• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.561-567
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• 2011

This paper presents a high-efficiency power conditioning system (PCS) for grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) modules. The proposed PCS consists of a step-up DC-DC converter and a single-phase DC-AC inverter for the grid-connected PV modules. A soft-switching step-up DC-DC converter is proposed to generate a high DC-link voltage from the low PV module voltage with a high-efficiency. A DC-link voltage controller is presented for constant DC-link voltage regulation. A half-bridge inverter is used for the single-phase DC-AC inverter for grid connection. A grid current controller is suggested to supply PV electrical power to the power grid with a unity power factor. Experimental results are obtained from a 180 W grid-connected PV module system using the proposed PCS. The proposed PCS achieves a high power efficiency of 93.0 % with an unity power factor for a 60 Hz / 120 Vrms AC power grid.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.606-613
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• 2010

This paper proposes a novel current-based maximum power point tracking (CMPPT) method for a single-phase photovoltaic power conditioning system (PV PCS) by using a modified incremental conductance method. The CMPPT method simplifies the entire control structure of the power conditioning system and uses an inherent current source characteristic of solar cell arrays. Therefore, it exhibits robust and fast response under a rapidly changing environmental condition. Digital phase locked loop technique using an all-pass filter is also introduced to detect the phase of grid voltage, as well as the peak voltage. Controllers of dc/dc boost converter, dc-link voltage, and dc/ac inverter are designed for coordinated operation. Furthermore, a current control using a pseudo synchronous d-q transformation is employed for grid current control with unity power factor. A 3 kW prototype PV PCS is built, and its experimental results are given to verify the effectiveness of the proposed control schemes.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.57 no.10
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• pp.1796-1801
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• 2008

In this paper, a new current based maximum power point tracking (CMPPT) method is proposed for a single phase photovoltaic power conditioning system and the current based MPPT modifies incremental conductance method. The current based MPPT method makes the entire control structure of the power conditioning system simple and uses an inherent current source characteristic of solar cell array. In addition, digital phase locked loop using an all pass filter is introduced to detect phase of grid voltage as well as peak voltage. Controllers about dc/dc boost converter, dc-link voltage, dc/ac inverter is designed for a coordinated operation. Furthermore, PI current control using a pseudo synchronous d-q transformation is employed for grid current control with unity power factor. 3kW prototype photovoltaic power conditioning system is built and its experimental results are given to verify the effectiveness of the proposed control schemes.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.174-180
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• 2007

In this paper, a simple control method for two-stage utility grid-connected photovoltaic power conditioning systems (PCS) is proposed. This approach enables maximum power point (MPP) tracking control with post-stage inverter current information instead of calculating solar array power, which significantly simplifies the controller and the sensor. Furthermore, there is no feedback loop in the pre-stage converter to control the solar array voltage or current because the MPP tracker drives the converter switch duty cycle. This simple PCS control strategy can reduce the cost and size, and can be utilized with a low cost digital processor. For verification of the proposed control strategy, a 2.5kW two-stage photovoltaic grid-connected PCS hardware which consists of a boost converter cascaded with a single-phase inverter was built and tested.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.487-494
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• 2012

A new low cost high power density photovoltaic power conditioning system (PV PCS) with an energy storage system is proposed in this paper. Its high power density and cost effectiveness can be achieved through the unification of the maximum power point tracker and the battery charger/discharger. Despite the reduced power stage, the proposed system can achieve the same performance in terms of maximum power point tracking and battery charging/discharging as the conventional system. When a utility power failure happens, the proposed system cannot perform maximum power point tracking at the UPS mode. However, the predetermined battery voltage near the maximum power point of the PV array can effectively generate a reasonable PV power even at the UPS mode. Therefore, it features a simpler structure, less mass, lower cost, and fewer devices. Finally, to confirm the operation, validity, and features of the proposed system, a theoretical analysis and experimental results from a single phase AC 220Vrms/1.5kW prototype are presented.

• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.355-363
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• 2007

In this paper, the transformerless three-phase line-connected PV PCS (photovoltaic power conditioning system) is proposed. An improved P&O (perturb and observe) MPPT (maximum power point tracking) algorithm that prevents local maximum power point tracking is proposed. By controlling the three-phase line-connected voltage source inverter using outer DC-link voltage controller, inner current controller and microcontroller friendly simplified space vector modulation (SVM) method, a unity power factor is achieved. An algorithm is suggested to control the DC-link voltage faster and more correctly for the increase system stability and power factor. All algorithms and controllers are implemented on a single-chip microcontroller and the superiority of the proposed algorithms and controllers is proved by experiments.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.335-341
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• 2010

In this paper, an interleaved soft switching boost converter for a Photovoltaic Power Conditioning System (PV-PCS) with high efficiency is proposed. In order to raise the efficiency of the proposed converter, a 2-phase interleaved boost converter integrated with soft switching cells is used. All of the switching devices in the proposed converter achieve zero current switching (ZCS) or zero voltage switching (ZVS). Thus, the proposed circuit has a high efficiency characteristic due to low switching losses. To analyze the power losses of the proposed converter, two experimental sets have been built. One consists of normal devices (MOSFETs, Fast Recovery (FR) diodes) and the other consists of advanced power devices (CoolMOSs, SiC-Schottky Barrier Diodes (SBDs)). To verify the validity of the proposed topology, theoretical analysis and experimental results are presented.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.206-208
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• 2009

In this paper, a systematical controller design method for a twostage grid-connected photovoltaic power conditioning system is proposed. For a pre-stage boost converter to achieve the stable operation in the entire region of solar array, the digital resistive current mode controller is used. This algorithm is very simple to implement with a digital controller and there is no power stage parameter dependency in the controller design. For a post-stage single-phase full-bridge inverter, a PI controller with a feedforward compensation for the inner current control is employed. Furthermore, in case that the operating point of the solar array under varying environmental conditions is higher than the required voltage for the inverter current control, the bypass mode for the boost converter is possible for the more efficient operation. The proposed control scheme is validated through the experiment of the prototype two-stage power conditioning system hardware with a 200W solar array.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2009.07a
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• pp.1051_1052
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• 2009

This paper deals with operational characteristic analysis of a single-phase PCS (Power Conditioning System) for PV (Photovoltaic) power generation system with AF (Active Filter) function. The theory of dq transformation has been applied to the control strategy of a single-phase PV power generation system to implement the AF function. Application of the virtual two-phase using phase-shift makes it possible to use the dq theory for the single-phase PV power generation system. The authors are sure that the proposed system is a very useful to compensate harmonics caused by nonlinear loads in a single-phase utility system. In this paper, not only a theoretical aspect of the single-phase PV-AF system is discussed, but also the DSP (Digital Signal Processor) based experiment results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the single-phase PV-AF system.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.328-333
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• 2010

A photovoltaic power conditioning system (PV PCS) that contains single-phase dc/ac inverters tends to draw an ac ripple current at twice the output frequency. Such a ripple current perturbs the operating points of solar cells continuously and it may reduce the efficiency of the current based maximum power point tracking technique (CMPPT). In this paper, the ripple current generation in a dc link and boost inductor is analyzed using the ac equivalent circuit of a dc/dc boost converter. A new feed-forward ripple current compensation method to incorporate a current control loop into a dc/dc converter for ripple reduction is proposed. The proposed feed-forward compensation method is verified by simulation and experimental results. These results show a 41.8 % reduction in the peak-to peak ac ripple. In addition, the dc/ac inverter control system uses an automatic voltage regulation (AVR) function to mitigate the ac ripple voltage effect in the dc link. A 3kW PV PCS prototype has been built and its experimental results are given to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.