Reduced DC Link Voltage Active Power Filter Using Modified PUC5 Converter

ABSTRACT:

 

In this paper the 5-level Packed U-Cell (PUC5) inverter is reconfigured with two identical DC links operating as an active power filter (APF). Generally, the peak voltage of an APF should be greater than the AC voltage at the point of common coupling (PCC) to ensure boost operation of the converter in order to inject harmonic current into the system effectively; therefore, full compensation can be obtained. The proposed modified PUC5 (MPUC5) converter has two equally regulated separated DC links, which can operate at no load condition useful for APF application. Those divided DC terminals amplitudes are added at the input of the MPUC5 converter to generate a boosted voltage that is higher than the PCC voltage. Consequently, the reduced DC links voltages are achieved since they do not individually need to be higher than the PCC voltage due to the mentioned fact that their summation has to be higher than PCC voltage. The voltage balancing unit is integrated into modulation technique to be decoupled from the APF controller. The proposed APF is practically tested to validate its good dynamic performance in harmonic elimination, AC side power factor correction, reactive power compensation and power quality improvement.

KEYWORDS:

1.      Active Power Filter

2.      PUC5

3.      Harmonic Elimination

4.      Power Factor Correction

5.      Power Quality

SOFTWARE: MATLAB/SIMULINK

CONCLUSION:

The MPUC5 configuration has been introduced as a modification to the PUC5 topology with the advantage of DC voltage boosting. It has been employed as an APF with reduced DC link voltages. The voltage balancing between DC capacitors in the APF has been done by the redundant switching states. Since the two capacitors voltages are regulated without external controllers, a simple cascaded control technique has been implemented to keep the sum of two DC voltages values at the reference level as well as synchronizing the source current with grid voltage. Finally, the performance of the MPUC5 APF has been tested practically. Results have shown that the proposed configuration operated well in current harmonic elimination, reactive power compensation and power factor correction.

REFERENCES:

[1] B. Singh, A. Chandra, and K. Al-Haddad, Power Quality: Problems and Mitigation Techniques: John Wiley & Sons, 2014.

[2] S. Rahmani, K. Al-Haddad, H. Y. Kanaan, and B. Singh, "Implementation and simulation of modified PWM with two current control techniques applied to single-phase shunt hybrid power filter," IEE Proc. Electric Power Applications, vol. 153, no. 3, pp. 317-326, 2006.

[3] H. Zhang, S. J. Finney, A. Massoud, and B. W. Williams, "An SVM algorithm to balance the capacitor voltages of the three-level NPC active power filter," IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 23, no. 6, pp. 2694-2702, 2008.

[4] S. Du, J. Liu, and J. Lin, "Hybrid cascaded H-bridge converter for harmonic current compensation," IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 28, no. 5, pp. 2170-2179, 2013.

[5] M. Sharifzadeh, H. Vahedi, R. Portillo, M. Khenar, A. Sheikholeslami, L. G. Franquelo, et al., "Hybrid SHM-SHE Pulse Amplitude Modulation for High Power Four-Leg Inverter," IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 63, no. 11, pp. 7234-7242, 2016.

Real-Time Implementation of Model Predictive Control on 7-Level Packed U-Cell Inverter

ABSTRACT:

 

In this paper a model predictive control (MPC) has been designed and implemented on the Packed U-Cell (PUC) inverter which has one isolated DC source and one capacitor as an auxiliary DC link. The MPC is designed to regulate the capacitor voltage at the desired magnitude to have seven voltage levels at the output of the inverter. Since grid-connected application is targeted by this application, the inverter should be capable of supplying requested amount of active and reactive power at the point of common coupling (PCC) as well. Therefore, MPC should also consider the line current control in order to monitor the exchange of reactive power with the grid while injecting appropriate active power at low THD. Various experimental tests including change in DC source voltage, active power variation and operation at different power factor (PF) have been performed on a laboratory prototype to validate the good performance obtained by the proposed MPC. The dynamic performance of the controller during sudden changes in dc capacitor voltage, supply current and PF demonstrates the fast and accurate response and the superior operation of the proposed controller.

KEYWORDS:

1.      PUC Inverter

2.      Multilevel Inverter

3.      Model Predictive Control

4.      Grid-Connected PV

5.      Power Quality

SOFTWARE: MATLAB/SIMULINK

CONCLUSION:

In this paper, a Model Predictive Control has been designed for the 7-level PUC inverter in grid-connected mode of operation, an excellent candidate for photovoltaic and utility interface application to deliver green power to the utility. MPC is a simple and intuitive method that does not have confusing gains to adjust as well as featuring fast response during any change in the system parameters. Experimental results have been provided to show the fast response of the implemented controller on the grid-connected multilevel PUC inverter. It has been demonstrated that the DC link capacitor voltage has been regulated at desired level and 7-level voltage waveform has been generated at the output of the inverter. The injected current to the grid was successfully controlled to have regulated amplitude and synchronized waveform with the grid voltage to deliver maximum power with unity power factor. Moreover, the PF has been controlled easily to exchange reactive power with the grid while injecting the available active power. Exhaustive experimental results including change in the grid current reference, DC source and AC grid voltages variations, as well as PF have been tested and results have been illustrated which ensured the good dynamic performance of the proposed controller applied on the gridconnected PUC inverter.

REFERENCES:

[1] H. Abu-Rub, M. Malinowski, and K. Al-Haddad, Power electronics for renewable energy systems, transportation and industrial applications: John Wiley & Sons, 2014.

[2] H. Mortazavi, H. Mehrjerdi, M. Saad, S. Lefebvre, D. Asber, and L. Lenoir, "A Monitoring Technique for Reversed Power Flow Detection With High PV Penetration Level," IEEE Trans. Smart Grid, vol. 6, no. 5, pp. 2221-2232, 2015.

[3] J. M. Carrasco, L. G. Franquelo, J. T. Bialasiewicz, E. Galván, R. P. Guisado, M. A. Prats, J. I. León, and N. Moreno-Alfonso, "Powerelectronic systems for the grid integration of renewable energy sources: A survey," IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 53, no. 4, pp. 1002-1016, 2006.

[4] M. G. Kashani, M. Mobarrez, and S. Bhattacharya, "Variable interleaving technique for photovoltaic cascaded DC-DC converters," in IECON 2014-40th Annual Conference of the IEE EIndustrial Electronics Society, 2014, pp. 5612-5617.

[5] M. Mobarrez, M. G. Kashani, G. Chavan, and S. Bhattacharya, "A Novel Control Approach for Protection of Multi-Terminal VSC based HVDC Transmission System against DC Faults," in ECCE 2015- Energy Conversion Congress & Exposition, Canada, 2015, pp. 4208- 4213.

Real-Time Implementation of a Packed U-Cell Seven-Level Inverter with Low Switching Frequency Voltage Regulator

ABSTRACT:

 

In this paper a new cascaded nonlinear controller has been designed and implemented on the packed U-Cell (PUC) seven-level inverter. Proposed controller has been designed based on a simplified model of PUC inverter and consists of a voltage controller as outer loop and a current controller as inner loop. The outer loop regulates the PUC inverter capacitor voltage as the second DC bus. The inner loop is in charge of controlling the flowing current which is also used to charge and discharge that capacitor. The main goal of the whole system is to keep the DC capacitor voltage at a certain level results in generating a smooth and quasi-sine-wave 7-level voltage waveform at the output of the inverter with low switching frequency. The proposed controller performance is verified through experimental tests. Practical results prove the good dynamic performance of the controller in fixing the PUC capacitor voltage for various and variable load conditions and yet generating low harmonic 7-level voltage waveform to deliver power to the loads. Operation as an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) or AC loads interface for photovoltaic energy conversion applications is targeted.

KEYWORDS:

1.      Packed U-Cell

2.      Multilevel Inverter

3.      Voltage Balancing

4.      Nonlinear Controller

5.      Renewable energy conversion

SOFTWARE: MATLAB/SIMULINK

CONCLUSION:

In this paper a new cascaded nonlinear controller has been designed for 7-level PUC inverter based on the simple model derived by multilevel inverter topology concept. Experimental results showed appropriate dynamic performance of the proposed controller in stand-alone mode as UPS, renewable energy conversion system or motor drive applications. Different changes in the load and DC bus voltage have been made intentionally during the tests to challenge the controller reaction in tracking the voltage and current references. Proposed controller demonstrated satisfying performance in fixing the capacitor voltage of the PUC inverter, generating seven-level voltage with low harmonic content at the output of the PUC inverter and ensures low switching frequency operation of those switches. By applying the designed controller on the 7-level PUC inverter it can be promised to have a multilevel converter with maximum voltage levels while using less active switches and DC sources aims at manufacturing a low-cost converter with high efficiency, low switching frequency, low power losses and also low harmonic contents without using any additional bulky filters.

REFERENCES:

[1] H. Abu-Rub, M. Malinowski, and K. Al-Haddad, Power electronics for renewable energy systems, transportation and industrial applications: John Wiley & Sons, 2014.

[2] J. M. Carrasco, L. G. Franquelo, J. T. Bialasiewicz, E. Galván, R. P.Guisado, M. A. Prats, et al., "Power-electronic systems for the grid integration of renewable energy sources: A survey," IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 53, no. 4, pp. 1002-1016, 2006.

[3] M. Mobarrez, M. G. Kashani, G. Chavan, and S. Bhattacharya, "A Novel Control Approach for Protection of Multi-Terminal VSC based HVDC Transmission System against DC Faults," in ECCE 2015- Energy Conversion Congress & Exposition, Canada, 2015, pp. 4208- 4213.

[4] B. Singh, A. Chandra, and K. Al-Haddad, Power Quality: Problems and Mitigation Techniques: John Wiley & Sons, 2014.

[5] B. Singh, K. Al-Haddad, and A. Chandra, "A review of active filters for power quality improvement," IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 46, no. 5, pp. 960-971, 1999.

PUC Converter Review:Topology, Control and Applications

 ABSTRACT:

Packed U-Cell (PUC) converter has been introduced as a 7-level converter in early 2008. Since then, different analysis and projects have been performed on, including various applications such as inverter and rectifier, linear and nonlinear voltage controllers. In this paper, authors try to do a detail review on this topology covering all aspects like topology design in single and three-phase, operation concepts, switching sequences for different multilevel voltage waveform generation, modelling and etc. It is shown that this topology can be comparable to popular multilevel converters (CHB and NPC) in terms of device counts and applications. Moreover, some performed and published works about the PUC are mentioned to show its different industrial applications and some other converter topologies derived based on the PUC. Experimental results are provided to show the good performance of PUC converter in several applications.

KEYWORDS:

1.      Packed U-Cell

2.      Multilevel converter

3.      Active power filter

4.      Active rectifier

5.      Inverter

6.      Power quality

SOFTWARE: MATLAB/SIMULINK

CONCLUSION:

PUC converter generates various voltage levels based on the voltage ratio of its two DC links similar to the CHB topology, while using fewer components. It is an interesting topology in inverter mode due to using only one isolated DC source. It is also attractive in rectifier application because of generating dual output DC terminal in boost and buck mode. As shown in  this paper, the PUC converter can be a good candidate for all modes of operation like standalone/grid-connected inverter and rectifier in various applications including PV systems, active filters, wind turbine, electric transportation, battery chargers, MMC, etc.

REFERENCES:

1] S. Kouro, M. Malinowski, K. Gopakumar, J. Pou, L. G. Franquelo, B. Wu, et al., "Recent advances and industrial applications of multilevel converters," IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 57, no. 8, pp. 2553-2580, 2010.

[2] H. Abu-Rub, J. Holtz, J. Rodriguez, and G. Baoming, "Medium-voltage multilevel converters—State of the art, challenges, and requirements in industrial applications," IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 57, no. 8, pp. 2581-2596, 2010.

[3] H. Abu-Rub, M. Malinowski, and K. Al-Haddad, Power electronics for renewable energy systems, transportation and industrial applications: John Wiley & Sons, 2014.

[4] J. Rodriguez, S. Bernet, P. K. Steimer, and I. E. Lizama, "A survey on neutral point-clamped inverters," IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 57, no. 7, pp. 2219- 2230, 2010.

A Modified Seven Level Cascaded H Bridge Inverter

 ABSTRACT:

 Presently Multilevel inverters are extensively used for high-voltage applications and their execution is exceptionally better to that of regular two-level inverters due to minimized harmonic distortion, lower electromagnetic interference and larger DC link voltages. Nevertheless certain shortcomings are faced such as adding in number of components and voltage balancing problem. In order to overcome these, a seven-level hybrid inverter has been proposed. This topology requires a lesser number of power switches which results in the decrease of multifaceted nature, add up to cost and weight of the inverter. Finally this can be able to generate near sinusoidal voltages and approximately fundamental frequency switching. The simulation and the experimental results of a modified cascaded seven level H bridge inverter with and without LC filter are presented for validation.

KEYWORDS:

1.      Cascaded H-bridge inverter (CHBI)

2.      Seven level hybrid inverter

3.      Asymmetrical DC sources

4.      Total harmonic distortion (THD)

5.      Pulse Width modulation (PWM)

6.      Multi-level Inverter (MLI)

7.      Real time Interface (RTI)

SOFTWARE: MATLAB/SIMULINK

 CONCLUSION:

A modified cascaded seven level H-bridge inverter was fabricated which has the benefit of reduced THD, portability, and cost has compared to normal cascaded H-bridge inverter. Since the topology requires minimum switches, and low-cost real time interfacing device (Arduino) compared DSP, DSPACE, FPGA, etc., the overall expenditure for fabrication reduces. This paper envisages the working of proposed structure. An LC filter is introduced which helps in getting nearer to sinusoidal waveform. The concepts which are projected are verified through simulation and experimental results.

REFERENCES:

[1] E. Babaei and S.Hosseini, “Charge balance control methods for asymmetrical cascade multilevel converters”. In Proc. ICEMS, Seoul, Korea, 2007, pp, 74-79.

[2] K. Wang, Y. Li, Z. Zheng, and L. Xu, “Voltage balancing and

fluctuation suppression methods of floating capacitors in a new modular multilevel converter,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 60, no. 5, pp. 1943–1954,May 2013

[3] J. Napoles, A. J. Watson, and J. J. Padilla, “Selective harmonic mitigation technique for cascaded H-bridge converter with nonequal dc link voltages,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 60, no. 5, pp. 1963–1971, May 2013.

[4] N. Farokhnia, S. H. Fathi, N. Yousefpoor, and M. K. Bakhshizadeh, “Minimisation of total harmonic distortion in a cascaded multilevel inverter by regulating of voltages dc sources,” IET Power Electron., vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 106–114, Jan. 2012.

[5] S. Mekhilef, M. N. Abdul Kadir, and Z. Salam, “Digital control of three phase three-stage hybrid multilevel inverter,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Informat., vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 719–727, May 2013.

 

Performance Analysis of Grid Connected PV/Wind Hybrid Power System during Variations of Environmental Conditions and Load

 ABSTRACT:

This paper investigates a dynamic modeling, simulation and control of Photovoltaic (PV)-wind hybrid system connected to electrical grid and feeds large plant with critical variable loads. The technique of extracting maximum power point is applied for the hybrid power system to capture maximum power under varying climatic conditions. Moreover, Control strategy for power flow is proposed to supply critical load demand of plant. Modeling and simulation of the proposed hybrid system is performed using matlab-Simulink software. The Dynamic performance of the proposed hybrid system is analyzed under different environmental conditions. The simulation results have proven the effectiveness of the proposed maximum power point tracking (MPPT) strategies in response to rapid variations of weather conditions during the day. Moreover, the results show that when the injected power from hybrid system is larger than critical load power, the excess power will be injected to electrical grid. Otherwise, when injected power is lower than critical power demand, electrical utility grid in cooperated with hybrid power system will supply the critical load power. Moreover, when the injected power from hybrid system is unavailable, load demand is entirely fed by electrical utility.

KEYWORDS:

1.      PV

2.      Wind

3.      Hybrid system

4.      MPPT control

5.      DFIG

6.      Load

SOFTWARE: MATLAB/SIMULINK

CONCLUSION:

In this paper, modeling, simulation and control of grid connected photovoltaic-wind hybrid power system have been successfully investigated. The proposed hybrid system consists of two Photovoltaic (PV) stations placed at different locations and one wind farm are integrated into main AC bus and supply large plant with critical variable loads. The incremental conductance MPPT technique is applied for both PV stations to extract maximum power under variations of solar irradiance. Also, an improved MPPT control strategy based on measurement of mechanical power is applied for wind farm to capture the maximum power under changes of wind speed. Moreover, control strategy for power flow is proposed to supply critical load demand of plant. The Dynamic performance of the proposed hybrid system is tested under different environmental conditions such as changes of solar irradiance and wind speed. In addition, the validation of the proposed power flow is evaluated under variation of the critical load demand. The simulation results have proven the robustness of the MPPT control strategies in response to rapid variations in weather conditions during the day. Moreover, the power flow control strategy successfully meets the critical load demand of the plant.

REFERENCES:

[1] R. Benadli and A. Sellami, "Sliding mode control of a photovoltaic-wind hybrid system," in Electrical Sciences and Technologies in Maghreb (CISTEM), 2014 International Conference on, 2014, pp. 1-8.

[2] J. Hossain, N. Sakib, E. Hossain, and R. Bayindir, "Modelling and Simulation of Solar Plant and Storage System: A Step to Microgrid Technology," International Journal of Renewable Energy Research (IJRER), vol. 7, pp. 723-737, 2017.

[3] U. Choi, K. Lee, and F. Blaabjerg, "Power electronics for renewable energy systems: Wind turbine and photovoltaic systems," in Renewable Energy Research and Applications (ICRERA), 2012 International Conference on, 2012, pp. 1-8.

[4] A. B. Oskouei, M. R. Banaei, and M. Sabahi, "Hybrid PV/wind system with quinary asymmetric inverter without increasing DC-link number," Ain Shams Engineering Journal, vol. 7, pp. 579-592, 2016.

[5] H. Laabidi and A. Mami, "Grid connected Wind- Photovoltaic hybrid system," in Energy (IYCE), 2015 5th International Youth Conference on, 2015, pp. 1-8

Integration of Supercapacitor in Photovoltaic Energy Storage: Modelling and Control

 ABSTRACT

Due to the variable characteristics of photovoltaic energy production or the variation of the load, batteries used in storage systems renewable power can undergo many irregular cycles of charge 1 discharge. In turn, this can also have a detrimental effect on the life of the battery and can increase project costs. This paper presents an embedded energy share method between the energy storage system (battery) and the auxiliary energy storage system such as supercapacitors (SC). Supercapacitors are used to improve batteries life and reduce their stresses by providing or absorbing peaks currents as demanded by the load. The photovoltaic cells are connected to DC bus with boost converter and controlled with MPPT  algorithm, Supercapacitors and batteries are linked to the DC bus through the buck-boost converter. The inductive load is connected to the DC bus by a DC-AC converter. The static converters associated with batteries and supercapacitors are controlled by current. The components of the systems are supervised through a block of energy management. The complete model of the system is implemented in MATLAB/Simulink environment. Simulation results are given to show the performance of the proposed control strategy, for the overall system.

KEYWORDS

1.      Photovoltaic

2.      batteries

3.      supercapacitors

4.      DC bus

5.      Energy storage

6.      Energy management

7.      Converters control

SOFTWARE: MATLAB/SIMULINK

CONCLUSION

In this paper, the storage photovoltaic energy by using a combination of Battery-Supercapacitor has been presented. First, the modeling of different components of the system has been addressed. A comparison of different model of SCs is given. Second, a strategy of control and regulation of the DC bus voltage was proposed, to deal with the variation of solar irradiation and/or the variation of the load. This controller gives the better an efficient energy management and ensures continuity of supply by using the methodology that involves a reversible chopper between the batteries and the DC bus and another between the SC and the DC bus to ensure stable voltage on the DC bus of 400V. The three operating scenarios show that the proposed control and management strategies of DC bus are effective and able to supply desired power. It is also shown that SCs can absorb rapid changes in current to reduce the stress on batteries.

REFERENCES

[1] L. Peiwen, "Energy storage is the core of renewable technologies," Nanotechnol. Mag., vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 13-18, Dec. 2008.

[2] Q. Liyan and Q. Wei, "Constant power control of DFTG wind turbines with supercapacitor energy storage," iEEE Trans. Ind. Appl., vol. 47, no. I, pp. 359-367, Jan. 2011.

[3] M. Uzunoglu and M. S. Alam, "Dynamic modeling, design, and simulation of a combined PE M fuel cell and ultracapacitor system for stand-alone residential applications," IEEE Trans. Energy Convers., vol. 21,no. 3,pp. 767-775,Sep. 2006.

[4] B. P. Roberts and C. Sandberg,'The role of energy storage in development of smart grids," Proc. IEEE, vol. 99, no. 6, pp. 1139-1144, June. 2011.

[5] A Khaligh and L. Zhihao, "Battery, ultracapacitor, fuel cell, and hybrid energy storage systems for electric, hybrid electric, fuel cell, and plugin hybrid electric vehicles: State-of-the -art," IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol, vol. 59, no. 6, pp. 2806-2814, Jully. 2010.