This paper presents an algorithm for power curtail-ment of photovoltaic (PV) systems under fast solar irradiance intermittency. Based on the Perturb and Observe (P&O) technique, the method contains an adaptive gain that is compensated in real-time to account for moments of lower power availability. In addition, an accumulator is added to the calculation of the step size to reduce the overshoot caused by large irradiance swings. A testbed of a three-phase single-stage, 500 kVA PV system is developed on the OPAL-RT eMEGAsim real-time simulator. Field irradiance data and a regulation signal from PJM (RTO) are used to compare the performance of the proposed method with other techniques found in the literature. Results indicate an operation with smaller overshoot, less dc-link voltage oscillations, and improved power reference tracking capability.
Assessing strategies to manage distributed photovoltaics in Swiss low-voltage networks: An analysis of curtailment, export tariffs, and resource sharing
Power grid primary frequency response will be significantly impaired by Photovoltaic (PV) penetration increase because of the decrease in inertia and governor response. PV inertia and governor emulation requires reserving PV output and leads to solar energy waste. This paper exploits current grid resources and explores energy storage for primary frequency response under high PV penetration at the interconnection level. Based on the actual models of the U.S. Eastern Interconnection grid and the Texas grid, effects of multiple factors associated with primary frequency response, including the gov…
Introduction. This article deals with the optimization of the energy conversion of a grid-connected photovoltaic system. The novelty is to develop an intelligent maximum power point tracking technique using artificial neural network algorithms. Purpose. Intelligent maximum power point tracking technique is developed in order to improve the photovoltaic system performances under the variations of the temperature and irradiation. Methods. This work is to calculate and follow the maximum power point for a photovoltaic system operating according to the artificial intelligence mechanism is and the …
Using Photovoltaic systems is gradually expanded by increasing energy demand. Abundance and availability of this energy, has turned to one of the most important sources of renewable energy. Unfortunately, photovoltaic systems have two big problems: first, those have very low energy conversion efficiency (in act between 12 and 42 percent under certain circumstances). Second, the power produced by the solar cell depends on nonlinear conditions such as solar radiation, temperature and charge feature. According to this, received power maximum of photovoltaic cells depends on different non-linear v…
This paper proposes a novel topology for grid connected photovoltaic (PV) system based on modular multilevel converter (MMC). In this topology, a PV array is connected to capacitors of each submodule (SM) of the MMC through a DC-DC boost converter with maximum power point tracking (MPPT) control. This topology will maximize the efficiency of the system in the case of partial shading conditions, as it can regulate the SM capacitor voltages independently from each other to realize distributed MPPT. A model predictive control is used to track the AC output current, balance the SMs capacitor volta…
Micro-inverter technologies are becoming increasingly popular as a choice of grid connection for small-scale photovoltaic systems. Efficiently harvesting the maximum energy from a photovoltaic system reduces the Levelized cost for solar energy, enhancing its role in combatting climate change. Various topologies are proposed through research and have been summarised in this paper. Furthermore, this paper investigates two popular Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) methods through simulation using Matlab Simulink.
Extracting maximum power available from photovoltaic arrays requires the system operating at the maximum power point (MPP). Therefore, finding the MPP is necessary for efficient operation of PV arrays. The MPP changes with multiple environmental factors, mainly temperature and irradiance. Traditionally, the incremental conductance technique with fixed step size was used to find the MPP, which suffers from a trade-off between speed of convergence and accuracy. In this work, we propose an incremental conductance maximum power point tracking (MPPT) algorithm with a variable step size, which adapt…
This paper presents a fast power-setpoint tracking algorithm to enable utility-scale photovoltaic (PV) systems to provide high quality grid services such as power reserves and fast frequency response. The algorithm unites maximum power-point estimation (MPPE) with flexible power-point tracking (FPPT) control to improve the performance of both algorithms, achieving fast and accurate PV power-setpoint tracking even under rapid solar irradiance changes. The MPPE is developed using a real-time, nonlinear curve-fitting approach based on the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm. A modified adaptive FPPT ba…
The increasing electricity demand and the need for clean and renewable energy resources to satisfy this demand in a cost-effective manner, imposes new challenges on researchers and developers to maximize the output of these renewable resources at all times. However, the increasing penetration of renewable energy into the grid imposes new challenges on the grid operators. All of these challenges and issues gave rise to the need of Maximum Power Point Tracker (MPPT) and Flexible Power Point Trackers (FPPT) in order to maximize the power extracted from Photovoltaic (PV) systems and meet the grid …
Solar power becomes one of the most promising renewable energy resources in recent years. However, the weather is continuously changing, and this causes a discontinuity of energy generation. PV Power forecasting is a suitable solution to handle sudden disjointedness on energy generation by providing fast dispatching to grid electricity. These methods present a key insight into matchmaking grid electricity and photovoltaic plants. Bootstrap aggregation Ensemble method(Bagging) is classified as one of the most useful machine learning models which are applicable to supervised learning regression …
A fractional-order (FO) based controller for a grid-connected PV system is presented in this paper. A single phase two-stage grid-connected photovoltaic generator (PVG) is used to test the performance of the FO controller. The main objectives of the proposed controller are: (1) To regulate the output voltage of PVG at a point where the maximum power is drawn. (2) Constant DC-link voltage control. (3) Power factor control (PFC) at the inverter output with low total harmonic distortion (THD). To solve the first problem, a non-linear control method known as fractional-order back-stepping control …
