Design and Implementation of Three-Phase Smart Inverter of the Photovoltaic Power Generation Systems

The main purpose of this paper is to conduct design and implementation on three-phase smart inverters of the grid-connected photovoltaic system, which contains maximum power point tracking (MPPT) and smart inverter with real power and reactive power regulation for the photovoltaic module arrays (PVMA). Firstly, the piecewise linear electrical circuit simulation (PLECS) power electronic real-time control system was applied to construct the simulation and actual test environment for the three-phase mains parallel photovoltaic system, where the KC200GT photovoltaic module was used to form a 1600 W system for conducting the simulation. For enabling the PVMA to output the maximum power in terms of both insolation and ambient temperature, where the perturbation and observation (P&O) method was used for MPPT. Then, the voltage-power control technology was added to the grid-connected photovoltaic inverter. When the grid voltage p.u. value is between 1.0 and 1.03, the smart inverter starts voltage-power regulation, reducing the real power output to 1440 W, and absorbing the system's reactive power to 774 VAr. The power factor of the grid system end is controlled to 0.9 (lagging), and the grid voltage is reduced to norminal value 220 V. If the grid voltage p.u. value is between 0.97 and 1.0, the smart inverter starts voltage-power regulation, controlling the output real power to 1440 W and the reactive power to the system to 774 VAr, so that the power factor of the system end is controlled to 0.9 (leading), and the grid voltage is increased to norminal value 220 V. Finally, the results from the simulation and actual test were used to demostrate the effectiveness of the regulation performance of the smart inverter.

Automated summary

The main purpose of this paper is to design and implement three-phase smart inverters for grid-connected photovoltaic systems. The inverters include maximum power point tracking (MPPT) and smart control for real power and reactive power regulation. The PLECS power electronic real-time control system is used to simulate and test the system, and the KC200GT photovoltaic module is used for the simulation. The results show the effectiveness of the smart inverter's regulation performance.