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Control of Single-Stage Single-Phase PV Inverter

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DOI: 10.1080/09398368.2006.11463624 · Source: IEEE Xplore

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Blaabjerg EPE journal 25/09/06 9:58 Page 2

Mihai Ciobotaru, Remus Teodorescu, Frede Blaabjerg

Control of Single-Stage Single-Phase PV Inverter

Mihai Ciobotaru, Remus Teodorescu and Frede Blaabjerg, Institute of Energy Technology, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

Keywords: Distributed power generation, Harmonics, Photovoltaic, Single phase system, Solar Cell System

Abstract
In this paper the issue of control strategies for single-stage photovoltaic (PV) inverter is addressed. Two different current
controllers (the classical proportional-integral (PI) and the novel proportional-resonant (PR) controllers) have been
implemented and an experimental comparison between them has been made. A complete control structure for the single-
phase PV system is also presented. The superiority of the PR controller is demonstrated with respect to the PI controller
in terms of harmonic current rejection and the capability to remove the steady-state error without using the voltage feed-
forward (VFF). The control strategy was successfully tested on a real 1.5 kW PV inverter.

Introduction
The market for PV power applications continues to develop at a
high rate [1]. Between 2002 and 2003 the total installed capacity
in the International Energy Agency (IEA) PhotoVoltaic Power
Systems (PVPS) countries grew by 36 %, reaching 1 809 MW.
Moreover, the price level of the PV modules and the system costs
(inverter included) has decreased significantly [2]. The use of PV
systems connected in parallel with the mains was simplified and
is often supported by incentives from utilities and/or governmental Fig. 1: Power electronic system with the grid, source (PV
bodies. Before connecting a PV system to the power network, the array), power converter and control
d.c. voltage of the solar modules must be converted into an a.c.
voltage. Some protection systems are required to prevent damage
in the PV system caused by the utility network and vice versa. The
PV systems require standards addressing the use and the perfor-
mance of grid-connected PV inverters, thus ensuring the safety
and quality of the products.

The purpose of the power electronics in PVPS is to convert the

d.c. current from the PV panels into an a.c. current to the grid,
with the highest possible efficiency, the lowest cost and keep a
superior performance. The basic interfacing is shown in Fig. 1.
Fig. 2: The voltage source PV inverter connected to the grid
A controversial issue for PV inverters is the current harmonics through an LCL filter
level. The IEEE 929 standard permits a limit of 5 % for the cur-
rent total harmonic distortion (THD) factor with individual limits
of 4 % for each odd harmonic from 3rd to 9th and 2 % for 11th to equivalent a.c.-compensator having the same frequency response
15th while a recent draft of European IEC61727 suggests almost characteristics in the bandwidth of concern.
the same thing as previously mentioned. These levels are far more
stringent than other domestic appliances, like IEC61000-3-2, as This paper is aimed at presenting a single-stage converter for single-
PV systems are viewed as generation sources and so are subject to phase PV systems. Two different current controllers have been
higher standards than load systems. implemented and an experimental comparison between them has
been made. A complete control structure for the single-phase PV
For current-controlled PV inverters in most of the cases a PI con- system is also presented. An incremental conductance method has
troller with grid voltage feed-forward (VFF) is used [3], [4], but been used in order to track the Maximum Power Point Tracker
this solution exhibits two well known drawbacks (due to the poor (MPPT) of the PV characteristic. In order to get a clean sinusoidal
performance of the integral action): inability of the PI controller current reference (synchronized with the grid voltage) a phase-
to track a sinusoidal reference without steady-state error and poor locked loop (PLL) based on a delay structure is used. The conclu-
disturbance rejection capability. An alternative solution in order to sions are presented in the final part of the paper.
alleviate the PI’s drawbacks is presented in [5], where a second
order generalized integrator (GI) can be used. The GI is a double
integrator that achieves an “infinite” gain at a certain frequency System description
(resonance frequency), and almost no attenuation exists outside
this frequency. Thus, it can be used as a notch filter in order to Usually the power converter interface from the d.c. source to the
compensate the harmonics in a very selective way. Another load and/or to the grid consists of a two stage converter: the d.c.-
approach reported in [6] where a new type of stationary-frame d.c. converter and the d.c.-a.c. converter. An alternative solution
regulators called Proportional Resonant (PR) is introduced. In this could be the use of a single-stage converter where the d.c.-d.c.
approach the classical PI d.c.-compensator is transformed into an converter is avoided and in order to ensure the necessary d.c. volt-

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Control of Single-Stage Single-Phase PV Inverter

Fig. 3: Control diagram of the PV energy conversion system

Fig. 4: General structure of a single phase PLL including grid voltage monitoring

age level the PV array can be a string of PV panels or a multitude can produce stability problems and special control design is
of parallel strings of PV panels. In the classical solution with two- required [7]. The control structure of the PV power conversion
stage converter, the d.c.-d.c. converter requires several additional system is shown in Fig. 3.
devices producing a large amount of conduction losses, sluggish
transient response and high cost while the advantages of the single- The main elements of the control structure are the synchronization
stage converters are: good efficiency, a lower price and easier algorithm based on PLL, the MPPT, the input power control, the
implementation. The disadvantages of the single-stage converter grid current controller including PWM.
are the fact that the PV panels are in series and if shading occurs
on one or several PV panels then the efficiency of the whole
system is reduced. PLL structure
As shown in Fig. 2, the PV inverter system consists of a solar The PLL is used to provide a unity power factor operation which
panel string and a d.c. link capacitor Cdc on the d.c. side with an involves synchronization of the inverter output current with the
output a.c. filter (LCL), insulation transformer and grid connection grid voltage and to give a clean sinusoidal current reference. The
on the a.c. side. The number of panels in the string has to ensure PI controller parameters of the PLL structure are calculated in
a d.c. voltage higher than the a.c. peak voltage at all time. The such a way that the settling time and the damping factor of this
energy conversion from d.c. to a.c. side is made by a single-phase PLL structure can be set directly. The PLL structure is also used
voltage source inverter. The used solar panel string consists of for grid voltage monitoring in order to get the amplitude and
sixteen uniserial PV panels (120 W for each panel). the frequency values of the grid voltage. The general form of the
PLL structure including grid voltage monitoring is presented in
Fig. 4 [8].
Control strategy
For the grid-connected PV inverters in the power range of 1-5 kW, MPPT algorithm
the most common control structure for the d.c.-a.c. grid converter
is a current-controlled H-bridge PWM inverter having a low-pass The task of the MPPT in a PV energy conversion system is to tune
output filter. Typically L filters are used but the new trend is to use continuously the system so that it draws maximum power from the
LCL filters that have a higher order (3rd) which leads to more solar array regardless of weather or load conditions. Since the
compact design. The drawback is its resonance frequency which solar array has a non-ideal voltage-current characteristics and the

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Mihai Ciobotaru, Remus Teodorescu, Frede Blaabjerg

conditions such as irradiance, ambient temperature, and wind that

affect the output of the solar array are unpredictable, the tracker
should deal with a nonlinear and time-varying system. The con-
ventional MPPT algorithms are using dP/dV = 0 to obtain the
maximum power point output. Several algorithms can be used in
order to implement the MPPT as follows [9]: perturb & observe,
incremental conductance, parasitic capacitance and constant voltage,
but only the first two are the most frequently used.

The incremental conductance algorithm has been chosen as a

MPPT strategy in this paper. This algorithm has advantages com-
pared to perturb & observe as it can determine when the MPPT
has reached the MPP, where perturb and observe oscillates around
the MPP. Also, incremental conductance can track rapidly the
increase and decrease of irradiance conditions with higher accuracy
than perturb & observe. One disadvantage of this algorithm is the
increased complexity when compared to perturb & observe. This
increases the computational time and slows down the sampling
frequency of the array voltage and current.

The flowcharts of the perturb & observe and of the incremental

conductance algorithm are shown in Fig. 5 [10], where Vk and Ik a)
are the momentary voltage and current of the PV array and Vk-1,
Ik-1 are the previous sampled voltage and current, respectively.
The dP/dV term can be replaced by I + (∆I/∆V) ⋅ V. The output of
the MPPT is the d.c. voltage reference (V*pv).

Input power control

The control strategies of input power in the case of a power con-
figuration of PV system without d.c.-d.c. converter are presented
in the following section. In Fig. 6 a new control strategy of input
power is proposed. The new element introduced is the power feed-
forward. The computed value of the current amplitude reference
using the PV Power and the RMS value of the a.c. voltage (Vac RMS) is
added to the output value of the d.c. voltage controller (Îr) resulting
in the a.c. current amplitude reference (Îref). Using the input power
feed-forward the dynamic of the PV system is improved being
known the fact that the MPPT is rather slow. The d.c. voltage
controller ensures a quick response of the PV system at a sudden
change of the input power.

Grid current controller

Classical PI control with grid voltage feed-forward (Vff) as
depicted in Fig. 7a, is commonly used for current-controlled PV
inverters.

The PI current controller GPI(s) is defined as:

Ki
GPI ( s) = K p + (1) b)
s
In order to get a good dynamic response, a grid voltage feed-for- Fig. 5: Flowcharts of the perturb & observe a) and incremen-
ward is used, as depicted in Fig. 7a. This leads in turn to stability tal conductance algorithms b)
problems related to the delay introduced in the system by the voltage
feedback filter. In order to alleviate this problem an advanced
filtering method for the grid voltage feed-forward should be con-
sidered. The Root-locus and Bode diagram analysis of the PI con-
troller is presented in Fig. 8.

As it has been mentioned in the introduction of this paper, an alter-

native solution for the poor performances of the PI controller is
the PR controller. The current loop of the PV inverter with PR
controller is shown in Fig. 7b.

The PR current controller Gc(s) is defined as [5, 7]: Fig. 6: New control structure of controlling the input power.
A feed-forward of input power is used

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Control of Single-Stage Single-Phase PV Inverter

a) b)
Fig. 7: The current loop of PV inverter: a) with PI controller; b) with PR controller

Fig. 8: PI current controller – Root-locus and Bode diagram analysis

s
Gc ( s) = K p + K i (2) The current error-disturbance ratio rejection capability at null
s 2 + ω o2 reference is defined as:

The harmonic compensator (HC) Gh(s) is defined as [7]: ε ( s) Gf ( s)

= (5)
vg ( s ) 1 + (Gc ( s) + Gh ( s)) ⋅ Gd ( s) ⋅ Gf ( s)
ii* = 0
∑
s
Gh ( s) = K ih (3)
h = 3,5,7
s 2 + (ω o h) 2 where: ε is the current error and the grid voltage vg is considered
as the disturbance for the system.
The HC is designed to out compensate the selected harmonics 3rd, In Fig. 9 is presented the Bode diagram of the disturbance rejec-
5th and 7th as they are the most predominant harmonics in the cur- tion for the PI and PR controllers. It can very easily be noticed that
rent spectrum. the PI rejection capability is worse in comparison with the PR.
Thus, it is demonstrated the superiority of the PR controller with
A processing delay, usually equal to Ts for the PWM inverters [4], respect to the PI in terms of harmonic current rejection.
is introduced in Gd(s). The filter transfer function Gf(s) is
expressed in (4) [11]. The Root-locus and Bode diagram analysis of the PR+HC con-

Gf ( s) =
ii ( s)
=
1 s + ( 2 2
zLC ) (4)
troller are presented in Fig. 10.

(
vi ( s) Li s s 2 + ω res
2
) The size of the proportional gain Kp from PR controller deter-
mines the bandwidth and stability phase margin [5], in the same
way as for the PI controller. As it can be observed from the open-
( Li + Lg ) ⋅ zLC
2 loop Bode diagram (Fig. 10) the phase margin (PM) is determined
[ ]
−1
where 2
zLC = Lg Cf and, ω res
2
= to be equal with 60.6 degrees, indicating a good stability of the
Li system. Also, the dominant poles of the controller are well
damped as it can be seen in Fig. 10 exhibiting a damping factor
where Li, Lg and Cf are shown in Fig. 2. Lg includes the grid equal with 0.7.
impedance due to the transformer and the grid lines.

EPE Journal ⋅ Vol. 16 ⋅ no 3 ⋅ September 2006 23

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Mihai Ciobotaru, Remus Teodorescu, Frede Blaabjerg

Fig. 9: Bode diagram of the disturbance rejection (current error ratio disturbance) of the PR+HC (3rd, 5th and 7th) and PI current
controllers

Fig. 10: PR current controller – Root-locus and Bode diagram analysis

Experimental results The plotted results have been captured using the graphical inter-
face of the dSPACE system (Control Desk) and then exported to
A single-stage grid-connected PV inverter (1.5 kW power range) Matlab workspace for plotting.
has been built in order to analyze the PV system performance, as
depicted in Fig. 11a. The system is dSPACE based and voltage The solar panels string mounted on the roof of the laboratory are
source inverter (VSI) is controlled using a unipolar PWM to place presented in the Fig. 11b [12].
the harmonics on the high frequency side making them easier to
filter. The parameters of the LCL filter were: Li = 1426 µH, The grid current and grid voltage at 1.5 kW for PI, PR and PR+HC
Cac = 2.2 µF, Lg = 713 µH. The power stage of a Danfoss VLT controllers are presented in Fig. 12 a), b) and c). As it can be seen
5004 rated 400 V/10A was used. The switching frequency of the a much lower THD is obtained with the PR+HC controller. The
inverter was 10 kHz. The control algorithm shown in Fig. 3 was grid current response at a 5 A step in the current reference is pre-
implemented using the dSPACE DS1103 platform. For higher sented for the PI (Fig. 12d), PR (Fig. 12e) and PR+HC (Fig. 12f).
power, the LCL filter needs to be redesigned.
As it can be observed the PR and PR+HC controller yields a
The system was tested in the following condition: the open circuit smaller overshoot than the PI controller.
d.c. voltage provided by the uniserial sixteen PV panels was
around 660 V, the RMS value of the grid voltage was Vg = 225 V In Fig. 13, a comparison of the spectrum for PI, PR and PR+HC
with a THD of 2.2 % voltage background distortion. The grid in the lower frequency region is presented.
impedance was measured to 1.2 Ω with a series inductance of
2.1 mH due to the insulation transformer, used in order to connect Using PI controller with VFF a current THD of 5.8% has been
the PV system to the grid, and the grid inductance was measured obtained while in the case of the PR controller the measured
to 50 µH. The total Lg will be 0.713 mH + 2.1 mH = 2.813 mH. current THD was 9.7 %. Adding the HC for the PR controller a
drastic attenuation of the current THD can be observed, decreasing
For small variations of Lg the PR controller behavior is not affected, to 0.5 %.
but for large variations of Lg the stability of the current controller
decreases and an adaptive tuning of the PR controller can be con-
sidered.

24 EPE Journal ⋅ Vol. 16 ⋅ no 3 ⋅ September 2006

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Control of Single-Stage Single-Phase PV Inverter

a) b)
Fig. 11: a) Test setup for 1.5 kW PV inverter; b) The solar panels string mounted on the roof of the laboratory.

a) d)

b) e)

c) f)
Fig. 12: Grid current (marked) and grid voltage at 1.5 kW for PI a), PR b) and PR+HC c) controllers. Grid current response
(marked) at a 5 A step in the current reference for PI d), PR e) and PR+HC f) controllers

EPE Journal ⋅ Vol. 16 ⋅ no 3 ⋅ September 2006 25

Blaabjerg EPE journal 25/09/06 9:58 Page 8

Mihai Ciobotaru, Remus Teodorescu, Frede Blaabjerg

[9] D.P. Hohm and M.E. Ropp. Comparative Study of Maximum
Power Point Tracking Algorithms Using an Experimental,
Programmable, Maximum Power Point Tracking Test Bed, Proc. of
Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, 2000, pp.1699 – 1702.
[10] Y.C. Kuo and T.J. Liang. Novel Maximum-Power-Point-Tracking
Controller For Photovoltaic Energy Conversion System, IEEE Trans-
actions on Industrial Electronics, Vol. 48, No. 3 , 2001 pp. 594 – 601.
[11] M. Liserre, F. Blaabjerg and S. Hansen. Design and Control of an LCL-
filter Based Active Rectifier, Proc. of IAS’01, Vol. 1, pp. 299-307.
[12] R. Teodorescu and F. Blaabjerg. Photovoltaic Systems Are With
Power Electronics, IEEE Power Electronics Society Newsletter,
Forth Quarter 2005, Vol. 17, No. 4, ISSN 1054-7231.
Fig. 13: Measured grid current harmonics normalized to the
fundamental for PI, PR and PR+HC controllers The Authors
Conclusion Frede Blaabjerg, (S'86-M'88-SM'97-F’03)
received the M.Sc.EE. from Aalborg University,
An alternative solution using a single-stage converter, where the Denmark in 1987, and the PhD. degree from the
d.c.-d.c. converter is avoided, has been developed and successfully Institute of Energy Technology, Aalborg
tested on a dSPACE controlled 1.5kW single-phase PV inverter. University, in 1995. He was employed at ABB-
The advantages of the single-stage converters are: good efficiency, Scandia, Randers, from 1987-1988. During
a lower price and easier implementation, while the main disad- 1988-1992 he was a PhD student at Aalborg
vantage is the fact that the PV panels are in series and if the University. He became an Assistant Professor in
shading occurs on one or several PV panels then the efficiency of 1992 at Aalborg University, in 1996 Associate
the whole system is reduced. Professor and in 1998 full professor in power
electronics and drives the same place. In 2006 he
It has been demonstrated that the PR+HC controller gives better became the Dean of Faculty of Engineering and
Science at Aalborg University. His research areas are in power electronics,
performances then the classical PI controller for the grid current static power converters, ac drives, switched reluctance drives, modeling,
loop. The two well known drawbacks of the PI controller are: - characterization of power semiconductor devices and simulation, wind
steady-state error; and - poor harmonics rejection capability. The turbines and green power inverter. He is the author or co-author of more
steady-state error can be overcome by the PR controller. The PR than 300 publications in his research fields.
controller is able to remove the steady-state error without using
VFF, which makes it more reliable. By adding the selective HC to
the PR controller, a very good rejection for the dominant harmon- Mihai Ciobotaru was born in 1979 in Galati,
ics can be obtained. Romania. He received his B.Sc. and M.Sc.
degrees both in Electrical Engineering from
"Dunarea de Jos" University of Galati in 2002
References and 2003 respectively. From 2003 to 2004 he was
employed as a teaching assistant at the
[1] F. Blaabjerg, Zhe Chen and S.B.Kjaer. Power electronics as efficient Department of Electrotechnics, Electrical
interface in dispersed power generation systems, IEEE Transactions Machinery and Drives at the same institution. In
on Power Electronics, Vol. 19, Issue 5, 2004, pp. 1184 - 1194 . February 2004, he joined the Institute of Energy
Technology, Aalborg University, Denmark as a
[2] S.B. Kjaer, J.K. Pedersen and F. Blaabjerg. A review of single-phase guest researcher working on single-phase grid
grid-connected inverters for photovoltaic modules, IEEE Transactions connected inverter systems and since June 2004
on Industry Applications, Vol. 41, Issue 5, 2005, pp. 1292 - 1306 . he has been enrolled in a Ph.D. program with a provisional thesis title:
[3] M. Kazmierkovski, R. Krishnan, F. Blaabjerg. Control in Power "Reliable Grid Condition Detection and Control for Single-Phase
Electronics, Selected Problems, Academic Press 2002, ISBN 0-12- Distributed Power Generation Systems".
402772-5.
[4] C. Cecati, A. Dell'Aquila, M. Liserre and V. G. Monopoli. Design Remus Teodorescu received the Dipl.Ing. degree
of H-bridge multilevel active rectifier for traction systems, IEEE in electrical engineering from Polytechnical
Trans. on Ind. App., Vol. 39, Sept./Oct. 2003, pp. 1541-1550. University of Bucharest in 1989, and PhD.degree
[5] X. Yuan, W. Merk, H. Stemmler, J. Allmeling. Stationary-Frame from University of Galati, Romania, in 1994.
Generalized Integrators for Current Control of Active Power Filters From 1989 to 1990, he worked for Iron and Steel
with Zero Steady-State Error for Current Harmonics of Concern Plant Galati and then he moved to Galati
University where he worked as an assistant pro-
Under Unbalanced and Distorted Operating Conditions, IEEE
fessor with Electrical Engineering Department.
Trans. on Ind. App., Vol. 38, No. 2, Mar./Apr. 2002, pp. 523 – 532. In 1998, he joined Aalborg University, Institute
[6] D. N. Zmood and D. G. Holmes. Stationary Frame Current Regula- of Energy Technology, Power Electronics Section
tion of PWM Inverters with Zero Steady-State Error, IEEE Trans. on where he currently works as an Associate
Power Electronics, Vol. 18, No. 3, May 2003, pp. 814 – 822. Professor. His research areas include power con-
[7] R. Teodorescu, F. Blaabjerg, M. Liserre, U. Borup. A New Control verters for renewable energy systems (PV, wind turbines), electrical
Structure for Grid-Connected PV Inverters with Zero Steady-State drives. He has coauthored more than 100 technical papers, 12 of them
Error and Selective Harmonic Compensation, Proc. of APEC’04, published in journals. He is coauthor of 2 books and 5 patents. He
received the Technical Committee Prize Paper Awards, IEEEIAS‚ 98 and
Vol. 1, pp. 580-586.
OPTIM-ABB Prize paper Award at OPTIM 2002. He is a Senior Member
[8] M. Ciobotaru, R. Teodorescu and F. Blaabjerg, A new single-phase of IEEE, Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions of Power Electronics
PLL structure based on second order generalized integrator, Letters and chair of IEEE Danish IAS/IES/PELS chapter.
Record of IEEE PESC 2006, Korea, p. 1511-1516.

26 EPE Journal ⋅ Vol. 16 ⋅ no 3 ⋅ September 2006

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