8th International Conference on Power Electronics - ECCE Asia
[ThF1-3]
Parallel DC-AC Conversion System Based on
Separate Solar Farms with MPPT Control
Prof. Dr. Ilhami Colak1, Dr. Ersan Kabalci2, Prof. Dr. Gungor BAL3
Gazi Electrical Machines and Energy Control (GEMEC) Group
1
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Faculty of Technology, Gazi University, Besevler, Ankara 06500, Turkey
2
Department of Technical Programs, Vocational Collage of Haci Bektas, Nevsehir University, Hacibektas, Nevsehir-Turkey
3
Department of Electrical and Electronics Eng., Faculty of Eng. and Architecture Bolu İzzet Abant Baysal University, Bolu-Turkey
icolak@gazi.edu.tr, kabalci@nevsehir.edu.tr, gunbal@gazi.edu.tr
Abstract- Three separate solar farms that provide 15 kW
power for each farm are modelled using Matlab Simulink
real-time analysis software in this study. Each solar farm
models are constituted by connecting 170W photovoltaic
(PV) panels and energy conversion is performed with
maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithms in each
converter. The MPPT algorithm utilized in the control step
of converters is developed using Perturb and Observe
(P&O) structure. The converters used in the solar farms are
designed in boost converter topology while output voltages
are collected in DC busbar with parallel connection of
converters. The converters are connected to busbar over
interphase transformers (IPT). The DC busbar voltage is
applied to a full bridge inverter to generate 3-phase AC
voltages at the output of inverter. The three-phase inverter
is controlled with sinusoidal pulse width modulation
(SPWM) scheme, which is developed with phase shifted
carrier signals. The load of inverter is set to an adjustable
load, which is capable to be increased up to 50 kW. The
measurement points seen in the Simulink design are
analysed in detail. Each measurement point’s definition and
screen captures are also evaluated in the study.
Keywords- Photovoltaic Panel (PV), Solar Farm, MPPT
Control, Inverter, Energy Conversion
I- INTRODUCTION
The increased energy demands and limited quotes of
fossil fuels direct governments and individuals to
renewable energy sources (RES) in electricity generation
issues. The entire world embraces the “Clean Energy”
and “Green Energy” mottos in order to support the RES
usage. Furthermore generating the household or industrial
electricity using RES, the latest trend in spreading clean
energy to daily life is electrical vehicles (EV). Due to
solar energy is the most abundant energy source, the
usage of solar energy conversion systems are rapidly
increasing among other renewable energy sources.
Although the annual photovoltaic (PV) power generation
is currently around 37 TWh, it is estimated to be reached
to 1247 TWh by 2030 and to 4572 TWh by 2050. The
cumulative installed PV capacity that is around 27 GW in
2010 is expected to rise 872 GW by 2030 and 3155 GW
by 2050, while this value was around 3.145 GW in 2003.
The primary economic goal about PVs is to reduce
constructed system prices and electricity generation costs
May 30-June 3, 2011, The Shilla Jeju, Korea
by more than two-thirds by 2030. Installed plant prices
are expected to drop by 70% from current USD 6000 per
kW down to USD 1200 to USD 1800 per kW by 2030,
with a major price reduction already achieved by 2020.
These prospects about solar energy are also related to PV
panels and control techniques utilized to increase the
efficiency of a panel while decreasing the installation
costs dramatically [1],[7].
Solar energy technologies are also playing an
important role in energy conversion systems besides other
renewable sources such as wind and biomasses. The
distributed power generation systems based on renewable
energy sources such as photovoltaic (PV) cells, wind
turbines, and micro-turbines is experiencing a rapid
development to meet energy demand all around the
world. Energy generation using PVs is also becoming an
interested energy area among other renewable sources.
The solar energy sources have the advantages of not
causing pollution, having low maintenance cost, and not
producing noise due to the absence of the moving parts
[7]-[8].
The grid connected PV systems are one of the
solutions applied in solar energy systems. In grid-
connected systems, single-phase or three-phase voltage-
source inverters (VSIs) are often used to interface the
energy source to the common grid, and the current
control of the grid-connected inverters plays a
predominant role in feeding a grid with high-quality
power. The stand-alone PV applications are emerging
rapidly due to increased installation and maintenance
costs of grid connected systems [9]-[10].
The stand-alone PV systems are required to be
controlled with a well-designed maximum power point
tracker (MPPT) in order to decrease the effects of
variable irradiation values. The study analysed in this
paper is carried out by modelling three separate solar
farms that are assumed to be located in different places.
All the solar farm models are designed in order to have
rated power of 15 kW. The energy conversion system is
based on boost converters with Perturb&Observe (P&O)
MPPT control algorithm. The DC-DC conversion
performed at the boost converter assures the stability of
generated energy in each solar farm separately. The DC
voltages obtained at the output of solar farms are
978-1-61284-957-7/11/$26.00 ©2011 IEEE
 +
Boost
Vdc1
Converter
-

SOLAR FARM-1
Adaptive
Duty Cycle
Vpv
P&O
MPPT Block
Ipv

RR LR

+ +
RS LS
Boost Full Bridge
Vdc2 Vdc
Converter Inverter
- - RT LT

SOLAR FARM-2
Adaptive
Duty Cycle
Vpv SPWM
P&O Modulator
MPPT Block
Ipv

+
Boost
Vdc3
Converter
-

SOLAR FARM-3
Adaptive
Duty Cycle
Vpv
P&O
MPPT Block
Ipv

Fig. 1. Block diagram of the implemented solar energy conversion system.

collected at the DC busbar part of designed system. The between 600 W/m2 and 1000 W/m2 at the same time. The
busbar output is supplied to a three-phase inverter, which current of PV panel is determined using Eq. (1) [12]-[18];
is controlled with sinusoidal pulse width modulation
(SPWM) to generate three-phase AC line voltages. q ( v pv i pv Rs ) /(K .k .T ) v pv  i pv .Rs
Several measurements are acquired in Simulink design to I pv I ph  I p [e ] (1)
compare the validity of the modelled distributed solar
Rsh
energy conversion system. where,
ipv, vpv : voltage and current at the output terminals of
the photovoltaic cells,
II- THE DESIGN OF THE ENERGY CONVERSION Iph: photocurrent,
MODEL q: electron charge,
η: quality factor of n-p junction,
The PV system designed in Matlab/Simulink k: Boltzman constant, 1.38.10-23 J/K,
environment is shown in Fig.1. The number of serially T: ambient temperature, K
connected PV panel is also can be fixed using PV model
in the modelled system. The main parameters of the PV The open circuit voltage (Voc), maximum power voltage
panel are set according to NE-170UC1 solar panel of (Vpm), short circuit current (Isc), and maximum power
Sharp, which has maximum power out about 170W [11]. current (Ipm) parameters of the PV panels used in the
The modelled PV panel interface allows to adjust the modelled system are given in Table I.
parameters such as open circuit voltage (Voc), maximum
power voltage (Vpm), short circuit current (Isc), and TABLE I
maximum power current (Ipm). The energy obtained PV PANEL PARAMETERS
from solar farms is connected to the DC busbar over coils
as seen in the middle of Fig. 1. The Simulink model of Open Maximum Short
Maximum
the distributed solar energy system is illustrated in Fig.2 Circuit Power Circuit
Power Current
which has solar farm model on the left hand side, DC Voltage Voltage Current
(Ipm)
busbar in the middle and DC-AC conversion system on (Voc) (Vpm) (Isc)
the right hand side with measurement blocks. The solar
panel models are controlled according to various
irradiation values in a way that models the daily solar 43.2V 34.8V 5.47A 4.9A
state. Each solar farms are applied different irradiations
 Fig. 2. Block diagram of the implemented solar energy conversion system.

III- SIMULATION RESULTS a0 f

Ssw (t )  ¦ (an cos(nZt ) bn sin(nZt )) (2)
Fig. 3 shows the measurements obtained from solar 2 n1
farms and busbar in terms of current, voltage and power. where a0 is the average dc value of the switching signal.
Although irradiation levels of each solar farm are set to The SPWM modulator is modelled to generate the
different values, the DC output voltages are kept stable predefined switching orders. The additional important
around 390 V owing to MPPT control of boost converter point to be considered in the modulator design is
located in each farm output. The output voltage anbd amplitude distortion. The amplitude distortion is caused
current values of solar farm is set to supply 15 kW rated by the input DC voltage source variation and has the most
power by using serial and parallel connected photovoltaic significant impact on the “on-off” spectral errors. For a
panels. Fig.3.a illustrates the current, voltage and power voltage source SPWM controlled DC-AC inverter, the
measurements of first solar farm at the irradiation value amplitude distortion of the PWM waveforms will decline
of 1000 W/m2. The voltage outputs of each boost the amplitude of the fundamental component and
converter before DC busbar and the busbar voltages are introduce unexpected low order harmonic contents
seen in Fig.3.b, respectively. In SPWM control technique, the output voltage is
SPWM technique is one of the most popular obtained in linear modulation range,
modulation techniques among the others applied in power 3Vd
VAB VBC VCA mi 0  mi d 1 (3)
switching inverters. The fundamental frequency SPWM 2
control method was proposed to minimize the switching
losses. In regular SPWM, a sinusoidal reference and the output voltage value is defined for the over-
waveform is compared with a triangular carrier waveform modulation range as seen in Eq. 13.
to generate switching sequences. Each switching angle
(Ssw(t)) is calculated by Fourier series as seen in (2) in 3Vd 4 3Vd
 VAB VBC VCA  mi t 1 (4)
order to eliminate harmonic contents in the side-bands, 2 S 2
In order to prevent undefined output levels in the VSI, and order is not seen over 13th one, when the THDi analyses
thus undefined AC output line voltages, the switches of are repeated up to 100th order (5000 Hz).
any leg of the inverter cannot be switched off
simultaneously. There are eight predefined switching TABLE II
VALID SWITCHING STATES FOR A THREE-PHASE VSI
states provided using modelled SPWM controller as State Switching orders VAB VB VA
shown in Table II. Two switching states (7th and 8th)
S1 S2 S3 S4 S5 S6
generate the zero level while the other states generating 1 on on off off off on Vd 0 -Vd
the positive and negative AC voltages of inverter. In this
2 on on on off off off 0 Vd -Vd
case, the AC line currents freewheel through either the
upper or the lower components [19]-[22]. 3 off on on on off off -Vd Vd 0
The line current harmonic ratios (THDi) are measured 4 off off on on on off -Vd 0 Vd
as 1.67% for each analysis. The most effective harmonic 5 off off off on on on 0 -Vd Vd
orders are seen as 5th and 7th ones while 11th and 13th 6 on off off off on on Vd -Vd 0
orders are mitigated. There is not any effective harmonic 7 on off on off on off 0 0 0
8 off on off on off on 0 0 0

(a)

(b)

Fig. 3. PV model measurements, a) Current, voltage and power curves of first solar farm, b) voltage outputs of each
solar farms and DC bus bar.
 (a)

(b)
Fig. 4. Waveforms of inverter, (a) phase voltages, (b) line current.

The irradiation values of each PV systems are set to
1000 W/m2, 800 W/m2, and 1000 W/m2 in order to
modelling separate geographical locations. It is obtained
to keep stable the DC busbar voltage by regulating each
output voltage in the related boost converter. The phase
voltages and current waveforms are measured connecting
a 50 kW RLC load at the output inverter. The phase
voltages are generated around 220 V utilizing which
yields 380 V line voltage in a three-phase system at 50
Hz line frequency. The first three curves in Fig.4
illustrate the phase voltages while the line currents are
seen in the lower side of Fig. 4. Phase voltages given in
Fig.4 are applied to 50 kW load to determine load current
waveforms. Line current harmonics of DC-AC
conversion system is seen in Fig.5. Total harmonic
distortion (THD) of line current are analysed up to 50th
and 100th harmonic orders in Fig.5.a and Fig.5.b
respectively. The modulation scheme applied to inverter
is enhanced SPWM that is thoroughly analysed in [19]-
[21].
 (a)
Fig. 5. Line current harmonic analyses of inverter.
IV- CONCLUSION
The proposed system in this study is focused on parallel
connection of PV energy conversion systems in order to
implement a distributed generation system. The separate
solar farms are set to generate equal power outputs
according to various solar irradiations. The ripple factors
in voltage and harvested energy are controlled using an
MPPT algorithm in boost converter control and it is
assured that all the solar farm outputs are kept stable
according to defined voltage levels. Furthermore,
developed system is tested according to adjustable
irradiation levels. Thereby, reliability of the improved
system is provided by analyzing the developed
distributed generation system under various conditions.
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