• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.62 no.3
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• pp.342-348
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• 2013

It proposes an efficient control algorithm to increase electric power transmission efficiency between photovoltaic power generating system and the grid. The main controller finds a maximum efficiency condition by considering the quantity of power generated from PV arrays, the number of inverters, and efficiency of PV inverter. According to the condition, a relay board arranges a point of contract of PV arrays. By the disposition of PV arrays, it assigns the optimized power on each PV inverter. Operational principle of the proposed maximum efficiency point tracking algorithm is given in detail. To verify the validity of the proposed approach, computer-aided simulation and experiment carried out.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.1057-1068
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• 2014

Phase-locked loops (PLL) based on the synchronous reference frame (SRF-PLL) have recently become the most widely-used for grid synchronization in three phase grid-connected inverters. However, it is difficult to study their performance since they are nonlinear systems. To estimate the performances of a SRF-PLL, a canonical small-signal linearized model has been developed in this paper. Based on the proposed model, several significant specifications of a SRF-PLL, such as the capture time, capture rang, bandwidth, the product of capture time and bandwidth, and steady-state error have been investigated. Finally, a noise model of a SRF-PLL has been put forward to analyze the noise rejection ability by computing the SNR (signal-to-noise ratio) of a SRF-PLL. Several simulation and experimental results have been provided to verify and validate the obtained conclusions. Although the proposed model and analysis method are based on a SRF-PLL, they are also suitable for analyzing other types of PLLs.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.1918-1927
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• 2016

This paper proposes active frequency drift (AFD) as an anti-islanding method applied to micro-inverters with uncontrollable reactive power. When using ordinary inverter topologies, such as full bridge inverters in photovoltaic systems, the islanding phenomenon can be detected with reactive power-based methods, such as reactive power variation. However, when the inverter topology cannot control the reactive power, conventional anti-islanding methods with reactive power cannot be utilized. In this work, the topology used in this paper cannot control the reactive power. Thus, an anti-islanding method that can be used in topologies that cannot control the reactive power is proposed. The conventional anti-islanding method of the topology that cannot control reactive power is introduced and analyzed. Unlike the conventional AFD method, the proposed method extends a zero current interval every predetermined cycle. The proposed method offers certain advantages over conventional AFD methods, such as total harmonic distortion. The proposed method is validated through simulation and experiment.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.511-521
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• 2014

This study proposes an electric vehicle (EV) smart panel board and its control method on the basis of charging scheduling. The proposed system consists of batteries, a three-phase battery charger, three single-phase inverters, transfer switches for electric power distribution, and a controller. The three-phase battery charger usually charges the batteries at midnight when electric rates are cheap and in light load. When the electric power consumption of the EV standard chargers connected to one phase of the power line is relatively large or when a blackout occurs, the electric power stored in the battery is supplied by discharging through the inverters to the EV standard chargers. As a result, the value of peak load and the charging electric power quantity supplied from a utility grid are reduced, and the current unbalance is improved. The usefulness of the proposed system is confirmed through simulations, experiments, and case studies.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.254-264
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• 2019

This paper proposes an indirect current control technique based on a proportional resonant (PR) approach for the seamless mode transfer of utility interactive inverters. Direct-current and voltage hybrid control methods have been used for inverter control under grid-connected and islanded modes. A large bandwidth can be selected due to the structure of single-loop control. However, this results in poor dynamic transients due to sudden changes of the controller during mode changes. Therefore, inverter control based on indirect current is proposed to improve the dynamic transients by consistently controlling the output voltage under all of the operation modes. A PR-based indirect current control topology is used in this study to maintain the load voltage quality under all of the modes. The design processes of the PR-based triple loop are analyzed in detail while considering the system stability and dynamic transients. The mode transfer techniques are described in detail for both sudden unintentional islanding and islanded mode voltage quality improvements. In addition, they are described using the proposed indirect control structure. The proposed method is verified by the PSiM simulations and laboratory-scale VDER-HILS experiments.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.1904-1917
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• 2016

The moving average filter (MAF) is widely utilized to improve the disturbance rejection capability of phase-locked loops (PLLs). This is of vital significance for the grid-integration and stable operation of power electronic converters to electric power systems. However, the open-loop bandwidth is drastically reduced after incorporating a MAF into the PLL structure, which makes the dynamic response sluggish. To overcome this shortcoming, some new techniques have recently been proposed to improve the transient response of MAF-based PLLs. In this paper, a comprehensive performance comparison of advanced MAF-based PLL algorithms is presented. This comparison includes HPLL, MPLC-PLL, QT1-PLL, and DMAF-PLL. Various disturbances, such as grid voltage sag, voltage flicker, harmonics distortion, phase-angle and frequency jumps, DC offsets and noise, are considered to experimentally test the dynamic performances of these PLL algorithms. Finally, an improved positive sequence extraction method for a HPLL under the frequency jumps scenario is presented to compensate for the steady-state error caused by non-frequency adaptive DSC, and a satisfactory performance has been achieved.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.760-768
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• 2016

Three-phase grid-connected inverters are widely applied in the fields of new energy power generation, electric vehicles and so on. Islanding detection is necessary to ensure the stability and safety of such systems. In this paper, feature recognition technology is applied and a novel islanding detection method is proposed. It can identify the features of inverter systems. The theoretical values of these features are defined as codebooks. The difference between the actual value of a feature and the codebook is defined as the quantizing distortion. When islanding happens, the sum of the quantizing distortions exceeds the threshold value. Thus, islanding can be detected. The non-detection zone can be avoided by choosing reasonable features. To accelerate the speed of detection and to avoid miscalculation, an active islanding detection method based on feature recognition technology is given. Compared to the active frequency or phase drift methods, the proposed active method can reduce the distortion of grid-current when the inverter works normally. The principles of the islanding detection method based on the feature recognition technology and the improved active method are both analyzed in detail. An 18 kVA DSP-based three-phase inverter with the SVPWM control strategy has been established and tested. Simulation and experimental results verify the theoretical analysis.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.2129-2138
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• 2016

The full-bridge inverter, widely used for single-phase photovoltaic grid-connected applications, presents a leakage current issue. Therefore, an AC bypass branch is introduced to overcome this challenge. Nevertheless, existing modulation strategies entail drawbacks that should be addressed. One is the zero-crossing distortion (ZCD) of the AC current caused by neglecting the AC filter inductor voltage. Another is that the system cannot deliver reactive power because the AC bypass branch switches at the power frequency. To address these problems, this work proposes an optimized hybrid modulation strategy. To reduce ZCD, the phase angle of the inverter output voltage reference is shifted, thereby compensating for the neglected leading angle. To generate the reactive power, the interval of the negative power output is calculated using the power factor. In addition, the freewheeling switch is kept on when power is flowing into the grid and commutates at a high frequency when power is fed back to the DC side. In this manner, the dead-time insertion in the high-frequency switching area is minimized. Finally, the performances of the proposed modulation strategy and traditional strategies are compared on a universal prototype inverter. Experimental results validate the theoretical analysis.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.61 no.12
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• pp.1791-1800
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• 2012

This paper presents effective design schemes for a photovoltaic (PV) and battery hybrid system that includes state-of-the-art technologies such as maximum power point tracking scheme for PV arrays, an effective charging/discharging circuit for batteries, and grid-interfacing power inverters. Compared to commonly-used PV systems, the proposed configuration has more flexibility and autonomy in controlling individual components of the PV-battery hybrid system. This paper also proposes an intelligent coordination scheme for the components of the PV-battery hybrid system to improve the efficiency of renewable energy resources and peak-load management. The proposed algorithm is based on a rule-based expert system that has excellent capability to optimize multi-objective functions. The proposed configuration and algorithms are investigated via switching-level simulation studies of the PV-battery hybrid system.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.454-462
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• 2019

When compared to traditional bridge-type inverters, the dual-buck inverter has a higher reliability due to the fact that its bridge legs do not have a shoot-through problem. In this paper, the working principle of the dual-buck inverter is analyzed. A comparison of the working modes under full-cycle and half-cycle control is discussed. With half-cycle control, the inverter can realize a higher efficiency. However, this results in current zero-crossing distortion. The corresponding control strategy of the dual-buck inverter is proposed in order to realize both high efficiency and low current harmonic distortion. In addition, the system stability is analyzed. Dead-time is unnecessary due to the advantages of the topology. Thus, the current harmonic distortion can be further reduced. An inverter with the proposed control strategy has the advantages of high reliability, high efficiency and low current harmonic distortion. Finally, simulation and experimental results are given to verify the theoretical analysis.