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Trapezoidal Inverted Sine PWM Techniques for Fundamental Fortification in PV Fed

Multilevel Inverters

Article · April 2012

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 International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering
Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, Volume 2, Issue 4, April 2012)

Trapezoidal Inverted Sine PWM Techniques for

Fundamental Fortification in PV Fed Multilevel Inverters
S.Malathy1and Dr.R.Ramaprabha2
1
Assistant Professor, SSN College of Engineering, India.
2
Associate Professor, SSN College of Engineering, India.
1
[email protected]
2
[email protected]

Abstract— Renewable energy sources, especially solar To boost up the voltage and to adjust the load resistance,
photovoltaic systems (PV) are gaining popularity as the a boost converter is placed between the PV panel and the
demand for electrical energy is increasing day by day. They load. The duty cycle of the converter is adjusted so as to
can act as a voltage source feeding the power circuit. This equalise the load resistance with the internal resistance of
work aims in utilising the PV system as a voltage source for a
the PV panel. Perturb and Observe algorithm (P &O) is
cascaded five level inverter. Further the performance of the
PV panel fed cascaded multilevel inverter is analysed by used to track the maximum power point and duty cycle is
applying trapezoidal inverted sine PWM schemes. Many pulse then adjusted accordingly. The developed PV model with
width modulation (PWM) techniques were proposed and MPPT and boost converter is used to feed the cascaded five
reported in literature with the aim of reducing the total level inverter circuit. The overall block diagram of the
harmonic distortion and enhancing the fundamental output system is given in the Fig 1.
voltage. Trapezoidal PWM scheme is one such scheme which
is found to enhance the fundamental output voltage than the
commonly used sine PWM scheme. This paper proposes a new
PWM technique where gating pulses are produced by
comparing a trapezoidal reference with multiple high
frequency inverted sine carriers. Perturb and Observe (P&O)
maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithm is used to
extract the maximum power form PV panel.

Keywords— PV, MPPT, P&O, PWM, TISC PWM, TTC

PWM, MLI,THD

I. INTRODUCTION
A single phase five level cascaded H bridge inverter
Fig.1. Block diagram of PV fed cascaded MLI
considered in this work requires two separate DC sources
and they are provided by two Photovoltaic (PV) panels. The harmonic content in the output of an inverter can be
Solar PV system is gaining popularity as the demand for reduced by increasing the number of levels and by applying
the power is on the rise. Moreover it is a clean source of a suitable PWM technique. The concept of utilizing
power and requires less maintenance. The power generated multiple small voltages to generate a staircase like
by a single PV cell is small. Several cells are connected in waveform was introduced and this lead to a better and more
series and parallel, to attain the required current and the sinusoidal output waveform [1]-[2]. This approach not only
voltage rating respectively. PV power generation is improved the spectral quality of the output voltage but also
dependent on the environmental factors like insolation and reduced the voltage stress on each switch. With the aim of
temperature. The internal resistance of the PV panel is non fortifying the fundamental voltage and reducing the
linear and it varies with the intensity of the Sun‘s radiation. harmonic distortion, many topologies and PWM techniques
According to maximum power transfer theorem, maximum were introduced [3]. The most commonly used PWM
power can be extracted from the panel if the load resistance technique is the sine PWM technique (SPWM).
is made equal to the internal source resistance.

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 International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering
Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, Volume 2, Issue 4, April 2012)
In SPWM technique, a sine wave is compared with The output current from PV panel is given as
multiple high frequency triangular waves to produce the
control signals which in turn control the operation of the I pv  I ph  I D  I sh (1)
power circuit. Though the Total Harmonic Distortion
(THD) is less, this technique exhibits poor performance as Photon generated current of the PV panel, Iph is given as
far as the fundamental output voltage is concerned. To
 GG
improve the harmonic performance and to enhance the
fundamental output voltage, third harmonic injected I ph  K i T  Tn   I pvn (2)
n
reference with inverted sine carrier was proposed for three
phase inverters [4]. A new PWM technique with multiple The current through the diode is calculated as
trapezoidal reference and single triangular carrier was
proposed by [5]. This method gave better fundamental  
I D  I r exp ( Vpv  I pv R se ) Vta  1  (3)
output voltage. A detailed comparative study of various
unipolar multi carrier PWM schemes was done by [6]-[7]. and
Various multi carrier (triangular) trapezoidal PWM K i (T  Tn )  Iscn
Ir  (4)
(MCTPWM) methods like Phase disposition (PD), phase expK v (T  Tn )  Vocn Vta   1
opposition disposition (POD), phase shift, carrier
overlapping PWM, variable frequency PWM were Where,
discussed in detail [8]. Inverted sine carrier with sine K - Boltzmann‘s constant (=1.381x10-23 J/K)
reference was proposed and it is found to enhance the q - Charge of electron (=1.602x10-19 C)
fundamental output voltage and spectral quality without
ID - Current through the diode
pulse dropping [9]. In general, trapezoidal PWM enhances
the fundamental voltage but increases the lower order Ish - Current through the shunt resistance
harmonics and the usage of inverted sine carriers enhances a - Diode Ideality factor (1< a< 2 for a single cell)
spectral quality. Ir - Diode reverse saturation current
This paper proposes trapezoidal inverted sine carrier Gn - Nominal Insolation level (1000 W/m2)
PWM technique (TISC) where the reference signal is Ipvn - Nominal photocurrent of PV panel
trapezoidal and carriers are inverted sine signals. The Tn - Nominal Temperature (273K)
cascaded five level inverter is powered by PV panels with Vocn - Nominal value of open circuit voltage
maximum power tracking and boost converter. The
Iscn - Nominal value of short circuit current
harmonic content and Vrms of the output voltage for
different values of modulation index (ma) are computed. Voc - Open circuit voltage of PV panel
Iph - Photon generated current of the PV module
II. SOLAR PV PANEL MODELING Ipv - PV panel current
Vpv - PV panel Voltage
The standard one diode model is used to model solar PV
Rse - Series Resistance
source (Fig.2.). The equations (1)-(4) are used for the
Isc - Short Circuit current of module
mathematical modeling [10].
Ki - Short-circuit current temperature Coefficient
Rsh - Shunt Resistance
T - Temperature
Vta - Thermal Voltage (=aKT/q)
Vmp - Voltage at Maximum Power Point
Vdc - DC voltage at the inverter input

The mathematical model of the PV panel is implemented

in Matlab/Simulink and the P-V and I-V characteristics for
Fig.2. Simple PV model different insolation levels are presented in Fig.3 and Fig.4
respectively.

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 International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering
Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, Volume 2, Issue 4, April 2012)

Fig.3. I-V Characteristics of PV panel at different insolation levels

Fig.5. Flowchart of P& O Algorithm

The voltage and current of the PV panel are measured

after one perturbation and the power is calculated. This is
then compared with the previous value of power and the
difference ∆P (∆P =P k –Pk-1) is calculated. If ∆P is
positive, perturbation is continued in the same direction.
For negative values of ∆P, the direction of perturbation is
reversed.
Fig.4. P-V Characteristics of PV panel at different insolation levels

III. MAXIMUM POWER POINT TRACKING ALGORITHM

The performance of the PV panel depends highly on the
environmental conditions which vary throughout the day. It
is observed from Fig.3 and Fig.4 that, as the insolation
decreases the I-V and P-V characteristic curves of the PV
panel shifts down and so does the maximum power point.
The efficiency of the PV panel is very less and hence it
becomes necessary to extract the maximum power from the
panel by shifting the operating point to the maximum
power point. The operating point of the PV panel is fixed
by the load resistance. Several MPPT algorithms are
proposed in the literature to track the maximum power Fig.6.Maximum power point for different insolation
point. Perturb and observe (P&O) algorithm is adopted in
this work due to its simplicity[11]. In this algorithm, a The maximum power point for different insolation levels
perturbation is made on the PV panel operating point to is shown in the fig.6. Matlab/Simulink model is developed
force tracking in the direction towards maximum power for P&O algorithm and is tested under variable insolation
point [11]-[16]. The flowchart of the P& O algorithm and conditions. The insolation is varied in steps from 200 W/m2
the output of the Matlab /Simulink model developed are to 1000 W/m2.The model tracked the maximum power
shown in Fig.5. point and it is plotted on the PV characteristic curve.

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 International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering
Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, Volume 2, Issue 4, April 2012)
As the insolation level changes, the maximum power
point also changes. The PV module voltage that
corresponds to the maximum power point under different
insolation levels is shown in Fig. 7.

Fig.9. PV model with MPPT and boost converter with R load

IV. MULTI LEVEL INVERTERS

Several multilevel inverter topologies are proposed in
literature. Cascaded multilevel inverter is the popular
topology as the structure is modular and it does not require
Fig.7.Maximum power point voltage as tracked by P&O algorithm any clamping diodes or voltage balancing capacitors.
Moreover it is easy to increase the number of levels by
A. Boost converter stacking up the basic bridge circuit. The basic H bridge
The boost converter has one controlled semiconductor circuit is modelled using MATLAB/SIMULINK (Fig.10).
switch as shown in the Fig.8 and it is controlled by This module produces three different voltage levels viz.
applying appropriate gating pulses. The turn off resistance +Vdc, 0 and – Vdc. Two H bridge modules are connected in
of the switch is very much higher than the turn on series to generate output voltage with five different levels
resistance. Thus by varying the duty cycle of the gating viz. +2Vdc, +Vdc, 0,-2Vdc and - Vdc.
pulse, the effective resistance offered by the circuit is
varied. The boost converter is placed right between the load
and the PV panel to ensure maximum power transfer
(Fig.9.). The resistance of the circuit as seen from the PV
panel must be equal to the internal resistance of the PV
module for maximum power transfer.

Fig.8.Boost converter Fig 10. Matlab/Simulink model of H bridge module

The duty cycle of the boost converter is adjusted in such In general 2N+1 levels are generated by ‗N‘ H bridge
a way that maximum power is transferred from the module modules and each module requires a separate DC voltage
to the load. source (Vdc).
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 International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering
Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, Volume 2, Issue 4, April 2012)
The source can be a battery, fuel cell or a solar PV panel. The overall all model developed for a PV panel fed
In this work PV panel with MPPT and Boost converter cascaded five level inverter is shown in Fig.13. Two H
provides the required voltage to the cascaded multilevel bridge inverter circuits are connected in series to form a
inverter. five level inverter. Two PV panels with maximum power
point tracker and Boost converter feed the MLI circuit. The
gating pulses are generated by the PWM generator module.

Fig 11. Matlab/Simulink model of PV module with MPPT and Boost

converter

Cascaded five level inverter has two H Bridge modules

each with four controlled switches. It is required to Fig.13. MATLAB/SIMULINK model of 5 level cascaded inverter fed
generate 8 gating pulses in the desired pattern so as to by PV modules
obtain five different levels in the output voltage. In TISC
PWM technique the gating pulses are generated by V. TRAPEZOIDAL PULSE WIDTH MODULATION SCHEME
comparing two high frequency inverted sine carriers with a The scheme uses a single trapezoidal modulating signal
unipolar trapezoidal reference wave. Fig.12 shows the and the carrier can be triangular, saw tooth or inverted sine
Matlab/Simulink model developed to generate gating signal. In Trapezoidal triangular carrier PWM (TTC PWM)
pulses. Trapezoidal triangular carrier PWM involves two scheme, high frequency triangular carriers are compared
high frequency triangular carriers and a trapezoidal with trapezoidal reference. The intersection between the
reference. trapezoidal signal and the carrier signals defines the
switching instant of the PWM pulse. The multiple carriers
used are positioned above zero level and the number of
carriers is dependent on the output voltage levels. For N
level inverter, (N-1)/2 carriers are used.
The amplitude of the reference wave is represented as
Am and the frequency as fm. Each of the carrier signals will
have amplitude of Ac and frequency fc. The modulation
index is calculated as ma=Am/2*Ac and the frequency ratio
is mf= fc/fm.
A. Trapezoidal Inverted sine PWM (TISC) scheme
In this proposed scheme, a unipolar trapezoidal signal
with an amplitude of Am and frequency fm is taken as
reference. Two high frequency inverted sine carriers with
frequency fc and amplitude Ac are compared with the
Fig.12.MATLAB/SIMULINK model of TISC PWM generator trapezoidal reference. Both the carriers are in phase with
each other. The frequency ratio is chosen to be 24 and the
modulation index is varied from 0.6 to 1 in steps of 1.
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 International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering
Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, Volume 2, Issue 4, April 2012)
The carrier arrangement along with the unipolar
trapezoidal reference is shown in Fig.14.

Fig.17. Output voltage by TTC PWM method

Fig.14. Arrangement of carrier and reference for TISC PWM scheme

VI. SIMULATION RESULTS

The PV panel, Boost converter, P & O maximum power
point tracker and the cascaded five level inverter are
developed and integrated in Matlab /Simulink. The gate
signal generator is developed for the proposed trapezoidal
inverted sine PWM scheme and the trapezoidal triangular Fig.18. Harmonic profile by TTC PWM method
carrier scheme using MATLAB and it is tested for various
TABLE I
modulation indices. The output waveform and the THD AND VRMS FOR THE PROPOSED TISC PWM SCHEMES
harmonic profiles of the TISC and TTC PWM schemes are
presented in Fig.15 to Fig.18 for a modulation index of 0.8. TISC PWM Schemes
For other modulation indices, the results are presented in ma THD in % and Vrms in volts
Table I and Table II for TISC and TTC PWM schemes THD Vrms
respectively.
0.6 16.51 47.81
0.7 12.0 51.3
0.8 13.21 53.22
0.9 14.08 55.44
1.0 14.74 56.76

TABLE II
THD AND VRMS FOR THE TTC PWM SCHEMES
Fig.15. Output voltage by TISC PWM method
TTC PWM Schemes
ma THD in % and Vrms in volts
THD Vrms
0.6 16.41 43.61
0.7 17.26 48.26
0.8 17.58 51.8
0.9 18.58 54.15
1.0 19.7 56.13

Fig.16. Harmonic profile by TISC PWM method

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 International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering
Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, Volume 2, Issue 4, April 2012)
The RMS value is found to increase with the increase in [6] B.Shanthi and S.P.Natarajan, ―Comparative study on various
the modulation index in steps of 0.1. The results of the TTC unipolar PWM strategies for single phase five level cascaded
inverter‖ ,International Journal of Power Electronics (IJPELEC),
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ACKNOWLEDGMENT [12] Joe-Air Jiang, Tsong-Liang Huang, Ying-Tung Hsiao, Chia-Hong

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