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Three-Phase Photovoltaic Grid-Connected Inverter using dSPACE DS1104

Platform

Conference Paper · December 2011

DOI: 10.1109/PEDS.2011.6147287

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 IEEE PEDS 2011, Singapore, 5 - 8 December 2011

Three-Phase Photovoltaic Grid-Connected Inverter

using dSPACE DS1104 Platform
Z A Ghani, M A Hannan, A Mohamed and Subiyanto
Dept. of Electrical, Electronic & Systems Engineering
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia
E-mail: zamree64@eng.ukm.my; hannan@eng.ukm.my; azah@eng.ukm.my; biyantote_unnes@yahoo.com

According to Messenger and Ventre, the opportunities are

Abstract- This paper presents a simulation modeling for the
hardware development of photovoltaic three-phase voltage
source inverter utilizing dSPACE DS1104 controller platform.
The controller links the MATLAB/Simulink simulated model to
the inverter prototype for operation in real-time. It generates a
sinusoidal pulse-width modulation (SPWM) signals for
switching devices (IGBTs) with the accomplishment of fuzzy
logic controller and Park transformation. Consequently, the
inverter provides power not only to the local loads but also feeds
the available excess power to the grid. The current and voltage
control strategies which are implemented by using the fuzzy
logic controller regulate the 50 Hz sinusoidal ac output current
and voltage for both modes of operations namely isolated and
grid-connected mode. The simulation was carried out with the
PV generator simulator to facilitate the real PV power transfer
to the local loads and grid. With the excellent results of 2.48% in
the total harmonic distortion (THD) of output voltage, suggests
that the proposed control system exhibits a good performance,
thus can be translated into a prototype by utilizing the dSPACE
platform. The simulation results waveforms such as ac output
voltages, current and system power flow are presented to
validate the efficacy of the control system.
INTRODUCTION
A photovoltaic (PV) energy is becoming one of the
important renewable energy sources. In order to transport this
kind of energy to the electric utility, an interface such as
inverter is necessary. Inverter efficiency is not up to the mark
due to its self-consumption losses [1]. Moreover the impact of
unbalanced load on inverter output voltage [2], nonlinearity,
and low efficiency of the PV devices [3][4], electromagnetic
interference, harmonics level [5][6][7], capability to operate
with high speed and frequency for generating pulse-width
modulation (PWM ) signals [8] respectively, are the crucial
issues for inverters and its controllers. Thus, for regulated
inverter output voltage and current, an efficient and enhanced
inverter controller is necessary to improve the inverter
performance in PV or renewable energy applications.
Globally, researches in the development of inverter control
algorithm are still going on to advocate the applications of
renewable energy. Various types of controller and processor
are being adopted for design, analysis and implementation of
PWM controlled inverters. Among them are analogue circuit
controllers, microcomputers, digital circuit controllers, field
programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and digital signal
processors (DSP) [9][10][11][12].
still exist for the design engineers to improve the inverter
controller, since inverter failure remains one of the primary
causes for photovoltaic (PV) system failure [13]. For this
reason, the enhanced inverter controllers are necessary for
improving the inverter performance in PV or renewable
energy applications.
Selvaraj and Rahim [11] and Saad and Rahim [12] have
developed DSP TMS320F2812 and FPGA based PV
inverters, employing the proportional-integral (PI) controller
and PWM control algorithm, respectively. However, it
requires users to develop a quite lengthy software
programming or codes for the control algorithm. This might
be a hassle and time consuming task, especially for those who
have little experience and background dealing with the
software programming. Besides, a simulation model has to be
developed prior to the hardware realization as well. A
different approach to this development process is by
integrating the dSPACE DS1104 [14] DSP real-time data
acquisition control platform into the system which enables
users to employ the MATLAB/Simulink linking tools
available features for the control algorithm development and
simulation and hardware implementation as well. The
dSPACE DS1104 control platform simplifies the control
algorithm programming task by means of its library
blocksets. Moreover, the data and codes of the successfully
simulated model can be linked and loaded directly to the
controller for real time hardware operation.
Salam et al. [15] have implemented the dSPACE DS1104
controller board in the design of high frequency link inverter.
Another different way to control and regulate the ac output
current and voltage is by implementing the fuzzy logic
controller (FLC). Hannan et al. [16] and Ghani [17] employed
the dSPACE DS1104 controller in a PV standalone prototype
inverter development. Another application of the dSPACE
DS1104 platform is in the grid-connected inverter. By using
the graphical object-oriented package, a dSPACE system has
enables the development of user-friendly inverter control
panels for on line monitoring and supervision [18]. A
dSPACE system is quite popular in controlling platform and
is widely used in automation systems and car manufacturing
industries [19]. Controlling power converters such as an
inverter is one of the alternatives of the dSPACE system
application.

978-1-4577-0001-9/11/$26.00 ©2011 IEEE 447

 In this paper, the control system and the modeling for the
inverter hardware are developed which are then simulated in
MATLAB/Simulink. The main element of the inverter output
parameters controlling is the switching signals generation,
e.g. sinusoidal pulse-width modulation (SPWM) that
responsible for the output voltage and current control
regulation scheme. The control system architecture employs
the fuzzy logic controller (FLC) which shows better
performance in reducing overshoot parameter in the
performance of the inverter compared to PI controller. A
detail explanation of the control strategy of for the inverter
has been discussed. FLC has the advantage of controlling a
nonlinear system such as the PV inverter system and there is
no special design procedure involved in fuzzy control such as
root-locus design, frequency response design, pole placement
design, or stability margins, because the rules are often
nonlinear [20].
SIMULATION MODEL
In order to validate the effectiveness of the proposed
inverter control system, a simulation was conducted in the
MATLAB/Simulink with SimPowerSystem blockset. It was
simulated for a period of 0.16 seconds with a sampling period
of 5 µs. The detail inverter system simulation model is shown
in Fig. 1.
Fig.1. Inverter system simulation model
In this simulation, the PV simulator has the capacity of
5.8kW. To simplify the analysis, the simulation is executed at
a fixed irradiation of 1000 watt/m2 and at a temperature of 25º
Celsius so that the PV simulator output power is at a constant
peak. With the built in dc-dc boost converter and the
maximum power point tracking (MPPT) feature to extract as
much power as possible from the PV, the PV simulator is
able to generate the output voltage of 700Vdc as required by
the inverter input. To visualize the control system function,
this simulation was done with the following resistive load
profile which consists of:
(i) 100% load – full-load scenario (5.8kW), a balance
between generation and absorption.
(ii) 50% load – under-load scenario (3.0kW), the
generation is higher than absorption.
(iii) 150% load – overload scenario (8.8kW), the
generation is less than absorption.
(iv) Grid voltage and frequency disturbance – over and
under disturbances
By applying different loads, the dynamic of the system
power balance (generation and absorption) and the power
flow can be observed whether the inverter dispatches excess
power to the grid or drawn power from the grid.
The main objective of the control system is to regulate a
nearly sinusoidal inverter output current and inject it to the
utility at unity power factor with an acceptable level of total
harmonic distortion (THD). According to the standard code,
IEEE Std. 929-2000 [21], the THD level must be below 5%
for connecting to the utility grid. The system is also managed
to protect the system under disturbances such as changes
occur in the grid/utility voltage parameters such as frequency
and voltage level managing.
INVERTER CONTROL STRATEGY
The configuration of the PV grid-connected inverter control
system is illustrated in Fig. 2. It consists of a PV simulator
with a MPPT feature, an inverter that is connected to the load
and grid, and the control system. The connection to the grid
is made possible by a three-phase controllable breaker or
switch.
Fig.2. Block diagram of the grid-connected inverter system configuration.
The control system manages the data acquisition of the
relevant variable system parameters and signals such as
voltages, currents and control signals in order to maintain the
system operation and stabilize the output voltage. Fig. 3
shows the block diagram structure for the control system
components. The system reads the grid voltage and frequency
(50 Hz) for the grid synchronization which is accomplished
by the phase lock loop (PLL) function block. The PLL gives
outputs in terms of sinωt and cosωt which are used as the
reference frequency in the calculation of the abc/dq
transformation of the inverter current in the current control
loop.
By using the Park’s transformation method, the sampled
signals of the inverter current are transformed from a three
axes abc frame into a dq reference frame system. The dq
currents are compared with the reference current which is
448
generated from the voltage control loop so as to generate the 1.5
error signals which are fed to the fuzzy logic controller for
the output current regulation. 1

0.5

Voltage (p.u)
0

-0.5

-1.0

-1.5
0 0.030.04 0.08 0.12 0.16
Time (sec)

Fig. 4. Inverter output voltage waveform, vabc

1.5
Fig. 3: Grid-connected inverter control strategy
1
In the voltage control loop, the dc input voltage, Vdc is
regulated by the fuzzy logic controller which generates the 0.5
current reference, Idref to be tracked on by the controller in the Current (p.u)

previous current control loop. The output signals from the 0

current control loop are fed to the conversion and PWM
generator block which uses a triangular wave of 15 kHz for -0.5
generating the switching signals for the IGBTs.
By utilizing the ‘Real-Time Workshop’ (RTW) feature -1.0

available in MATLAB/Simulink environment, the inverter

control system algorithm is converted to the C-codes and
simultaneously linked to the real inverter hardware. This is
one of the advantages of the dSPACE DS1104 which makes
it suitable for research and development purposes. In order to
link the algorithm to the real inverter hardware, the dSPACE
input-output (I/O) library blocks are added to the
MATLAB/Simulink inverter model. They are analog-to-
digital converter (ADC) units, DS1104ADC, bit input-output
(I/O) unit, DS1104BIT_OUT, and 3-phase PWM generation
unit, DS1104SL_DSP_PWM3. With the aid of the dSPACE
graphical user interface (GUI) software, ControlDesk, the
control and monitoring of the real-time hardware parameters
is made possible.
RESULT AND DISCUSSION
-1.5
0 0.030.04 0.08 0.12 0.16
Time (sec)
Fig. 5 Inverter output current waveform, iabc
From Fig. 4, the 50 Hz sinusoidal waveforms, va (blue), vb
(red) and vc (green) have peak voltages of 1.0 p.u which is
equivalent to phase voltage of 240Vrms or line voltage of
415Vrms. As can be seen, they are displaced by 120º of each
other. Initially, it started in standalone mode as a voltage
controlled inverter, and then connected to grid at t = 0.03
second with current controlled strategy. It is shown by the
small ripples in the current waveforms after 0.03 second as
shown in Fig. 5.
The total harmonic distortion (THD) for the phase voltage
waveform is 2.48% as shown in Fig. 6, which is below 5% of
IEEE standard.

Fig. 4 and Fig. 5 show the snapshots of the three-phase

output voltage and current waveforms of the inverter in per
unit (p.u) format respectively.

449
 CONCLUSION
Selected signal: 8 cycles. FFT window (in red): 3 cycles
1 The simulation modeling and control system algorithm for
Vinverter,va

0.5
0
the hardware development of photovoltaic three-phase
-0.5
-1
voltage source inverter has been presented. It has been
0 0.04 0.08 0.12 0.16 verified with the simulation results in MATLAB/Simulink for
Time (s)
the inverter output voltage stabilization and system power
0.1
Fundamental (50Hz) = 0.9855 , THD= 2.48% flow with different load profiles, which suggested the
effectiveness of the inverter control strategy. These results
Mag(% of fundamental)

0.08

0.06
serve as a justification for the inverter prototype
development.
0.04

0.02

0
0 5 10
Harmonic order
Fig. 6. THD and harmonics spectrum of inverter output waveform, va
The system power flow is shown in Fig. 7. For the period
of t = 0 second to t = 0.03 second, since the PV power
generation is equal to the load demand and the system is in a
standalone mode, there is no power drawn from or dispatched
to the grid.
From the figure, it can be seen that the load drawn
additional 3kW required power from the grid for the period
between t = 0.05 second and t = 0.1 second. It is shown by the
amount of -3kW section on the grid contribution profile (in
purple) in the figure. This is a condition of 150% load
condition where the PV power generation is 5.8kW (in blue)
but the load demand (in red) is 8.8kW which is higher than
the generation. Hence, the additional required power is drawn
from the grid.
Another scenario can be seen from the figure is between the
period of t = 0.1 second to 0.16 second, where the load (in
red) is 3kW and the PV generation is 5.8kW (in blue). There
is an excess power of 2.8kW generated by the PV and it is
dispatched to the grid. This is shown in the grid contribution
curve (in purple).
10
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