Proceedings of 2016 IEEE

International Conference on Mechatronics and Automation

August 7 - 10, Harbin, China

An Overview of PV System
Zhiqiang Gao, Song Li, Xuesong Zhou, Youjie Ma
Key Research Laboratory for Control Theory & Applications in Complicated Systems
Tianjin University of Technology
391, Binshui Xidao, Xiqing District, Tianjin, 300384, China
songsong9692@163.com

Abstract –Photovoltaic power generation system (PV system) characteristic of PV module. So it is crucial to figure out the
is a device which changes the solar power into the electricity by maximum power point (MPP). Fig. 1 is the plot of PV power
solar cells and the principle of the solar cells is the use of output versus voltage at different irradiation level at a constant
semiconductor materials electronics characteristics of P-V ambient temperature. Fig.2 is the plot of PV power output
conversion. PV system and its application is a profound research
project, facing the 21st century, which gathers the utilization of
versus voltage at different ambient temperature at a constant
green renewable energy, improve the ecological environment, irradiation.
ameliorate people's living conditions as integral whole will be of
great benefits to economy , politics, coupled with society, and also
contains rich academic studies value and the basic theory issues.
This paper expounds the background and significance of PV
system, discusses the forefront of the technologies which contains
maximum power point tracking, islanding phenomenon, inverter
that PV system is facing and makes a conclusion.

Index Terms - PV system, MPPT, Islanding detection, Inverter

I INTRODUCTION
The traditional energy is mainly composed of fossil fuels.
With the rapid development of China's economy, dwindling Fig.1 PV power characteristic for different irradiation level
fossil fuel reserves which produced major influence on
environmental quality, pollution and climate change are faced
with the danger of exhaustion. In order to realize the
sustainable development of energy, economical society and
environment, we should not only achieve the high-efficiency
production of traditional energy but also exploit and utilize
new energy and renewable energy on a large scale [1].
Electricity is indispensable energy in modern society.
Power sustainable development in the 21st century, has
become the basis of social and economic sustainable
development, and it plays a key role in the balance of energy
economy and environment coordination. PV system, as a
renewable energy power generation technology, is one of the Fig.2 PV power characteristic for different ambient temperature level
most mature of them with the advantages of the scalability in
power, simple installation, small amount of maintenance and The meaning of the MPPT is makes the PV system work
modularization. Photovoltaic industry development earlier in on the MPP, which enable the efficiency of the PV system
America, Japan and Germany have been walking in the highest. The technologies of MPPT include the constant
forefront of the world, while China's photovoltaic industry, voltage tracking (CVT), the perturbation and observation
experienced rapid progress in recent years, has occupied half algorithm (P&O) which is known as the hill climbing (HC)
of the world photovoltaic cell production. The key method, the incremental conductance algorithms (INC), and
technologies of the PV system include two sides: the control Artificial intelligence methods such as fuzzy logic control,
strategy and the power electronics technology. The former neural networks and so on have penetrated into all areas of
includes the MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracking) and the electrical engineering. And recently the optimal voltage
islanding detection. The latter always be used in the PV control (OVC) is being used in MPPT as the latest theory.
system is mainly the inverter. A Constant Voltage Tracking is a voltage control, in fact,
II MAXIMUM POWER POINT TRACKING (MPPT) which fixes the PV cells voltage near the MPP and be with
characteristics of simple to implement, control the voltage
Ambient temperature and solar irradiation decide the stability coupled with high reliability. But constant voltage

978-1-5090-2396-7/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE 587

tracking ignores the influence of temperature with respect to The control procedures cited above are summarized in
voltage which leads to poor MPPT precision when the the Àowchart shown in Fig. 3. The inputs are T, S and V, and
environment (especially the temperature) is changing. sensors can measure these values. The output is the error
Therefore, in practice, it should be based on a different betweenandܸ௣௠௔௫ , which is calculated by (1) with T, S. So
application location to set appropriate voltage, to ensure the control signal for MPPT is the error. In the control process,
optimum power point tracking results. Typically the constant ܸ௣௠௔௫ is constant and T and S are determinate.
voltage method used in combination with other methods. 1) When the error between  and ܸ௣௠௔௫ is large, the
B Perturbation and observation algorithm is through change in the duty cycle is large and reaches MPP rapidly.
constantly disturb working point of PV system to look for the 2) When the error betweenandܸ௣௠௔௫ is medium the
direction of the MPP, namely constantly increase or decrease change in the duty cycle is small to avoid the oscillation of
the output voltage of the PV system. While comparing its nearby MPP.
output power with the disturbance the last step of the PV 3) When the error betweenandܸ௣௠௔௫ is zero, the duty
system to determine the MPP. This control method is simple to cycle is not changed.
achieve high tracking efficiency has less measured parameters
and can effectively improve the utilization of solar energy. The
disadvantage is that the working point only oscillate in the
vicinity of the MPP of photovoltaic cells, if disturbances step
size is small PV systems will work long hours at low output
power state, whereas another might make it fluctuates around
the MPP; Additionally, this method may appear miscarriage of
justice when the environment changes rapidly.
C The incremental conductance achieves the MPPT by
comparing the instantaneous conductance with the incremental
conductance [2]. Photovoltaic cell P-U curve is a single peak
curve. At the MPP there will be݀ܲȀܷ݀ ൌ Ͳ, where P is
battery output power, U is the output voltage of the
photovoltaic cell. If the݀ܲȀܷ݀ ൐ Ͳ, it shows that the system
is working on the left side of the MPP, then the voltage should
be increased. And if the݀ܲȀܷ݀ ൏ Ͳ, it shows that the system
is working on the right side of the MPP, the voltage should be Fig.3 Flowchart for the OVC method control
decreased. Because of ݀ܲȀܷ݀ ൌ ݀ሺܷ‫ܫ‬ሻȀܷ݀ ൌ ‫ ܫ‬൅ ܷ݀‫ܫ‬Ȁ 
ܷ݀ ൌ Ͳ , so by the judgment of ‫ܫ‬Ȁܷ ൅ ݀‫ܫ‬Ȁܷ݀ ൌ Ͳ can
determine whether photovoltaic cells work at the MPP. III ISLANDING DETECTION
Advantage of this method is able to quickly track the
maximum power point changes caused by rapid changes in Islanding is a phenomenon that power grid be interrupted
irradiance and have superior control effect. Similar by electrical malfunction, wrong operation or natural factors,
disadvantages associated with the perturbation observation but the individual client's distributed generation systems (such
method that tracking speed is very fast when step length is as solar power, wind power and fuel cell power generation,
more longer but the opposite one would likely to cause the etc.) fail to detect the power states in time [4]. At this point,
working point to fluctuate around the MPP. distributed power generation systems (DG) evolved an
D The advantages of fuzzy control and tracking are fast, independent system. When it happens the DG and local load
and have good dynamic and static performance. However, the form an uncontrollable and self-sufficient power supply
design aspects depend on the designer's intuition and system. In addition, the main network provides no adjustment
experience mostly. on the voltage and frequency of the island which distributed
E Optimal Voltage control (OVC) is by calculating the power continue to supply power to, this will be bring about
relationship between voltage and the environmental serious damage to electrical equipment and fault detection
parameters and is expressed by the following equations [3]. personnel and also will be affect the system’s automatic
reclosing relay correct operation. There are two ways in
V p max =
1

A'
ª LambertW
¬ (e A'V 'oc +1 + e) - 1º¼ (1) detection of grid power: passive method and active method.
A. The Passive Method
1 § I 'm · Passive islanding detection method is mainly through
A' = ln ¨ 1 - ¸ (2) monitoring the voltage parameters of point of common
V 'm - V 'oc © I 'sc ¹ coupling (PCC) to determine whether the islands occurred.
where Ԣ௦௖ is the short-circuit current; Ԣ௢௖ is the open-circuit Typical passive detection methods include the over/under
voltage; ‫ܫ‬Ԣ௠ is the maximum power point current; and ܸԢ௠ is voltage and over/under frequency detection method, Phase
the maximum power point voltage. All of the parameters are at jump detection, voltage-harmonic detection and rate of change
the nonstandard condition. of frequency detection.

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 Methods of MPPT Advantage of the Method Disadvantage of the Method

Constant Voltage Simple to implement, control the voltage stability coupled with Ignores the influence of temperature with respect to voltage
Tracking high reliability which leads to poor MPPT precision when the environment
(especially the temperature) is changing.

Perturbation and Simple structure, less measured parameters, easy to implement, steps choice will affect the speed of tracking, rapid changes
observation algorithm more improvement and optimization methods in the environment will cause power loss

The incremental By modifying the predicate logic reduces the oscillation Some difficulties in the choice of threshold and step
conductance method

Simple implementation, high tracking precision and global Only applies to single peak circuit. For multiple peak

Optimal Voltage control without shock. Minimize the error brought by the sensor detection circuit, it tracks the effect will be affected.
and reduce the cost. Modular and plug and play of the MPPT
controller design.
Table 1 Advantages and disadvantages of different kinds of MPPT methods

1) Over/under voltage and over/under frequency 3) Voltage-harmonic detection: Voltage-Harmonic

detection method: When Islanding occurs PV system output detection is When PV system is disconnect from the grid,
power does not match with load power, then the change of since the impedance of the load is relatively much larger, PCC
voltage amplitude and frequency of PCC will exceed setting voltage harmonics will be great. Thus, by detecting the change
threshold, at the same time the protection circuit will detect in voltage harmonics or harmonics of PCC can determine
the occurrence of an island, and make the appropriate action. whether it is an island state. The advantage of this method is
It has simple algorithm, easy implement and better prediction that wide range of islanding detection can apply to more than
results in large difference between PV system and load, but one inverter. The disadvantage is that the impact of nonlinear
when PV system approach to load as well as the change in system load and other factors will lead to the problem that the
voltage and frequency is small it will get poor test result [5]. operation threshold value is difficult to determine [6].
Over/under voltage and over/under frequency detection 4) Rate of change of frequency detection (ROCOF):
method is shown in the Fig.4. When islanding occurs, the rate of change of voltage
frequency in PCC is changing rapidly, however, DG capacity
is small, so within a certain period of time, it is judged islands
occur when the rate of change of voltage frequency exceeds a
predetermined value. But the drawback is difficult to
determine the threshold of rate of change of frequency [7].
B. Active Detection Method
Active islanding detection method is to inject small
perturbation into grid by PV system controller, then based on
the response to this small disturbance to detect whether island
Fig.4 PV system power flow diagram occur. Active islanding detection method includes Current
amplitude perturbation, Active frequency drift (AFD), Active
2) Phase jump detection (PJD): PJD which is shown in frequency drift with positive feedback(AFDPF), 2N-periodic
the Fig.5 measures the phase of voltage of PCC and current of current disturbance method, Slip mode frequency shift(SMS),
inverter to determine whether island occur, however, when Automatic phase-shift method(APS), Impedance detection
power system load is approximate resistive load, due to method, The disturbance of reactive power method.
restrictions set by the threshold, the test will fail. 1) Current amplitude perturbation: In the method, a tiny
perturbation is added into the given current waveform. When
the power supply, inverter detect the voltage of PCC is the grid
voltage and the perturbation current can’t affect the fluctuation
of grid voltage, but when the power is off, load impedance and
the inverter output current determine the PCC voltage, so we
can according to the PCC voltage follows the changes of
current disturbance to determine the islanding phenomenon.
2) Active frequency drift: Active frequency shift is a
common output frequency disturbances islanding detection
Fig.5 Phase jump detection method method. This method makes a certain difference value by

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controlling the frequency of the inverter output current from
PCC voltage frequency. Thus there is the time difference
between the waveform of them. We called T. In normal
operation, the ratio of the grid voltage and T is constant. When
occurs islands, PCC voltage frequency mutations, due to the
phase-locked loop, in order to maintain the ratio of the grid
voltage constant cycle, the inverter output current increasing
frequency until the circuit break protection action threshold,
islanding is detected [8]. This method is shown in the Fig.6.

Fig.7 2N-periodic current disturbance method

5) Slip mode frequency shift: If the inverter connects with

grid, the phase difference between the voltage and the current
in the PCC will change, it follows the changing of the
frequency. When the power of the grid is off, the changing of
the phase difference will make the frequency of PCC out of
the range the grid allowed which make the islanding detected
[10].
6) Automatic phase-shift method: It is improved method
of SMS and it can be expressed in the following equations
Fig.6 The waveform of inverter current and PCC voltage in active frequency [11].
drift method
ªπ f (k -1) -50º
θ(k) = θM sin
3) Active frequency drift with positive feedback [9]: In «¬ 2 50 »¼ +θ0(k) (5)
order to decrease the non-detection zone and response time of
AFD, active frequency drift with positive feedback gives an θ0 (k) = θ0 (k − 1) + Δθ F(Δf ) (6)
equation (3)
whereɅሺሻ is initiate phase angle of inverter output current.
C f (k ) = C f (k −1) + C f 0 F (Δf ) (3) ߠெ is maximum shifting-phase angle. ˆሺ െ ͳሻ is frequency
where ‫ܥ‬௙  is an coefficient of frequency deviation with of last cycle. ߠ଴ ሺ݇ሻ is extra shifting-phase angle. οɅis a
positive feedback, ‫ܥ‬௙଴ is a constant, ሺοˆሻ is frequency constant. ሺοˆሻis a function of adjacent frequency difference
difference in adjacent cycle which expressed by equation (4) οˆ.
In the state of island, when the voltage frequency in PCC
­1 Δf > 0 increases, ߠ଴ ሺ݇ሻhave an additional phase angle οɅand this
° will break the balance point of the system. Due to the load
F(Δf ) = ®0 Δf = 0 phase angle is proportional to the frequency, in the process of
(4)
°̄−1 Δf < 0 reaching new balance point, the output current frequency of
the system increases constantly, and this will let the ߠ଴ ሺ݇ሻ
It is an improved method of AFD. Compared with AFD, increase periodically. Finally, the frequency will exceed the
it can not only accelerate the frequency offset, but also can upper limit value and the islanding is detected.
reduce the chopper coefficient which exists in the case of a 7) Impedance detection method: Usually we can
negative change of the frequency, which means that the according to formula (8) to disturb the inverter output current,
detection blind area is smaller. At the same time, the positive then detect value-size of ݀‫ݒ‬Τ݀݅which is the differential of
feedback effect will be more obvious when the multiple PCC voltage and the inverter output current to judge whether
inverters with AFDPF algorithm are run in parallel. the islanding phenomenon.
4) 2N-periodic current disturbance method: Based on the
i = Im sin(wt +θDG) (8)
advantages of use the AFD method to realize multi inverters
parallel operation, we can design an islanding detection where ߠ஽ீ is disturbance angle.
method that which injects a current disturbance only in the 2N The method changes injection of the active power and
voltage cycle. This method can solve the problem of reactive power, but the essence of the method is determinate
non-detection zone which exists in AFD. The crucial principle the impedance level of grid connected inverter system. When
of this method is according to the frequency difference, in the power of the grid is off, current disturbance makes the
PCC voltage adjacent cycle, which is continuously alternative system impedance change, and the islanding phenomenon
change to identify the islanding. 2N-periodic current occurs only if the impedance level is greater than the set
disturbance method is expressed in Fig.7. threshold value [12].

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 8) The disturbance of reactive power method: This and due to the PV arrays and grid is not isolated, the PV
method detects island phenomenon by monitoring the changes system will inject the DC component into the grid which will
of reactive power of inverter output [13]. When the system do harm to the operation of the devices in the grid. Two kinds
enters the state of the island, the reactive power of inverter and of structure of inverter were shown in Fig.9.
reactive power of load demand does not match, so the
amplitude and frequency of load voltage will change. Because
at the certain amplitude and frequency of voltage, the reactive
power required by the load is fixed. Thus when the inverter
output reactive power changes, it avoids the matching of both
reactive powers, simultaneously, the load voltage amplitude
and frequency exist at a new offset and when the new value
exceeds the threshold, the island phenomenon occurs.
IV GRID-CONNECTED INVERTER
Fig.9 Non-isolation structure of photovoltaic grid inverter
A. The Structure of the Inverter
Power frequency isolated photovoltaic grid-connected
inverter [14] which is shown in Fig.8 (a). First of all, it inverts B. The Topology of Grid -connected Inverter
DC into low voltage AC and then through the power Single-stage non-isolated photovoltaic grid-connected
frequency transformer booster set up low voltage AC in AC of inverter based on Z source network with the advantage that
220V/50HZ for the use of the load. It has the advantage of AC has a large output range. The reason why this inverter has
simple structure, and at low voltage can realize various a unique characteristic is that the same bridge arm of the two
protection functions. Because there are power frequency tubes can be turned on simultaneously. It is shown in Fig.10.
transformer booster between the inverter and the load, the
inverter operation is stable and reliable and has strong load
capacity and impact resistance. In addition, it can suppress the
high harmonic component of the waveform. However, there
are also many problems such as bulky and expensive
equipment. To solve these problems, researchers design
high-frequency isolated photovoltaic grid-connected inverter
which utilizes the technologies of DC-DC converter,
high-frequency transformer and high frequency rectifier filter
circuit, by inverting DC into power frequency AC of 220V
frequency inverter circuit. It is shown in Fig.8 (b). Since the Fig.10 Single-stage non-isolated photovoltaic grid-connected inverter based
high-frequency inverter is used in lightweight, high-frequency on Z source network
core materials which greatly improve the power density of the
circuit, the no-load loss is small, the inverter efficiency is Another topology is multilevel non-isolated photovoltaic
improved. grid-connected inverter of dual-mode boost [15] which is
shown in Fig.11. The advantage of this topology is that the
two-stage working at high frequency asynchronous lead to the
total switching frequency reduce; The bypass diode ௛
makes the system work at full-bridge inverter mode and the
output current directly through ௛ can greatly reduce
system losses. Thus, it increases the conversion efficiency and
equipment size and quality of the system are correspondingly
reduced. The disadvantage is the PV arrays and grid is not
isolated, the PV system will inject the DC component to the
grid, which will do harm to the operation of the devices in the
Fig.8 Isolation structure of photovoltaic grid inverter
grid.
Single-stage non-isolated photovoltaic grid-connected
inverter requires the inverter working in the frequency mode.
Meanwhile, in order to make the DC can directly to connect
the power grid, the photovoltaic arrays need higher voltage
level to put forward a higher requirements of the insulation
level of the system. When comes to Multilevel non-isolated
photovoltaic grid inverters, there are many questions should be
noticed. For example, between the large-area photovoltaic
arrays and the earth where there exist distributed capacitance, Fig.11 Multilevel non-isolated photovoltaic grid-connected inverter of
dual-mode boost

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 V. CONCLUSIONS [15] Mcinhardt M, Craner G, Multi-string-converter with reduce specific cost
and enhanced functionality [J]. Solar Energy, 2001,69:217-227.
This paper discusses the background and necessity to
develop the PV system, introduces four maximum power point
tracking algorithms and compares the advantages and
disadvantages of them, summarizes eight island detection
methods and their basic principle is analyzed. In addition, the
key technologies of inverter are analyzed as well. From what
have discussed above, we can believe that more and more
countries and companies will join the group to develop PV
system. The research of the key technologies of the PV system
is the important driving force for sustainable development of
the PV system.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank the reviewers for their
very helpful comments and suggestions which have improved
the presentation of the paper. The work of Li Song was
supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of
China (50877053) and Tianjin Science and Technology
Program of China (12ZCZDGX04300).
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