Control Strategy for Multiple Residential Solar PV System in Distribution Network With Improved Power Quality

This paper presents a modified power control (MPC) for a grid-interfaced autonomous microgrid connecting multiple solar photovoltaic inverter (SPI) units. An MPC provides the automatic transition capability between grid-tied mode (GTM) and an islanding mode (IAM) for a microgrid consisting of multiple parallel-operated SPIs. In GTM, SPIs extract PV power to fulfil the load demand, and the rest power is fed to the grid at the unity power factor (UPF) by working in the current control mode (CCM). Upon grid failure, the main SPI unit inherently changes from CCM in GTM to voltage control mode (VCM) in the IAM state to achieve an uninterruptable power supply to loads. When the grid restores, the main SPI unit near the point of common coupling (PCC) re-synchronizes the PCC voltage with grid voltage in the microgrid and control shifts back to GTM. A seamless mode transition in the microgrid is achieved without rearrangement of control formation, and power distribution between the parallel SPI units is achieved without communication setup. This reduces the cost of remote communication setup for resynchronization and saves the complexity. Moreover, MPC accurately regulates the reference grid current of SPIs when the load demand fluctuates. The MPC method combines the adaptive integrator filter (AIF), which attenuates the harmonics from the input signal to strictly control the power factor at PCC and maintains the total harmonics distortion (THD) of grid current and PCC voltage according to the IEEE stand. 519. The performance of the presented MPC method is evaluated via a simulation and test results.

Automated summary

This paper presents a modified power control (MPC) method for seamless mode transition in a microgrid and accurate regulation of reference grid current, reducing the complex communication setup and cost. The method achieves power distribution between parallel SPI units and maintains power factor and total harmonics distortion based on the IEEE 519 standard.