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Power control of a grid-connected PV system during asymmetrical voltage faults

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Abstract

Under voltage faults, grid-tied photovoltaic inverters should remain connected to the grid according to fault ride-through requirements. Moreover, it is a desirable characteristic to keep the power injected to grid constant during the fault. This paper explores a control strategy to regulate the active and reactive powers delivered by a single-stage photovoltaic generation system to the grid during asymmetrical voltage faults. The reference for the active power is obtained from a maximum power point tracking algorithm, whereas the reference for the reactive power can be set freely if the zero-sequence voltage is null; otherwise, it will depend on the magnitude of the zero-sequence voltage and the active power reference. The power control loop generates the reference currents to be imposed by the grid-tied power inverter. These currents are regulated by a predictive controller. The proposed approach is simpler than other methods proposed in the literature. The performance of the control strategy presented is verified with an experimental laboratory setup where voltage sags and swells are considered.

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Abbreviations

PV:

Photovoltaic

MPPT:

Maximum power point tracking

DC:

Direct current

AC:

Alternating current

P :

Active power

Q :

Reactive power

IARC:

Instantaneous active reactive control

AARC:

Average active reactive control

BPSC:

Balanced positive sequence control

PNSC:

Positive–negative sequence control

FRT:

Fault ride-through

LVRT:

Low voltage ride-through

PLL:

Phase locked loop

VSC:

Voltage source converter

LV:

Low voltage

MV:

Medium voltage

P&O:

Perturb and observe

PCC:

Point of common connection

THD:

Total harmonic distortion

\( v_{abc} \) :

Voltage in \( abc \) reference frame

\( v_{\alpha \beta \gamma } \) :

Voltage in \( \alpha \beta \gamma \) reference frame

\( i_{abc} \) :

Current in \( abc \) reference frame

\( i_{\alpha \beta \gamma } \) :

Current in \( \alpha \beta \gamma \) reference frame

\( i_{\alpha \beta }^{*} \) :

Reference current in \( \alpha \beta \) reference frame

\( p\left( t \right) \) :

Instantaneous active power

\( \left| {[q_{abc} ]} \right| \) :

Instantaneous reactive power

\( p_{\text{ref}} \) :

Active power reference

\( |q|_{\text{ref}} \) :

Reactive power reference

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical Engineering, Universidad de Concepción, Concepción, Chile

    Gustavo Hunter & Rubén Peña

  2. School of Electrical Engineering, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Valparaíso, Chile

    Javier Riedemann

  3. Department of Electrical Engineering, Universidad de Magallanes, Punta Arenas, Chile

    Iván Andrade

  4. Department of Systems and Automatics, Universitat Politécnica de Valencia, Valencia, Spain

    Ramón Blasco-Gimenez

Authors
  1. Gustavo Hunter
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  2. Javier Riedemann
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  3. Iván Andrade
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  4. Ramón Blasco-Gimenez
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  5. Rubén Peña
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Javier Riedemann.

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This work was funded by Conicyt Chile Under Project FONDECYT 11180092. The financial support given by CONICYT/FONDAP/15110019 is also acknowledged.

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Hunter, G., Riedemann, J., Andrade, I. et al. Power control of a grid-connected PV system during asymmetrical voltage faults. Electr Eng 101, 239–250 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00202-019-00769-x

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