Design and development of a smart inverter system

Abstract

The growing interest in the use of solar energy to mitigate climate change, reduction in the cost of PV system and other favourable factors have increased the penetration of the PV(Photovoltaic) systems in the market and increase in the worldwide energy supply. The main component in a DG is a smart inverter connected in a grid-tied mode which serves as a direct interface between the grid and the RES (Renewable Energy System). This research work presents a three phase grid-tied inverter with active and reactive power control capabilities for renewable energy sources (RES) and distributed generators (DG). The type of the inverter to be designed is a Voltage Source Inverter (VSI). The VSI is capable of supplying energy to the utility grid with a well regulated DC link at its input. The solution this project proposes is an implementation of the designed filter to effectively reduce the harmonics injected into the grid to an acceptable value according to standards and also an approach to control the real and reactive power output of the inverters to help solve the problems of instability and power quality of the distribution system. The design, modelling and simulation of the smart inverter system is performed in MATLAB/SIMULINK software environment. A 10 kW three-phase voltage source inverter system connected to the utility grid was considered for this research. Series of simulations for the grid-connected inverter (GCI) model was carried out using different step changes in active and reactive power references which was used to obtain the tracking response of the set power references. The effectiveness of the control system which was designed to track the set references and supply improved power quality with reduced current ripples has been verified from the simulation results obtained.