that the PLL output errors can be reduced and the harmonic
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resonances are effectively damped by the proposed method,
which matched with the impedance-based analysis in Fig. 14.
Fig. 22(a) shows the harmonic spectra of the inverter current
when the grid inductor is 16 mH and the PLL bandwidth is
13 Hz, where the THD if the inverter current is 4.7% and it is
no resonant peak, indicating that the system is stable. Fig. 22(b)
shows the harmonic spectra of the inverter current with the
proposed method, which clearly indicates that the harmonic
resonances are restrained and the THD of the inverter current is
decreased to 3.24%.
VI. CONCLUSION
An output impedance model of the three-phase grid-
connected inverter with PLL is constructed in this paper.
Through systematic impedance-based analysis, it has been
shown that the increase of the grid impedance and the PLL
bandwidth will lead to stable margin decline and harmonic res-
onance. Considering that the system voltage perturbation affects
the performance of current loop through PLL, an improved feed-
forward control scheme is proposed to mitigate perturbations
of PLL and enhance the weak grid stability of grid-connected
inverters. The theoretical analysis confirms that the proposed
method can reduce PLL perturbations and enhance the sys-
tem stability. Experimental results obtained have shown antici-
pated performances, hence verifying the proposed method in this
paper.
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Xueguang Zhang (M’13) was born in Heilongjiang
Province, China, in 1981. He received the B.S., M.S.,
and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from
Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China, in
2003, 2005, and 2010, respectively.
Since 2015, he has been an Associate Professor
with the Department of Electrical and Engineering,
Harbin Institute of Technology. His research interests
include distributed generation and renewable energy
conversion systems.
Authorized licensed use limited to: INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY DELHI. Downloaded on January 15,2022 at 12:18:15 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
5151
Danni Xia received the B.S. degree in electrical
engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology,
Shandong, China, in 2017, where she is currently
working toward the M.S. degree in power electronics
and electrical drives.
Her research interests include stability analysis
and control strategy of three-phase grid-connected
inverters.
Zhichao Fu was born in Shandong Province, China,
in 1992. He received the B.S. degree in electri-
cal engineering from Southwest Jiaotong University,
Chengdu, China, in 2016. He is currently working
toward the M.S. degree at Harbin Institute of Tech-
nology, Harbin, China.
His research interests include grid-connected
inverter systems modeling and stability analysis.
Gaolin Wang (M’13) received the B.S., M.S., and
Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Harbin
Institute of Technology, Harbin, China, in 2002, 2004,
and 2008, respectively.
In 2009, he joined the Department of Electri-
cal Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology as
a Lecturer, where he has been a Professor of elec-
trical engineering since 2014. From 2009 to 2012,
he was a Postdoctoral Fellow with Shanghai STEP
Electric Corporation. He has authored more than 50
technical papers published in various journals and
conference proceedings. He holds ten Chinese patents. His research interests
include ac motor drives, position sensorless control, and digital control of power
converters.
Dianguo Xu (M’97–SM’12–F’17) was born in Hei-
longjiang Province, China, in 1960. He received
the B.S. degree in control engineering from Harbin
Shipbuilding Engineering Institute, Harbin, China,
in 1981, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electri-
cal engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology,
Harbin, China, in 1984 and 1990, respectively.
Since 1994, he has been a Professor with the
Department of Electrical Engineering, Harbin Insti-
tute of Technology. His research interests include
robotics, lighting electronics, power quality mitiga-
tion, consumer electronics, power electronics, and motor drives.
Dr. Xu is a Member of the China Electrotechnical Society and China Power
Supply Society.