Research of Single-Phase Inverter for PV modules

with MPPT

Wang nianchun Xu qingshan Shi bin Kazuto Yukita Yasuyuki Goto Katsuhiro Ichiyanagi
Engineering Research Center of Motion Control, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering,
School of Electrical Engineering, Southeast University Aichi Institute of Technology
Nanjing, China Nagoya, Japan
[email protected] [email protected]

Abstract—In the real world, the AC load is more common than

the DC load, so many PV power systems have an inverter. II. A SIMPLE REVIEW OF SINGLE-PHASE INVERTER FOR
Although has various structure type inverters, but Speaking of PV MODULES
the simulation research, single-phase inverters in all structures Inverter for PV modules has two major tasks. One is to
are the same. The stand-alone inverter model has established in
ensure that the PV module(s) is operated at the maximum
this paper, the open-loop and close-loop simulation results are
shown. The simulation results indicate that the capacitor value
power point (MPP). The other is to produce high quality sine
parallel PV has an important influence on MPP tracing precision. wave voltage (stand-alone inverter) or to inject a sinusoidal
In order to reach high MPP tracing precision, small ripple peak current into utility grid (grid-connected inverter).
amplitude on capacitor is necessary, and usually this means a Single-phase inverter has several classification methods.
capacitor with large capacitance. The expression of ripple peak According to whether grid-connected or not, it can be divided
amplitude on capacitor is derived. into two types:
1) Stand-alone inverter;
Keywords-Single-phase inverter; PV module; inverter model;
P-V trajectory; simulation
2) Grid-connected inverter.
According to number of power processing stages, it can be
I. INTRODUCTION divided into two types:
As an important part of renewable energy resources, 1) single-stage inverter;
photovoltaic (PV) power is a main power source supply in 2) two-stage or multi-stage inverter.
micro-grid power system. In the real world, the AC load is According to transformer type, it can be divided into three
more common than the DC load, the power produced by PV types:
and the real load are also very difficult to match precisely; so 1) Line-frequency transformer (LFT) inverter;
many PV power systems have an inverter that inverts DC 2) High-frequency transformer (HFT) inverter;
power to AC power. 3) Direct grid-connected (no transformer) inverter.
Through for several dozens year development, the price of According to several year technological developments (Fig.
the PV modules in entire solar power systems has a downward 1), it can be divided into four types [2]-[5]:
tendency, the cost of the inverters is becoming more visible in
1) Centralized technology inverter. This type inverter has
the total system price. A cost reduction per inverter watt is,
some serious limitations, such as mismatch losses
therefore, important to make PV-generated power more
between the PV modules, power losses due to a
attractive. More and more attentions concentrate on the
centralized MPPT, losses in the block diodes, and it has
development of new, cheap, and reliable inverter.
a bad extendibility, et al.
Of a simulation technique as important research tools makes 2) String technology inverter. This type inverter is a
the vital role in the electronic power inverter's design. reduced version of the centralized inverter, where a
Through the simulation, may understand that the installment single string of PV modules is connected to the inverter
design the key point and the difficulty, save the designed cost. (no parallel PV modules). There are no losses
But because of the nonlinear behavior of power switches, associated with block diodes, this increases the
simulation of modern electronic device has always been a efficiency compared to the centralized inverter.
challenge [1]. 3) Multi-string technology inverter. This type inverter
Through the analysis, the stand-alone inverter model has possibly is the next step development direction of
established, the open-loop and close-loop simulation results are inverter for PV modules. In this type inverter, several
shown. strings are interfaced with their own dc-dc converter to
This work was partly supported by the Ministry of Education, Science, a common dc-ac inverter, every string can be controlled
Sports, and Culture of Japan, “Development of New Electric Power Supply individually, MPPT usually is realized in dc-dc link. It
Systems by Micro-grid Network”. has a good extendibility. This type inverter is similar to

978-1-4244-2487-0/09/$25.00 ©2009 IEEE

 two-stage inverter. B. Model of inverter
4) AC-module technology inverter. This type inverter is The schematic drawing of full-bridge is show as fig. 3. It is
the integration of the inverter and PV module into one mainly composed of four parts: PV modules(Vd), full bridge,
electrical device. It removes the mismatch losses filter, load(R).
between PV modules since there is only one PV module.
It has a very good extendibility; the AC-module can be Model of Part A:
treated as a “plug-and-play” device, and can be used by Usually, the carrier frequency is bigger than the modulation
persons without any knowledge of electrical sine wave far the frequency, fc>>f, in a carrier cycle, the
installations. instantaneous value of modulation sine signal (us) can be
treated as a constant value, the value of output fundamental (u0)
wave also has a constant value. So the average value of
SPWM output voltage in a carrier cycle equals the value of
output fundamental (u0) wave.

Figure 1. Developing process of inverter for PV module(s)

Although has various structure inverters, but from Fig. 1,

may see DC/DC and DC/AC are two kinds of most basic
Figure 3. Schematic drawing of full-bridge
structures. Speaking of the simulation research, single-phase
inverters in all structures are the same. The equivalent circuit of Part A may be obtained as
following: (Fig. 4):
III. ANALYSIS OF SINGLE-PHASE INVERTER
The general structure of a single-stage single-phase stand- maU SM sin ωt
alone PV inverter system contains two main parts (Fig. 2): (1) K PWM
hardware components, such as the PV arrays, PV inverter, and
= maU S
passive filter; (2) the control part composed by algorithms such maU SM × K PWM = maVd sin ωt
as MPPT controller, dc voltage controller, etc.
Figure 4. Equivalent circuit of Part A

Model of Part B:

maU S

Figure 5. Schematic drawing of Part B

Figure 2. Schematic drawing of single-stage single-phase
stand-alone PV inverter
maU S is the output of Part A, it is treated as input
A. Spwm generators parameter in Part B, i0 and Vc are treated as state variables, V0
In order to generate high quality sinusoidal voltage, usually is treated as output parameter, may obtain the following
SPWM signals are used to control the power switches in expression:
x = [i0 vc ] , u = maU S , y = v0 ··
T
inverter. There are two kinds of structures for single-phase (1)
inverter: half-bridge and full-bridge inverter, also there are two
kinds of SPWM signals: unipolarity SPWM and bipolarity ­° x• = Ax + Bu
SPWM signal. Full-bridge structure and unipolarity SPWM ® ······························································· (2)
signal are used in this paper. °̄ y = Cx + Du
 According to KCL (Kirchhoff's Current Law) and KVL and also that the MPP tracing precision is influenced by this
(Kirchhoff's Voltage Law), may obtain equation (3) : capacitor to a great extent.
­ v0 v0 − vc
°i0 = R + R 200

° c 180

° di0 160
®maU S = L + RL i0 + v0 ········································· (3) 140
° dt

Power(W)
120
° dvc v0
°i0 = C dt + R 100

¯ 80

From equation (3), may obtain the following expression: 60

v0 v0 − vc RRc R 40
i0 = + Ÿ vo = i0 + vc ·············· (4)
R Rc R + Rc R + Rc 20

0
­ di0 § RRL + RRc + RL Rc · § R · §1· 0.00 .05 .10 .15 .20 .25 .30
° = ¨− ¸ i0 + ¨ − ¸ vc + ¨ ¸ vd (5)
° dt © L ( R + R ) ¹ © L ( R + R )
c ¹ ©L¹
c Time(s)
®
° dvc § R · § 1 · Figure 7. Power-Time curve of PV module
° dt = ¨ C ( R + R ) ¸ i0 + ¨ − C ( R + R ) ¸ vc
¯ © c ¹ © c ¹

Coefficient matrixes in equation (2) may be obtained from 200

equation (4) and equation (5): 180

­ ª RRL + RRc + RL Rc R º 160 Second Stage stable trajectory

° «− L( R + Rc )
−
L( R + Rc ) » 140
°A = « »
° « R 1 » Power(W) 120
° −
°
«
¬ C ( R + Rc ) C ( R + Rc ) »¼ ··············· (6) 100
° T 80
® ª1 º
°B = « L 0»
First Stage stable trajectory
60
° ¬ ¼
40
° ª RRc R º
°C = « » 20 P-V Curve
° ¬ R + Rc R + Rc ¼
0
°D = 0
¯ 0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Finally, from Part A and Part B, may obtain the Voltage(V)
comprehensive model of inverter. This model can’t simulate
Figure 8. Power-Voltage trajectory of PV module
precisely the transient process of inverter, but it may use for to
help controller's design.
10

1 i0 ic 1 8
maU S K PWM
sL + RL
Rc + V0
sC
iR
I-V Curve
Current(A)

1 6

R Second Stage stable trajectory

Figure 6. Schematic drawing of inverter model 4

IV. RESULTS OF SIMULATION

2
The open-loop and close-loop two kinds of situations have First Stage stable trajectory
carried on the simulation for stand-alone inverter. The PV
model used in this paper is SPG1786T-02E [6], under standard 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
test condition. Fig. 7~fig. 9 are the results of open-loop
simulation. Voltage(V)
There are two time stages: (1) first stage, from 0 to 142ms, Figure 9. Current-Voltage trajectory of PV module
(2) second stage, from 142 to 300 ms or 400ms (fig. 10-11). At V0 and IR in fig. 5 can be expressed as:
time 142 ms, another load is connected in circuit by a switch.
From fig. 7~fig. 9, may see that the voltage, current, and V0 = 2E sin ωt , I R = 2I sin ωt ····································· (7)
power of PV module have period fluctuation, the fluctuation
The power consumed by R can be expressed as:
frequency is two times of inverter frequency, the fluctuation
amplitudes are mainly determined by CPV capacitor (fig. 2), PR = V0 × I R = 2E sin ωt × 2I sin ωt = EI − EI cos 2ωt ············ (8)
 Voltage on capacitor CPV (fig. 2) can be written as:
udc = U dc + udc ······························································· (9) 200

180
Udc is mean value voltage on capacitor CPV, udc is the
160
ripple voltage on capacitor. The active power generated by CPV
140
can be expressed as: Second Stage stable trajectory

Power(W)
du du du 120
PC = udc × C dc = C × (U dc + udc ) dc ≈ CU dc dc ······· (10) 100
dt dt dt
PV module can be treated as a pure DC current source, the 80
reactive power consumed by L, C in fig. 5 can be neglected, 60
and the active power consumed by RL and RC also can be First Stage stable trajectory
40
neglected in normal condition. The constant active component P-V Curve
and the free active component on two sides of full-bridge are 20

equal, so: 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
du
CU dc dc = − EI cos 2ωt ············································ (11) Voltage(V)
dt
Figure 11. Power-Voltage trajectory of PV module(close-loop)
1
udc = − EI cos 2ωtdt
CU dc ³ V. CONCLUSION
·································· (12) A simple review of single-phase inverter for PV module is
EI given, and the stand-alone inverter model is established. The
=− sin 2ωt
2ωCU dc open-loop and close-loop two kinds of situations simulation
results have been shown, and the simulation results indicate
∧ EI that the capacitor value parallel PV has an important influence
u dc = ··························································· (13) on MPP tracing precision. The expression of ripple peak value
2ωCU dc on capacitor is derived, in order to get high MPP tracing
EI is also the power transferred to load by PV module. The precision, a capacitor with large capacitance is necessary.
VMPP (UDC) of SPG1786T-02E is 23.8V, the PMPP is 178W, if
∧
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
u dc is 1V, the capacitor value is calculated by following
expression: This research was partly supported by the Ministry of
Education, Science, Sports and Culture, Private University
EI 178
C= ∧
= = 9919.35uF Scientific Study Advancement Promotion Work in 2006,
2ω u dc U dc 2 × 376.99 × 1 × 23.8 Social Cooperation Promotion Work, “Development of New
Electric Power Supply System by Micro-grid Network".
························································································ (14) Authors would like to greatly appreciate for this grant
The capacitor value is very big, a boost DC/DC converter program.
can be used to rise UDC, so reduce the capacitor value.
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