Marco Liserre

Overview of Control and Grid Synchronization for Distributed Power Generation Systems

Renewable energy sources like wind, sun, and hydro are seen as a reliable alternative to the traditional energy sources such as oil, natural gas, or coal. Distributed power generation systems (DPGSs) based on renewable energy sources experience a large development worldwide, with Germany, Denmark, Japan, and USA as leaders in the development in this field. Due to the increasing number of DPGSs connected to the utility network, new and stricter standards in respect to power quality, safe running, and islanding protection are issued. As a consequence, the control of distributed generation systems should be improved to meet the requirements for grid interconnection. This paper gives an overview of the structures for the DPGS based on fuel cell, photovoltaic, and wind turbines. In addition, control structures of the grid-side converter are presented, and the possibility of compensation for low-order harmonics is also discussed. Moreover, control strategies when running on grid faults are treated. This paper ends up with an overview of synchronization methods and a discussion about their importance in the control

Design and control of an LCL-filter-based three-phase active rectifier

The aim of the paper is to propose a design procedure for an LCL-filter in a front-end three-phase active rectifier. The main goal is to ensure a reduction of the switching frequency ripple at a reasonable cost and, at the same time, to obtain a high performance rectifier. In this paper a step-by-step procedure for designing an LCL-filter is proposed and verified by simulations and experiments. An example of LCL-filter design has been reported and, with the obtained values, the filter has been realised and tested. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the design procedure both of the LCL-filter and of the controllers. The performance of the overall system is good both in the low and high frequency ranges. Moreover the good agreement between these results and those obtained in simulation validate the adopted model: the design procedure and the simulation model represent a powerful tool to design an LCL active rectifier without the need for the realisation of several prototypes.

Stability of photovoltaic and wind turbine grid-connected inverters for a large set of grid impedance values

The aim of this paper is to analyze the stability problems of grid connected inverters used in distributed generation. Complex controllers (e.g., multiple rotating dq-frames or resonant-based) are often required to compensate low frequency grid voltage background distortion and an LCL-filter is usually adopted for the high frequency one. The possible wide range of grid impedance values (distributed generation is suited for remote areas with radial distribution plants) challenge the stability and the effectiveness of the LCL-filter-based current controlled system. It has been found out and it will be demonstrated in this paper that the use of active damping helps to stabilise the system in respect to many different kinds of resonances. The use of active damping results in an easy plug-in feature of the generation system in a vast range of grid conditions and in a more flexible operation of the overall system able to manage sudden grid changes. In the paper, a vast measurement campaign made on a single-phase system and on a three-phase system used as scale prototypes for photovoltaic and wind turbines, respectively, validate the analysis.

Flexible Active Power Control of Distributed Power Generation Systems During Grid Faults

The increasing penetration of distributed power generation into the power system leads to a continuous evolution of grid interconnection requirements. In particular, active power control will play an important role both during grid faults (low-voltage ride-through capability and controlled current injection) and in normal conditions (reserve function and frequency regulation). The aim of this paper is to propose a flexible active power control based on a fast current controller and a reconfigurable reference current selector. Several strategies to select the current reference are studied and compared using experimental results that are obtained during an unsymmetrical voltage fault. The results of the analysis allow selection of the best reference current in every condition. The proposed methods facilitate multiple choices for fault ride through by simply changing the reference selection criteria.

Genetic algorithm-based design of the active damping for an LCL-filter three-phase active rectifier

The use of a LCL-filter mitigates the switching ripple injected in the grid by a three-phase active rectifier. However stability problems could arise in the current control loop. In order to overcome them a damping resistor can be inserted, at the price of a reduction of the efficiency. On the contrary the use of the active damping seems really attractive but it is often limited by the use of more sensors respect to the standard control and by the complex tuning procedure. This paper introduces a new active damping method that does not need the use of more sensors and that can be tuned using genetic algorithms. It consists of adding a filter on the reference voltage for the converters modulator. The tuning process of this filter is easily done, for a wide range of sampling frequencies, with the use of genetic algorithms. This method is used only for the optimum choice of the parameters of the filter and an on-line implementation is not needed. Thus the resulting active damping solution does not need new sensors or complex calculations. Moreover, in the paper particular attention is devoted to the dynamics of the system due to the introduction of the active damping.

Stability improvements of an LCL-filter based three-phase active rectifier

Three-phase active rectifiers guarantee sinusoidal input currents and controllable dc voltage at the price of a high switching frequency ripple that can disturb and reduce efficiency of other EMI sensitive equipment connected to the grid. This problem could be solved choosing a high value for the ac inductors making them expensive and bulky. Moreover the dynamic of the system becomes poor with so high value of inductance. On the contrary to adopt an LCL-filter configuration allows to use reduced values of the inductances (preserving dynamic) and to reduce the switching frequency pollution emitted in the grid. However the stability of the system should be rigorously studied. A poor analysis made on qualitative considerations could lead to excessive damping (unnecessary increase of the losses) or insufficient damping (the system seems to be stable but it is not). In this paper the damping, both passive (based on the use of resistors) and active (based on the modification of the control algorithm), is studied using the z-plane root locus approach and looking to dynamic performances and losses. In fact it is necessary to verify the dynamic effects by the introduction of damping resistors or by the modification of the control algorithm to perform active damping. The analysis is validated both with simulation and experiments.

Step-by-step design procedure for a grid-connected three-phase PWM voltage source converter

The voltage source active rectifier is one of the most interesting solutions to interfacing dc power systems to the grid. Many elements are responsible for the overall system behaviour, such as value of the passive elements, sensors position, analog/digital filters and ac current/dc voltage controllers. In this paper a step-by-step design procedure, taking into account all these elements, is proposed and validated through the tests on an experimental prototype. The reported results are particularly relevant to evaluate the influence on the grid current harmonic content of the grid sensor position and of the use of analog filters in the feedback signals.

Overview of Anti-Islanding Algorithms for PV Systems. Part I: Passive Methods

This paper offers an overview of the passive methods used for islanding detection. A monitoring PLL has been adopted for the estimation of the voltage amplitude and frequency. Passive inverter resident methods discussed are the over/under voltage (OUV), over/under frequency (OUF), the voltage harmonic monitoring (with a study on the effects of the grid impedance value and of the inverter DC voltage ripple) and the phase monitoring (different from the classical phase jump method). A harmonic synchronization PLL is used to monitor the 3 rd, 5th and 7th harmonics. All the proposed algorithms are validated by simulations and experimental results obtained in accordance with the IEEE Std. 929-2000 procedure

Wavelet-Based Islanding Detection in Grid-Connected PV Systems

Distributed power generation systems (DPGSs) based on inverters require reliable islanding detection algorithms (passive or active) in order to determine the electrical grid status and operate the grid-connected inverter properly. These methods are based on the analysis of the DPGS voltage, current, and power in time or frequency domain. This paper proposes a time-frequency detection algorithm based on monitoring the DPGS output power considering the influence of the pulsewidth modulation, the output LCL filter, and the employed current controller. Wavelet analysis is applied to obtain time localization of the islanding condition. Simulation and experimental results show the performance of the proposed detection algorithm in comparison with existing methods.

A stable three-phase LCL-filter based active rectifier without damping

Industrial-LCL-based grid converters using an active rectifier need to be designed in view of robustness, stability and high efficiency. In this paper the design of an active rectifier that does not need damping whether passive or active is described. This allows obtaining stability without the decrease of the efficiency typical for the passive damping methods or the increase of cost due to more sensors or more complex control algorithms that is typical for the active damping methods. This has been achieved with a careful choice of sensor position and of the passive elements in the LCL-filter. In fact if the current sensors are on the grid side, rather than on the converter side, the current loop is much more near to the stability. Moreover, if the grid side inductance is a fraction of the converter side one, the current loop is again much more near to the stability. Thus, with a proper design the system can be made stable at some switching frequencies even without any damping.