Friedrich W. Fuchs

Limitations of Voltage-Oriented PI Current Control of Grid-Connected PWM Rectifiers With

Voltage-oriented PI control of three-phase grid-connected pulsewidth-modulation rectifiers with LCL filters is addressed. LCL filters require resonance damping. Active resonance damping is state of the art to face the problem, but it is still under investigation because of the manifold solutions. It is often realized using many sensors and/or complex control algorithms. In contrast, pure PI control requires only one set of current sensors, and its implementation and design are rather simple and well known from the L filter control. PI control has already been shown to be a suitable solution also for LCL filters, but there are limitations. These are investigated in this paper. System stability is analyzed with respect to different ratios of LCL filter resonance and control frequencies. The latter are important parameters for system design and control. Both line and converter current control are analyzed. For a certain range of frequency ratios, the voltage-oriented PI control gives stable performance without additional feedback, but for ratios outside this range, stable operation is impossible. Experimental tests validate the theoretical results. In addition, an experimentally determined LCL filter transfer function is shown in this paper, which shows a lower resonance peak as expected from commonly used filter models.

LCL

Pulsewidth modulation (PWM) voltage source converters are becoming a popular interface to the power grid for many applications. Hence, issues related to the reduction of PWM harmonics injection in the power grid are becoming more relevant. The use of high-order filters like LCL filters is a standard solution to provide the proper attenuation of PWM carrier and sideband voltage harmonics. However, those grid filters introduce potentially unstable dynamics that should be properly damped either passively or actively. The second solution suffers from control and system complexity (a high number of sensors and a high-order controller), even if it is more attractive due to the absence of losses in the damping resistors and due to its flexibility. An interesting and straightforward active damping solution consists in plugging in, in cascade to the main controller, a filter that should damp the unstable dynamics. No more sensors are needed, but there are open issues such as preserving the bandwidth, robustness, and limited complexity. This paper provides a systematic approach to the design of filter-based active damping methods. The tuning procedures, performance, robustness, and limitations of the different solutions are discussed with theoretical analysis, selected simulation, and experimental results.

Filters

This paper deals with various active damping approaches for PI-based current control of grid-connected pulsewidth-modulation (PWM) converters with LCL filters, which are based on one additional feedback. Filter capacitor current, as well as voltage feedback for the purpose of resonance damping, are analyzed and compared. Basic studies in the continuous Laplace domain show that either proportional current feedback or derivative voltage feedback yields resonance damping. Detailed investigations of these two approaches in the discrete z-domain, taking into account the discrete nature of control implementation, sampling, and PWM, are carried out. Several ratios of LCL resonance frequency and control frequency are considered. At high resonance frequencies, only current feedback stabilizes the system. At medium resonance frequencies, both approaches have good performance. At low resonance frequencies, stability gets worse, even though voltage feedback offers slightly better damping properties. Measurements validate the theoretical results.

Filter-Based Active Damping of Voltage Source Converters With

Passive damping is the most adopted method to guarantee the stability of LCL-filter-based grid converters. The method is simple and, if the switching and sampling frequencies are sufficiently high, the damping losses are negligible. This letter proposes the tuning of different passive damping methods and an analytical estimation of the damping losses allowing the choice of the minimum resistor value resulting in a stable current control and not compromising the LCL-filter effectiveness. Stability, including variations in the grid inductance, is studied through root locus analysis in the z-plane. The analysis is validated both with simulation and with experiments.

LCL

A crucial criterion for the dimensioning of three phase PWM converters is the cooling of the power semiconductors and thus determination of power dissipation in the semiconductors at certain operating points and its maximum. Methods for the calculation and simulation of semiconductor losses in the most common voltage source and current source three phase PWM converters are well known. Here a complete analytical calculation of the power semiconductor losses for both converter types is presented, most parts are already known, some parts are developed here, as far as the authors know. Conduction losses as well as switching losses are included in the calculation using a simplified model, based on power semiconductor data sheet information. This approach should benefit the prediction and further investigations of the performance of power semiconductor losses for both kinds of converters. Results of the calculation are shown. Dependencies of the semiconductor power losses on the type of converter, the operating point and the pulse width modulation are pointed out, showing the general behaviour of power losses for both converter types.

Filter

The application of a dynamic voltage restorer (DVR) connected to a wind-turbine-driven doubly fed induction generator (DFIG) is investigated. The setup allows the wind turbine system an uninterruptible fault ride-through of voltage dips. The DVR can compensate the faulty line voltage, while the DFIG wind turbine can continue its nominal operation as demanded in actual grid codes. Simulation results for a 2 MW wind turbine and measurement results on a 22 kW laboratory setup are presented, especially for asymmetrical grid faults. They show the effectiveness of the DVR in comparison to the low-voltage ride-through of the DFIG using a crowbar that does not allow continuous reactive power production.

Investigation of Active Damping Approaches for PI-Based Current Control of Grid-Connected Pulse Width Modulation Converters With LCL Filters

Design and analysis of PI state space control for grid-connected pulsewidth modulation (PWM) converters with LCL filters based on pole placement approach is addressed. State space control offers almost full controllability of system dynamic. However, pole placement design is difficult and usually requires much experience. In this paper, a suitable pole placement strategy is proposed, which ensures fulfilling the requirements, which are commonly specified with respect to rise time, overshoot, and proper resonance damping. Controller parameter expressions are derived in terms of system parameters and specified poles and zeros. Hence, straightforward controller tuning for a particular system setting is possible. Performance is analyzed by means of transfer function-based calculations, simulations with MATLAB, and experimental tests. Dynamic performance and robustness against grid impedance variations are addressed as well as harmonic rejection capability and other practical issues.

Analysis of the Passive Damping Losses in LCL-Filter-Based Grid Converters

Status monitoring and performance diagnosis for variable speed ac drives today is a need, more or less, depending on their application. Diagnosis can help to avoid unplanned standstill, to make possible to run an emergency operation in case of a fault or to keep the time to repair short in case of a fault. For the voltage source inverter several faults are possible. In this paper, these faults and their diagnosis are covered. Possible faults and remedial strategies are listed. It is enumerated, which faults in todays standard protection systems are diagnosed. The main faults, in general not covered in these systems, are the transistor open circuit fault and the dc bus capacitor fault. In these fields diagnosis methods are under research. Some of the various reports of research groups in this field are outlined here as a survey with respect to function and properties.

Semiconductor losses in voltage source and current source IGBT converters based on analytical derivation

Inverter systems that feed electrical power from fuel cells into the grid must convert the direct current of the fuel cell into the alternating current of the grid. In addition, these inverters have to adapt the different voltages of the fuel-cell system and the grid to each other. In this paper, different topologies of appropriate inverter systems in the medium power range of 20 kW and higher are presented briefly. The inverter operating behavior, power rating, and efficiency are compared. The power rating and efficiency are compared using an analytical calculation of the semiconductor losses. The study includes transformerless inverters as well as two-stage inverter systems with high-frequency transformers (dc/dc converter combined with an inverter). This paper compares converter systems using insulated-gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs), e.g., a boost converter in series with a voltage-source inverter (VSI), current-source inverter, and z-source inverter or converter systems using superjunction MOSFETs, such as voltage- and current-fed full-bridge converters or a boost converter with an autotransformer. The MOSFET-based dc/dc converters must be connected in series to a VSI with IGBTs to feed into the three-phase grid. The presented converters were tested in the laboratory. Some characteristics of their laboratory performance are shown.

Fault Ride-Through of a DFIG Wind Turbine Using a Dynamic Voltage Restorer During Symmetrical and Asymmetrical Grid Faults

Three-phase active rectifiers guarantee sinusoidal input currents and unity power factor at the price of a high switching frequency ripple. To adopt an LCL-filter, instead of an L-filter, allows using reduced values for the inductances and so preserving dynamics. However, stability problems can arise in the current control loop if the present resonance is not properly damped. Passive damping simply adds resistors in series with the LCL-filter capacitors. This simplicity is at the expense of increased losses and encumbrances. Active damping modifies the control algorithm to attain stability without using dissipative elements but, sometimes, needing additional sensors. This solution has been addressed in many publications. The lead-lag network method is one of the first reported procedures and continues being in use. However, neither there is a direct tuning procedure (without trial and error) nor its rationale has been explained. Thus, in this paper a straightforward procedure is developed to tune the lead-lag network with the help of software tools. The rationale of this procedure, based on the capacitor current feedback, is elucidated. Stability is studied by means of the root locus analysis in z-plane. Selecting the lead-lag network for the maximum damping in the closed-loop poles uses a simple optimization algorithm. The robustness against the grid inductance variation is also analyzed. Simulations and experiments confirm the validity of the proposed design flow.