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International Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering (IJECE)

Vol. x, No. x, May 2013, pp. 1 – 8
ISSN: 2088-8708 1

Grid Interfaced 3-φ Transformer-less Inverter with MPPT

Using Boost Converter
First Author* , Second Author* , and Ganesh Dharmireddy**
*
Faculty of Something, University of Somewhere
**
Assistant Professor, EEE Department,Faculty of science and Technology, IFHE University, Hyderabad

Article Info ABSTRACT

Article history: This paper proposes a simplified topology in photo-voltaic system for Grid connected Appli-
Received July 25, 2016 cations without battery storage. The output of the PV array is unregulated DC supply due to
Revised change in weather conditions. The maximum power is tracked with respect to temperature
and irradiance levels by using Boost converter. The perturbation and observes algorithm
Accepted
is applied for maximum power point tracking (MPPT) purpose. Two Boost converters are
Keyword: connected back to back to double the output voltage supplied to 3-phase inverter. In this
PV System paper, 3-φ 3-level Inverter with voltage feedback controller using SPWM technique is used
Boost converter to reduce ripples and total harmonic distortion. The AC output voltage and frequency are
regulated by using closed loop control (SPWM). The regulated AC voltage is fed to AC
Maximum power point tracking
standalone loads or grid integration. The 1.5 KW PV System with MPPT can be operating
(MPPT) at any irradiance condition and it is fed to Grid through 3-φ 3-level inverter. The overall sys-
VSI (Voltage source inverter) tem is designed, developed and validated by using MATLAB-SIMULINK. The simulation
Sinusoidal pulse width results demonstrate the effective working of MPPT algorithm and voltage controller with
modulation (SPWM) SPWM technique for inverter in AC standalone load applications.
3-φ 3 level Diode Clamped
Multilevel Inverter
Copyright
c 201x Institute of Advanced Engineering and Science.
All rights reserved.
Corresponding Author:
Ganesh Dharmireddy
Assistant Professor
Faculty of Science and Technology, IFHE University, Hyderabad
+919908602008
ganeshd@ifheindia.org

1. INTRODUCTION
Among various renewable energy systems, photovoltaic power generation systems (PV systems) are expected
to play an important role as a clean electricity power source in meeting future electricity demands. Nowadays India is
moving towards renewable energy source mostly solar to meet raising energy demands. However, the power output of
PV systems fluctuates depending on weather conditions. In future, when a significant number of PV systems will be
connected to the standalone loads or grids of power utilities, combined power output fluctuations may cause problems
like voltage fluctuation and large frequency deviation in electric power system operation. Today the contribution of
solar energy compared to other renewable energy sources in India is increasing due to reduction of cost of PV modules,
PV systems are one of the fastest growing in India and rest of the world. A Maximum Power Point Tracking algorithm
is necessary to increase the efficiency of the solar panel.
An important consideration in achieving high efficiency in PV power generation system is impedance match-
ing i.e. PV source and load impedance match properly for any weather conditions, thus obtaining maximum power
generation. The process of tracking maximum power point is called maximum power point tracking (MPPT). In re-
cent years, a large number of techniques have been proposed for maximum power point tracking (MPPT), such as
the constant voltage tracking (CVT), the incremental conductance (INC) method, the perturb-and-observe (P & O or
hill-climbing) method, and so on. At last, these algorithms modify the actual voltage in order to increase the power
output. The CVT is very simple and can be easy implemented. But the constant voltage cannot track MPP when solar
illumination changes so the constant voltage method is not often used in the true MPPT strategy. The majority of these
methods are based on the perturbation and observation (P & O) which has the advantage of qucik tracking, easy imple-

Journal Homepage: http://iaesjournal.com/online/index.php/IJECE

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mentation and simple operation. It is an iterative method of obtaining MPP. It measures the PV array characteristics,
and then perturbs the operating point of PV generator to encounter the change direction.
MPP is tracked by using Boost converter. Among all the available dc-dc converters, as stated in the introduc-
tion, the maximum power point tracking is basically a load matching problem. In order to change the input resistance
of the panel to match the load resistance (by Varying the duty cycle), a dc to dc converter is required. It has been
studied that the efficiency of the DC to DC converter is maximum for a buck converter, then for a buck-boost converter
and minimum for a boost converter but as we intend to use our system either for tying to a grid or for a standalone
load system which requires 415 V at the output end, so we use a boost converter.
The output of boost converter is fed to grid or standalone loads through 3-φ 3-level diode clamped multilevel
inverter which produces three phase ac output. If VSI inverter is used as grid interface, it exhibits buck characteristics
i.e. output voltage is less than input voltage. So output voltage of boost converter/ input to inverter is such that it should
match the grid voltage. PV inverters which are used for grid interface without transformer is an upcoming technology
because of less weight and cost effective with reduced losses. To provide isolation between input and output, high
frequency transformer are used. 3-phase 3 level inverter is operating in high power or high voltage applications. The
main advantage compared to conventional H-bridge inverter is size of the filter will reduce and voltage & current
waveforms contain low harmonics. These can be further minimized by multilevel inverters. The output voltage and
frequency for grid integration is controlled by closed loop. SPWM is used to achieve the required voltage by changing
the pulses to 3-phase inverter.
This paper proposes a micro PV system structure in which three PV modules connected in series and provide
an output power of nearly 1.5KW. To address the micro PV system structure, this paper proposes a novel MPPT
algorithm, which is based on the improved research on the characteristics of the PV array to track the global MPP
even under non-uniform isolation. The algorithm was verified with MATLAB-SIMULINK that it can track the real
MPP very fast when the temperature changes. The closed loop operation with feedback controller of proposed system
is verified with MATLAB simulations including source disturbances.[?], [?]

2. PROPOSED SYSTEM CONFIGURATION

The block diagram schematic of the proposed solar energy conversion system is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Block diagram of single phase Inverter with PV driven SEPIC

It consists of PV array fed to boost converter interfaced to standalone load or grid through a 3-phase 3 level
multilevel Inverter. The Maximum power is tracked and extracted from the PV array using Boost converter and it is
transferred to the load or grid through 3-phase 3 level multilevel Inverter. For sinusoidal ac outputs, the magnitude
and frequency should be controllable. This is done by comparing a sinusoidal wave of the same frequency as inverter
output against triangular carrier frequency wave. This technique is called sinusoidal pulse width modulation (SPWM).

IJECE Vol. x, No. x, May 2013: 1 – 8

IJECE ISSN: 2088-8708 3

The output Voltage magnitude is controlled by closed loop control system by using feedback controller. The controller
generates the gate pulses for the Inverter to maintain desired ac output voltage and frequency across load terminals.
SPWM is used to control the multilevel inverter.

2.1. Boost Converter

The boost is a popular non-isolated power stage topology, sometimes called a step-up Power stage. The
input current for a boost power stage is continuous, or non-pulsating, because the output diode conducts only during a
portion of the switching cycle. The output capacitor supplies the entire load current for the rest of the switching cycle.
The circuit operation can be divided into two modes. Mode-1 begins when IGBT is switched on at t = 0. The
input current flows through inductor L and IGBT. Mode-2 begins when IGBT is switched off at t = t1. The current
flows through IGBT would now flow through L, C, Load and diode. The energy stored in inductor L is transferred to
load. The waveforms for voltage and current are shown in figure 2 for continuous load current assuming the current
rises or falls linearly. Assuming inductor current rises from I1 to I2 ;

Figure 2. The scheme of Boost converter Figure 3. The voltage and current waveforms of
Boost converter

I2 − I1 4I
Vs = L ∗ =L∗ (1)
t1 t1

Inductor current falls linearly from I2 to I1 ;

4I 4I ∗ L
Vs − Vo = −L ∗ ; t2 = (2)
t2 Vs − Vo

Vs
If t1 = DT ; t2 = (1 − D)T ; Vo = 1−D
Peak to peak ripple current and peak to peak ripple voltage is given by

Vs ∗ D Ia ∗ D
4I = − ; 4 Vc = (3)
fL fC

2.2. PV systems and MPPT

The P & O algorithm continuously perturbs the operating point of the system causing the PV array terminal
voltage to fluctuate around the MPP voltage even if the solar irradiance and the cell temperature are constant.The P
& O method is that which is most commonly used in practice by the majority of authors. It is an iterative method
of obtaining MPP. It measures the PV array characteristics, and then perturbs the operating point of PV generator to
dPpv
encounter the change direction. The maximum point is reached when dVpv =0
Figure 4 shows the MPPT using boost converter with two PV arrays at different irradiance levels and op-
erating at separate climate conditions. Here boost converters 1 & 2 are connected in series to improving the system
efficiency. Two different output voltages of boost converters connected in series with DC link capacitors between
voltage lines, mainly the series connection is to increase the voltage profile.

Title of manuscript is short and clear, implies research results (First Author)
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Figure 5. Structure of 3-φ, 3 level diode clamped

Figure 4. Requisite implementation for MPPT system inverter

2.3. 3-Level SPWM Inverter

The three-level inverter topology is being widely used in high voltage, high power applications due to its high
voltage handling and good harmonic rejection capabilities with currently available power devices. Figure 5 shows the
basic circuit diagram of a three-level inverter excluding detailed snubber circuit. It is known that the three-level
inverter roughly improves by a factor of four the harmonics content compared with conventional two-level topology
having the same number of devices and ratings. Various PWM techniques for control of three-level inverter have been
studied, such as, modified two-level triangular Carrier modulation, cost function minimizing PWM and space vector
PWM. In the proposed configuration, a three- level diode clamped inverter is used. It is controlled by a sinusoidal
pulse width modulation scheme. For a three-level inverter, it needs four switching devices and two clamping diodes
per leg as shown in Figure 4.3.
1. For an output voltage of VAB = Vdc , all the upper-half switches of a-phase leg are turned ON, i.e., Sa1 and Sa2
are ON.
Vdc
2. For output voltage of VAB = 2 , only Sa1 and Sa11 are ON.
3. For output voltage of VAB = 0, all the lower-half switches of a phase leg are turned ON, i.e., Sa11 and Sa21 are
ON.
Table 4.2 shows the voltage levels and their corresponding switch states. State condition 00 100 means the
switch is ON, and state 00 000 means the switch is OFF. It should be noticed that there are two complementary switch
pairs. These pairs for one leg of the inverter are (Sa1 , Sa11 ) and (Sa2 , Sa21 ‘).

Table 1. Voltage levels and their corresponding switch states

Sa1 Sa2 Sa11 Sa21 Output pole voltage Va0 Output phase voltage Van
1 1 0 0 +Vdc + V2dc
0 1 1 0 + V2dc 0
0 0 1 1 0 − V2dc

Thus, if one of the complementary switch pairs is turned ON, the other of the same pair must be OFF. Two
switches are always turned ON at the same time.

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

In this will discusses about the simulation results and observations made for the above mentioned proposed
system configuration. All the simulations are done using grid integration and 3-phase R-Load. Matlab-simulink blocks

IJECE Vol. x, No. x, May 2013: 1 – 8

IJECE ISSN: 2088-8708 5

Figure 6. Two Boost converters back to back Figure 7. 3-φ, 3 level diode clamped inverter

for proposed system configuration are shown in Fig. Three 240 W PV panels for each converter setup are connected
in series to get 1.5 KW from two boost converters connected back to back. The parameters of Boost converters are
calculated by above shown design equations for boost converter. MPPT is implemented in both the converters.
Converter 1 and converter 2 are operating at different irradence levels.A boost converter with input voltage
78V i.e. 26V individual panel and duty cycle of 50 % to obtain a input voltage (Vi n) which is double that of output
voltage(Vo ut).For boost converter duty cycle is varied from 0.5 to 0.9.
The proposed model simulated for 4 seconds. The output wave forms are zoomed 0.12 seconds for better
view. The switching frequency is 2KHz. The gate pulses of the first limb of diode clamped 3-phase inverter are shown
in Figure 13,14,15 and 16 respectively. Figure 8 and Figure 9 shows the output single phase voltage of inverter and
zoomed view. Figure 10 and Figure 11 shows the line to line voltage of 3-phase inverter without filter and zoomed
view respectively.Figure 11 and Figure 12 shows the line to line voltage of 3-phase inverter with filter and zoomed
view respectively.
The model is checked for dynamic conditions like weather changes. For sudden climatic changes how the
output voltage effected. Irradiate change is applied at 2 seconds. All the output wave forms are zoomed at 2 seconds
to check how the voltage waveform getting effected.

Figure 8. Switching pulse of Limb a (Sa1 ) Figure 9. Switching pulse of Limb a (Sa2 )

From the results we can conclude that, two boost converters connected back to back to avoid transformer
requirement with 3-phase 3 level diode clamped inverter works well for grid integration and stand alone applica-
tions.Further filter size and cost can be reduced by using multilevel inverters.

4. CONCLUSION
The mathematical modeling of PV array has been analyzed. When the PV array is used as a source of power
supply to stand alone loads, it is necessary to use the MPPT to get the maximum power point from the PV array

Title of manuscript is short and clear, implies research results (First Author)
6 ISSN: 2088-8708

1 1
Figure 10. Switching pulse of Limb a (Sa1 ) Figure 11. Switching pulse of Limb a (Sa2 )

Figure 12. A Phase Voltage of 3-phase Inverter Figure 13. Zoomed view of phase voltage

Figure 14. Line voltage without Filter Figure 15. Zoomed view of line voltage without filter

Figure 16. Line Voltage with Filter Figure 17. Zoomed view of Line voltage with filters

which is obtained using boost converter. The MPPT is implemented by using a Boost-Converter, which is designed to
operate under continuous conduction mode. In this paper MPPT using boost converter with two PV arrays at different
irradiance levels for operating at separate climate conditions. Here boost converters 1& 2 are connected in series for
improving the system efficiency. Two different output voltages of boost converters connected in series with DC link
capacitors with neutral point used in between voltage lines, mainly the series connection is to increase the voltage
profile. The output of the boost converters is fed to 3-phase, 3-level inverter in order to obtain the required 3-φ power
for either for standalone loads or for grid interfaced. The perturbation and observe Algorithm is used as the control
algorithm for obtaining MPPT. SPWM control algorithm is used to obtain the required output voltage for standalone

IJECE Vol. x, No. x, May 2013: 1 – 8

IJECE ISSN: 2088-8708 7

Figure 19. Output of Converters 1 & 2 and Input to inverter

Figure 18. Output of Converters 1 & 2 and Input to inverterwith disturbance at 2 seconds

Figure 20. VLL without filters & disturbance at 2 sec Figure 21. Line voltage with filter & disturbance at 2 sec

loads. The entire system is simulated with MATLAB Simulink. From simulation results it is evident that MPPT using
P& O algorithm is obtained with dynamic and steady state stability. At the same time, output results of multilevel
inverter with SPWM control strategy have better voltage control and simulation results of system demonstrate that
the PV system has the fast and effective response under changing irradiance levels. So the PV generation system
based P& O MPPT method and SPWM control for 3-phase 3-level diode clamped inverter is effective and efficient for
standalone loads

REFERENCES

[1] S. Yanagawa , et al., ”Evaluation of LFC capacity for output fluctuation of photovoltaic generation systems based
on multipoint observation of insulation,” Proceedings IEEE Power Engineering Society Summer Meeting, vol. 3,
pp. 1652-1657, Jul 2001.
[2] X. Liu and L.A.C. Lopes, ”An improved perturbation and observation maximum power point tracking algorithm
for PV arrays,” Proceedings of the IEEE 35th Annual Meeting of Power Electronics Specialists Conference, vol.
3, pp. 2005-2010, June 2004.
[3] D. Zhang, et al., ”Common Mode Circulating Current Control of Interleaved Three-Phase Two-Level Voltage-
Source Converters with Discontinuous Space-Vector Modulation,” 2009 IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and
Exposition, Vols 1-6, pp. 3906-3912, 2009.
[4] Z. Yinhai, et al., ”A Novel SVPWM Modulation Scheme,” in Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exposi-
tion, 2009. APEC 2009. Twenty-Fourth Annual IEEE, 2009, pp. 128-131.
[5] Leslie Lamport. LATEX – A Document Preparation System, 2nd edition. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1994.
[6] Donald E. Knuth. Computers and Typesetting Vol. A–E. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1986

BIOGRAPHY OF AUTHORS

Title of manuscript is short and clear, implies research results (First Author)
8 ISSN: 2088-8708

Ganesh Dharmireddy received the B.Tech degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from
Pydah College of Engineering and Technology (Affiliated to Jawaharlal Nehru Technical Univer-
sity, Hyderabad) and M.Tech Degree in Power Electronics from National Institute of Technology,
Tiruchirapalli. He has got a teaching experience of nearly 5 years. He is currently working as As-
sistant Professor in Faculty of Science and Technology - ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education,
Hyderabad. His areas of interests are Energy management , Application of Power Electronics in
renewable energy and Power Electronic drives.

Ganesh Dharmireddy received the B.Tech degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from
Pydah College of Engineering and Technology (Affiliated to Jawaharlal Nehru Technical Univer-
sity, Hyderabad) and M.Tech Degree in Power Electronics from National Institute of Technology,
Tiruchirapalli. He has got a teaching experience of nearly 5 years. He is currently working as As-
sistant Professor in Faculty of Science and Technology - ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education,
Hyderabad. His areas of interests are Energy management , Application of Power Electronics in
renewable energy and Power Electronic drives.

Ganesh Dharmireddy received the B.Tech degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from
Pydah College of Engineering and Technology (Affiliated to Jawaharlal Nehru Technical Univer-
sity, Hyderabad) and M.Tech Degree in Power Electronics from National Institute of Technology,
Tiruchirapalli. He has got a teaching experience of nearly 5 years. He is currently working as As-
sistant Professor in Faculty of Science and Technology - ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education,
Hyderabad. His areas of interests are Energy management , Application of Power Electronics in
renewable energy and Power Electronic drives.

IJECE Vol. x, No. x, May 2013: 1 – 8