Received: 20 June 2020 Revised: 28 September 2020 Accepted: 27 October 2020 IET Generation, Transmission & Distribution

DOI: 10.1049/gtd2.12066

ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

An improved low-voltage ride-through (LVRT) strategy

for PV-based grid connected inverter using instantaneous
power theory

Soubhik Bagchi1 Debashis Chatterjee2 Rupam Bhaduri3 Pabitra Kumar Biswas4

1
Department of Electrical Engineering, Budge Abstract
Budge Institute of Technology, Kolkata, India
This paper presents a low-voltage ride-through technique for large-scale grid tied photo-
2
Department of Electrical Engineering, Jadavpur voltaic converters using instantaneous power theory. The control strategy, based on instan-
University, Kolkata, India
taneous power theory, can directly calculate the active and reactive component of currents
3
Department of Electrical and Electronics using measured grid voltage and currents and generate inverter switching pulses based on
Engineering, Dayananda Sagar Advanced
Technology and Management, Bangalore, India the formulated reference current values and thus helping to improve the dynamic response
4
when voltage sag takes place. The dynamic response of the proposed model has been com-
Department of Electrical and Electronics
Engineering, National Institute of Technology, pared with both proportional-integral and fuzzy current controllers to judge their suitabil-
Mizoram, India ity. The proposed strategy can provide both active and reactive power support dynamically
during grid side fault. The proposed active reactive current control based technique shows
Correspondence better dynamic response compared to existing techniques. The proposed method is tested
Soubhik Bagchi, Department of Electrical Engineer-
ing, Budge Budge Institute of Technology, Kolkata, through appropriate simulation on a practical system to show the effectiveness of the pro-
India. posed control method.
Email: soubhik.bagchi91@gmail.com

1 INTRODUCTION and current limitation are the major aspects for grid-connected
voltage source converter during any kind of disturbance of the
Renewable energy based DG systems are becoming increas- system. Active power reduction method, peak current limiting
ingly popular for electric power generation in the recent past. method and formation of three current references have been
Among all, solar photovoltaic (PV) and wind turbines have cur- implemented during symmetrical and asymmetrical grid fault to
rently become the strongest pillar for electric power generation overcome over voltage, over current and also to permit reliable
as a replacement of conventional methods. Thus, interconnec- operation [3, 4]. Reactive power injection for voltage support
tion between large-scale PV plants and electric power grid via during grid faults or voltage sag is essential as evident from the
voltage source inverters has been widely employed to meet the V–I characteristics wherein reactive current is supplied to the
load power demand. Disconnection or standalone operation of system by contributing at least 2% of rated current as per each
these plants during faults or voltage sag situation is always not 1% deviation of voltage provided the voltage sags exceeds 10%
possible from the point of view of smooth operation, stabil- of line to line voltage [5]. Several difficulties of low-voltage
ity and reliability of the power system. In view of the above- ride-through (LVRT) operation for current source inverter have
mentioned difficulties, several countries such as Italy, Germany, been investigated and improvised topologies such as modified
Denmark, Spain and US-FERC have revised their grid codes for maximum power point tracking (MPPT), addition of buck
grid-connected PV system. chopper have been applied to control dc-link current which can
These grid codes ensure the availability, quality and reliability suppress grid voltage drop [6]. Grid interfacing and inverter
of grid-connected PV system during faults or voltage sag [1]. control are two major aspects for grid-connected PV system.
By keeping in mind the standard grid codes of each country, the Generally, inverter and grid are interfaced via a phase-locked
capability of reactive power control must be incorporated in a loop which is operated in relatively low bandwidth but such
large scale PV system to supply the reactive power demand dur- practice causes delay to detect the fault. Nonlinear phase-locked
ing faults and voltage sags [2]. Power quality, fault management loop based on the complex-coefficient filter with adaptive

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properly cited.
© 2020 The Authors. IET Generation, Transmission & Distribution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of The Institution of Engineering and Technology

IET Gener. Transm. Distrib. 2021;15:883–893. wileyonlinelibrary.com/iet-gtd 883

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884 BAGCHI ET AL.

controller gain has been proposed to accelerate the capability is shown in [30] to calculate current reference based on dq-frame
of filtering and also to enhance the dynamic performance for three-level neutral-point clamped inverters (3L-NPC) result-
of phase-locked loop [7]. Integration of high penetrated PV ing better ride-through capability during voltage sag situations.
systems is becoming more decentralised and vulnerable day by A control scheme based on positive and negative sequence
day. For these reasons, the controllers of PV systems have to with lower voltage stress on inverter devices and dc-link capaci-
be more controllable, intelligent and cost effective. A flexible tor minimizing the AC side current harmonics is described in
controller based on PQ theory has been developed to verify its [31]. An improved control strategy with decoupled reference
effectiveness and flexibility [8]. Feed forward compensation for grid current for the grid current controller to accelerate the
reactive current injection into dc-link and active power control dynamic response of the grid-connected inverter is shown in
to provide power balance between the both sides of converter [32]. Detailed design with fuzzy controller including the proce-
have been discussed to provide grid support and enhancement dure to form fuzzy rules has been discussed for the application
of LVRT capability [9]. PV controllers have been optimally of PV inverter [33]. A current control strategy incorporating
tuned by the application of slap swarm algorithm (SSA) to FLC has been carried out for grid-connected PV system to con-
ensure the enhancement of LVRT in order to the percentage trol the inverter [34]. Fuzzy logic based MPPT algorithm along
undershoots or overshoots, settling time and steady state error with PI current regulator is proposed in [35] to track maximum
of voltage response. A proportional-integral (PI) based open power point during rapid change of atmosphere or during fast
fractional voltage control and cascade voltage control has been transient. Comparison of PI and fuzzy controller during zero
implemented here to design the controller where the fitness power flow condition between grid and local network with a PV
function is optimised by using SSA [10]. An alternative control system is shown in [36]. Recurrent wavelet fuzzy neural network
strategy based on synchronously reference frame phased-locked (RWFNN) is proposed to replace traditional PI controller which
loop (SRF-PLL) has been implemented and verified to show helps to track the controlling performance of the active and
efficient control of the inverter for grid-connected solar pho- reactive powers under grid faults for the weak grid conditions
tovoltaic system [11]. To continue the operation of grid-tied [37]. However, all the above-mentioned literature emphasise on
renewable system, it is necessary to detect the voltage sag during the controlling operation for LVRT through several topologies
any type of fault condition. Maximum point tracking and zero where different types of inverter (i.e. 3L-NPC, four leg inverter,
point tracking algorithm have been proposed to detect voltage etc.) have been used along with suitable filters. Besides, all the
variation with accuracy along with filtering out the low-order inverter control topologies also focused on the reduction of
voltage harmonics [12]. Besides the incremental impedance PV inverter current and dc-link over voltage by means of reac-
method has been used based on existing PQ measure point tive power injection. But no published paper so far deals with
for finding out the location of voltage sag [13]. Concerning the the dynamic response improvement from the fault inception to
stability of single stage grid-connected PV system; modified fault clearance. Moreover appropriate reactive power injection
incremental conductance MPPT method has been implemented principle under LVRT operation has not been adequately dis-
by reducing the step length of output power reference in the cussed in the existing literature.
system. This method improves the stability of the system as well The proposed method utilises IPT for appropriate injec-
as enhanced the steady state accuracy of the method [14]. Filter tion of reactive power under the LVRT operation of the grid-
design is one of the major concern criteria to restrict harmonic connected PV system. The proposed method reduces the size
injection to the grid. The electromagnetic decoupling model of the filter requirement which also has a cost impact. More-
of transformer integrated filtering system has been introduced over, the proposed method shows better dynamic performance
in [15] for this purpose to improve the power quality with low compared to the existing technology. The novel control strategy
transformer loss. Novel controllable inductive power filtering combining with PI-IPT and fuzzy-IPT has been developed and
method based on magnetic potential balance theory combining implemented on a practical system which results in the faster
with the hybrid active filtering technology to improve the power response of the system to clear the faults. This paper has been
quality with better efficiency of industrial dc supply system has organized as:
been demonstrated [16, 17]. In [18], the estimation of real-time
filter output and key parameters identification is shown for 1. In Sections 1 and 2, a background review has been provided
grid supporting inverters where the extended Kalman filter followed by grid code and LVRT requirement as well as con-
helps to derive the parameters by using discrete state-space trol strategy and PQ theory.
representation of dynamic systems. 2. In Section 3, the proposed grid-connected PV system, the
Several countries are having their own grid codes to miti- details of PV modelling incorporating with MPPT algorithm
gate the reactive power demand and maintain the hassle-free have been discussed.
LVRT operation of grid-connected PV system during fault or 3. In Sections 4 and 5, the mathematical modelling of proposed
voltage sag situations. Several control strategies such as droop PI and fuzzy logic based control strategy using IPT have
control, robust control, d-q control, PQ control, etc. have been been formulated and implemented to show the enhancement
implemented and verified with PI and fuzzy logic controllers of low-voltage ride-through as soon as voltage sag takes
(FLCs) for LVRT operation [19–23]. A concept with a math- place.
ematical explanation on instantaneous power theory (IPT) has 4. In Section 6 and 7, the subsequent results, the summery
been described including several examples in [29]. An algorithm report, comparison and conclusion have been discussed.
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BAGCHI ET AL. 885

FIGURE 1 LVRT requirement for PV penetration in Malaysian grid code

FIGURE 2 System modelling of a grid connected PV system

2 GRID CODE AND LVRT verter along with a step up transformer. The voltage source
REQUIREMENT converter is operated through P & O algorithm to extract the
maximum power output from the PV source.
In this paper, we are considering Malaysian grid code which is A dc-link capacitor is used across the PV output to make
shown in Figure 1. It is seen that PV plant must be connected to smooth the PV output voltage. An R-L filter is connected to
the grid in the connection area to avoid power loss and also must the low voltage side of ac grid to minimize the distortion and a
not be disconnected up to 150 ms even if the line voltage drops delta/star step up transformer is connected to the distribution
to 0% of its nominal value. Accordingly, voltage must be recov- side. Table 1 represents the value of the parameters used in the
ered up to 90% from its pre-fault value within 1.5 s from the proposed system.
occurrence of faults or voltage sag. Moreover, the grid support The following Figure 3 shows the per phase equivalent circuit
must be provided by the PV system by injecting reactive power of the proposed system consisting with dc/ac voltage source
as per the standardization to keep the voltage source inverter in inverter [28]:
operation [24].
TABLE 1 Parameters of the proposed system
3 SYSTEM DESCRIPTION AND Specifications Values
MODELLING
Grid voltage Vg = 33 kV

3.1 Modelling of grid-connected PV system DC-link voltage Vdc = 800 V

DC-link capacitor Cdc = 0.2130 F
The grid-connected PV system configuration is shown in Fig- Grid frequency 50 Hz
ure 2. It consists of a PV source, a dc/ac voltage source con- Transformer 0.4/33 kV, 50 Hz
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886 BAGCHI ET AL.

FIGURE 4 Equivalent circuit of solar cell

FIGURE 3 Per phase equivalent circuit of proposed system

TABLE 2 Parameters of the voltage source inverter where Vpv = output voltage of solar cell, I pv = output current of
solar cell, Is = total diffusion current through the PN junction,
Specifications Values
k = Boltzmann constant, T = temperature in Kelvin, Rse =
R filter of the inverter 0.1165 Ω series resistance of the cell, Rsh = shunt resistance of the cell
L filter of the inverter 0.1 mH and n = diode quality factor.
Switching frequency of the inverter 2 kHz
Vm + RseoIm − Voc
n=q
⎧ ⎫
From Figure 3, ⎪ ( Vm
) (
Voc
)
I ⎪
kT ⎨ln Isc − − Im − ln Isc − + (m )⎬
Rsho Rsh Voc
⎪ Isc −
Rsho ⎪
E∠𝛿 − Vg ∠0 E Vg ⎩ ⎭
I = = ∠ (𝛿 − 𝜃 ) − ∠ − 𝜃. (1)
Z ∠𝜃 Z Z (5)

Hence, Grid side active and reactive power are given by where Vm is the maximum output voltage of solar cell, Im is
( 2
) the maximum output current of solar cell,Voc is the open cir-
( ) EVg Vg cuit voltage of solar cell, Isc is the short circuit current of solar
P = Re Vg I ∗ = cos𝛿 −
Z Z cell, Rseo is the open circuit series resistance of the cell and Rsho
is the open circuit shunt resistance of the cell
EVg
cos𝜃 + sin𝛿 sin𝜃 (2) ( ) ( )
Z qVoc qRse Isc Voc + Rse Isc
Isc = I0 exp − exp + (6)
nkT nkT Rsh
( ) ( ) ( )
( ) EVg Vg 2 R qRse Isc
Q = Im Vg I ∗ = cos𝛿 − I ph = Isc 1 + se + I0 exp −1 (7)
Z Z Rsh nkT
( ) ( )
EVg Voc qVoc
sin𝜃 − sin𝛿 cos𝜃 (3) I0 = Isc − exp − (8)
Z Rsh nkT
( )
where 𝛿 is the power angle, i.e. phase angle between output nkT qVoc
voltage of the inverter, E∠𝛿 and ac grid voltage,Vg ∠0, Z ∠𝜃 = Rse = Rseo − exp − (9)
qI0 nkT
Req + j Xeq is the output impedance. As the R-L filter, trans-
former and grid parameters are in series, Req and Xeq are indi- Rsh = Rsho. (10)
cated the equivalent resistance and inductance of the proposed
system. The inverter parameters have been provided in Table 2. The parameters which have been applied in the proposed sys-
tem of PV cell are given in Table 3
In the proposed grid-connected PV system 235 strings have
3.2 Modelling of PV system been used along with 16 series module. The maximum cur-
rent, voltage and dc output power of the system are 8.04 × 235
Quick changing of solar irradiation level has a significant impact = 1889.4 A, 49.78 × 16 = 796.48 V and 1889.4 × 796.48 =
on PV output than the temperature which generally changes 1504869.31 W = 1.5 MW (approx.) respectively, whereas open
quite slowly throughout the day. The equivalent circuit of the circuit voltage and short circuit current are 60 × 16 = 960 V
PV cell is shown in Figure 4 and it has been illustrated through and 8.56 × 235 = 2011.6 A. Also, the dc-link voltage is kept
the following equations [25–27]: at 800 V which is nearer to the maximum power point out-
[ { } ] put voltage of the PV module. The theoretical results have
(Vpv + Rse I pv ) Vpv + Rse I pv been verified with MATLAB/SIMULINK model of the pro-
I pv = I ph − I0 exp q −1 −
nkT Rsh posed PV array and indicated by graphical representation in
(4) Figure 5.
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BAGCHI ET AL. 887

TABLE 3 Parameters of PV cell A voltage vector ⃗v and current vector ⃗i are represented as
Specifications Values follows [28]:
Maximum power (Pmax ) 400 W
⃗v = v𝛼 + j v𝛽 (13)
Maximum power point voltage (Vmpp ) 49.78 V
Maximum power point current (Impp ) 8.04 A
and
Open circuit voltage (Voc ) 60 V
Short circuit current (Isc ) 8.56 A ⃗i = i𝛼 + j i𝛽 . (14)
Cell number per module (Ncell) 96
Temperature coefficient of short circuit current (αi ) 0.043◦ C So, three-phase complex power is as follows:
Temperature coefficient of open circuit voltage (αv ) –0.367◦ C ( )( )
Series resistance (Rse ) 389.9 Ω
s = ⃗v ⃗i ∗ = v𝛼 + j v𝛽 i𝛼 − j i𝛽 . (15)
Parallel resistance (Rsh ) 0.33 Ω
So, instantaneous power,
Ideally factor of diode (n) 1.02
[ ] [ ][ ]
p v v𝛽 i𝛼
= 𝛼 . (16)
q v𝛽 −v𝛼 i𝛽

Substituting Va , Vb , Vc in equation no (11), thus we get

[ ] √ [ ]
V𝛼 3 sin 𝜔t
= V . (17)
V𝛽 2 m − cos 𝜔t

In this paper, a novel control strategy has been introduced by

extracting active and reactive current based on IPT. The block
diagram of this type of inverter control strategy is given in Fig-
ure 6.
So, substituting equation (17) into equation (16), we get
√ √
[ ] ⎡ [ ]
Vm cos 𝜔t ⎤ i𝛼
3 3
p Vm sin 𝜔t −
= ⎢ √23 √2 ⎥ . (18)
q ⎢− Vm cos 𝜔t −
3
Vm sin 𝜔t ⎥⎦ i𝛽
FIGURE 5 Characteristics curve of proposed PV module ⎣ 2 2

√
2
Multiplying both side of equation (18) by √ and replace
3Vm
p q
4 MODELLING OF PROPOSED with √ = i p and √ = iq , then
3v 3v
CONTROL STRATEGY BASED ON IPT
(PQ THEORY) √ [ ] [ ][ ]
2 p sin 𝜔t − cos 𝜔t i𝛼
√ = . (19)
IPT deals on the basis of instantaneous values of active and reac- 3 Vm q − cos 𝜔t − sin 𝜔t i𝛽
tive power. As per the theory, initially, three-phase grid voltage
and current have been transformed to α-β coordinate by using √ p q
Now, replace Vm = 2 v, √ = i p and √ = iq , then
Clark transformation to get the voltage and current vectors, i.e. 3v 3v
vα , vβ , iα , iβ , respectively. Then these vectors are used to calculate
instantaneous active and reactive power. The Clark transforma- i p = i𝛼 sin𝜔t − i𝛽 cos𝜔t (20)
tion has been shown by equation (11) and (12)
iq = −i𝛼 cos𝜔t − i𝛽 sin𝜔t . (21)
[ ] √ [ ] ⎡Va ⎤
v𝛼 2 1 −1∕2
√ −1∕2
√ ⎢Vb ⎥ These active and reactive currents have been compared with
= (11)
v𝛽 3 0 3∕2 − 3∕2 ⎢V ⎥ active (ip * ) and reactive (iq * ) current references and passed
⎣ c⎦
through the proportional integral (PI) controller to decom-
[ ] √ [ ] ⎡ Ia ⎤ pose vp * and vq * . These voltages have been further trans-
i𝛼 2 1 −1∕2
√ −1∕2
√ ⎢ Ib ⎥ .
= (12) formed to three-phase voltage, i.e. pq-αβ-abc and it is sent
i𝛽 3 0 3∕2 − 3∕2 ⎢V ⎥ via PWM signal generator to generate switching pulse of
⎣ c⎦
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888 BAGCHI ET AL.

FIGURE 6 Block diagram of inverter control scheme based on IPT

TABLE 4 Control parameters of VSI TABLE 5 Operating mode of dc/ac converter

Specifications Values Values Operating mode

PI of internal current loop Kp = 0.1, Ki = 100 ip = Positive, iq = 0

* * Inverter
ip * = Negative, iq * = 0 Rectifier
ip ≠ Negative, iq ≠ 0
* * Two way control as per value
the inverter
v𝛼 = v ∗p sin𝜔t − vq∗ cos𝜔t (22)
reactive current is zero. But as soon as the fault occurs, volt-
v𝛽 = −v ∗p cos𝜔t − vq∗ sin𝜔t (23)
age sag takes place and the amount of reactive current depends
on the present grid voltage magnitude while the inverter should
⎡Va ⎤ ⎡ 1 √ 0 ⎤ [v ] inject sufficient reactive current to the grid. By considering the
⎢Vb ⎥ = ⎢−1∕2 ⎥ 𝛼
⎢ ⎥ ⎢ √3∕2 ⎥ v𝛽 . (24) severity of the fault, the ratio of injected reactive current to the
⎣Vc ⎦ ⎣−1∕2 − 3∕2⎦ nominal current is given below:

Mathematical model of three-phase dc/ac converter’s has ⎧ iq = 0, Vgp > 0.9Vgn

⎪ V
⎨iq = −2 Vgn + 2, 0.9Vgn ≥ Vgp > 0.5Vgn
been expressed as follows: (26)
⎪ iq = 1, Vgp ≤ 0.5Vgn
⎡ d ip ⎤ [ ] [ ] [ ] ⎩
R
⎢ ddti ⎥ = 1 d p Vdc − eq i p − 1 v p (25)
⎢ q ⎥ Leq dq Leq iq Leq vq where Vg p and Vgn refer to the magnitude of present voltage
⎣ dt ⎦ during fault and the normal grid voltage, respectively. So, the
reference value of reactive current and maximum allowable ref-
where Rg and Lg are the grid side resistance and inductance
erence active current during fault is defined as:
respectively. Vdc is the output voltage of the PV panel. dp and
dq are the duty cycles of p-q components of converter switch. iq∗ = In × iq (27)
Table 4 represents the required proportional and integral gain
√
of current control loop used for designing the control structure
i p∗ = In × 1 − iq2 (28)
of the inverter.
The voltage at point of common coupling (PCC) drops dur-
where In refers to the normal value of inverter rated current.
ing the fault, the inverter must be switched into LVRT operation
Now, as per Figure 6, the operation mode of the converter is
immediately. As the consequence of fault, the imbalanced power
depending upon the values of ip * and iq * which is shown in
of both PV and grid causes transient in dc side voltage and ac
Table 5.
side current. To protect the power electronic devices, the men-
tioned proposed control strategy based on IPT is applied and it
is ensured the sufficient decrement of over voltage and over cur- 5 MODELLING OF RULE-BASED FLC
rent which will lead the PV plant stay connected as requirement
of LVRT operation. Conventional controllers are based on mathematical modelling
The proposed control strategy helps to inject appropriate whereas FLC is based on the concept of interface engine. FLC
reactive power based on the severity of the fault to support the controller is used as an intelligent controller which avails the
grid voltage which is essential during LVRT operation. When concept of fuzzy set theory, IF–THEN rules, linguistic variables
the magnitude of grid voltage is between 0.9 and 1.1 p.u., the and decision making.
system is operated in normal mode and inverter injects only The proposed controller which is shown in Figure 7 begins
active current to the grid and consequently the requirement of by retrieving the latest values of active and reactive current [i p (t )
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BAGCHI ET AL. 889

FIGURE 7 Proposed fuzzy controller. (a) Extraction of active voltage reference. (b) Extraction of reactive voltage reference

TABLE 6 Fuzzy control rules

Error

Rate of change of error NB NM ZE PM PB

NB PB PB PB PB PB FIGURE 8 MPP voltage extraction using P & O algorithm

NM PB PB PB PB PM
ZE PB PB PB PM ZE This algorithm is very simple in use by measuring voltage and
PM PB PB PM ZE ZE current of PV panel and also it is worked efficiently during the
PB PB PM ZE ZE ZE slow changes of irradiation. Figure 8 indicates the block diagram
of P & O application technique to track the maximum power
point.
and iq (t )] and compare with the reference values of active and
reactive current [i p∗ (t ) and iq∗ (t )] respectively which generates the
error, i.e. Δiq (t ) and Δiq (t ) 6.2 Normal operating condition

Δi p (t ) = i p∗ (t ) − i p (t ) (29) During normal operating condition the inverter works smoothly

but as soon as the fault occurs and the voltage at PCC drops sig-
d Δi p (t ) nificantly then the inverter must be work in LVRT mode. The
= Δi p (t ) − Δi p (t − 1 ) (30)
dt graphical representation of PV side and grid side voltage, cur-
Δiq (t ) = iq∗ (t ) − iq (t ) (31) rent and power are shown in Figures 9 and 10.
d Δiq (t )
= Δiq (t ) − Δiq (t − 1 ) . (32) 6.3 LVRT operation
dt

Each FLC contains two input variables (error and change of At LVRT mode, the system becomes imbalance and transient
error) and one output variable. The two input variables have five occurs in the dc side voltage and ac side current. Here, the
triangular membership functions, i.e. negative big (NB), nega- proposed PI and fuzzy-based novel control strategy using IPT
tive medium (NM), zero (ZE), positive medium (PM) and posi- ensures that the PV power plant can stay connected during a
tive big (PB) with the range of –1 to +1 whereas output variable fault condition and both the over voltage and over current will
has three triangular membership functions, i.e. zero (ZE), posi- die out by keep in mind the Malaysian grid code. When the
tive medium (PM) and positive big (PB) with the range of 0 to amplitude of grid voltage is between 90% and 110% of rated
+1. The set of knowledge base control rules are obtained as per voltage as per standard grid code, the system is running in nor-
the behaviour of the proposed system and it is given in Table 6. mal operating mode. But when the grid voltage deviates from
its limit, the system switches to LVRT operating mode. Dur-
ing faults or voltage sag, it is important to set the reference of
6 SIMULATION RESULTS reactive current such that the inverter can inject sufficient active
power to recover the voltage as per LVRT requirement. For the
6.1 Maximum power point tracking proposed control technique, the reactive current is set at zero.
As per LVRT requirement, the graphical representations of
The most commonly used MPPT algorithm, i.e. perturbation PV side voltage and power, grid side active and reactive power
and observation (P & O) algorithm has been used in the pro- and the analysis of inverter control during a symmetrical and
posed system to extract maximum power from the PV module. asymmetrical fault in the grid side have been shown here.
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890 BAGCHI ET AL.

FIGURE 9 PV output of the proposed system. (a) Maximum output of dc voltage. (b) Maximum output of dc current (c) Maximum output of dc power

6.3.1 Normal operating condition

FIGURE 10 Normal operation. (a) PV side voltage and power. (b) Grid side active and reactive power. (c) Required active (ip ) and reactive (iq ) current injection
for inverter control

6.3.2 LVRT operating during three-phase (L-L-L) fault and line to line (L-L) fault

FIGURE 11 PV side voltage and power during L-L-L fault and L-L fault. (a) PI-based LVRT operation. (b) Fuzzy logic based LVRT operation
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BAGCHI ET AL. 891

FIGURE 12 Grid side active and reactive power and requirement of active (ip ) and reactive (iq ) current injection for inverter control during L-L-L fault and L-L
fault. (a) PI-based LVRT operation. (b) Fuzzy logic based LVRT operation

6.3.3 LVRT operating during single line to ground (L-L-G) fault and double line to ground
(L-G) Fault

FIGURE 13 PV side voltage and power during L-L-G fault and L-G fault. (a) PI-based LVRT operation. (b) Fuzzy logic based LVRT operation

FIGURE 14 Grid side active and reactive power and requirement of active (ip ) and reactive (iq ) current injection for inverter control during L-L-G fault and L-G
fault. (a) PI-based LVRT operation. (b) Fuzzy logic based LVRT operation
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892 BAGCHI ET AL.

TABLE 7 Comparison of performance

Dynamic response

Proposed IPT method

Nature of fault PI based Fuzzy based SSA Based [10] SRF-PLL Based [24] SOGI + 3L-NPC Based [30] RWFNN Based [37]

Three-phase fault 570 ms 310 ms 350 ms 625 ms 225 ms 600 ms

L-L fault 200 ms 190 ms < 1500 ms 625 ms 265 ms 600 ms
L-L-G fault 200 ms 200 ms < 1500 ms 625 ms 240 ms 600 ms
L-G fault 200 ms 250 ms < 1500 ms 625 ms 250 ms 600 ms

7 DISCUSSION PI and FLC. By implementing PI controller, it is seen that the

total extracted PV power reaches to zero during both the cases
The proposed system has been simulated under the normal whereas the implementation of FLC leads the decrement of the
operating condition and the plots are provided in Figure 10. same PV power up to the certain limit. In both situations, the
It is seen that the inverter is operating smoothly during the inverter needs proper active and reactive current support and
normal operating condition and the output voltage of 796.4 V simultaneously the grid requires sufficient reactive power sup-
power of 1504 kW (approximate) from PV power plant as well port to enhance the grid voltage towards normalizing. In this
as grid parameters, i.e. grid voltage of 33 kV and grid power context, it is seen from Figure 14(b) that the necessary reactive
of 1 MW are also maintaining normally. The maximum possi- current support has been given up to 0.65 s and 1.5 s respec-
ble active current is injected during normal operation whereas tively during the mentioned fault situation. After clearing the
reactive current injection becomes zero. fault, the scenario goes toward normal operation where active
But these values are deviating from its normal operation val- current injection reaches its maximum limit and reactive cur-
ues during fault condition or when voltage sag takes place. At rent injection again becomes zero. As per consideration, the per-
this moment, the inverter tries to disconnect from the PV to formance based on dynamic response PI-based controller takes
grid operation but the proposed novel control strategies are 200 ms in both the cases whereas fuzzy based controller takes
helping to switch the inverter into LVRT mode and stay con- 200 ms and 250 ms during double line to ground fault and a
nected to the grid. A brief observation and a comparative anal- single line to ground fault respectively to recover the situation.
ysis on the performance of the PI and fuzzy-based proposed
controller has been discussed here by considering the subse-
7.1 Comparison
quent results which are produced as graphical representation
between Figures 11 and 14 during a symmetrical and asymmet-
A comparative analysis has been shown in Table 7 where the
rical fault condition. From Figures 11 and 12, it is observed that
analysis has been done based on the response of the system dur-
three phase fault (L-L-L fault: 0.45 s–0.6s) and line to line (L-L
ing fault inception to fault clearance. The comparative survey
fault: 1.3 s–1.45 s) occurs at the grid side and continues during
reflects how fast the proposed method is responding to clear the
0.15 s (based on Malaysian LVRT requirement) which causes
fault than the other published method. The analysis procedure
a huge voltage drop in the grid side. Hence dc-link voltage
of the proposed method has already been explained in the dis-
leads PV plant to operate towards the maximum point which is
cussion section and the same procedure has been followed for
equivalent to open-circuit voltage of PV plant. At this moment,
the other literature survey to frame the comparative structure.
huge active and reactive current support is required to the grid.
The proposed control strategy helps to inject the required reac-
tive current to the grid and overcomes the situation. In case of 8 CONCLUSION
three-phase fault, the entire process takes long time to recover
the PV plants parameters, i.e. voltage, current and power at its The proposed control strategy can efficiently handle during grid
pre-fault values whereas during line to line fault, the entire pro- fault condition, e.g. voltage dip and over current condition. The
cess takes comparatively less time to get back the pre-fault proposed control strategy has been effectively verified through
situation. As per the consideration of performance based on various case studies and it has been observed that the inverter
dynamic response PI-based controller takes 570 ms and 200 ms connectivity can be uninterrupted during fault condition. The
whereas fuzzy based controller takes 310 ms and 190 ms during inverter gives continuous support to the grid by maintaining the
three-phase fault and line to line fault respectively to recover the active and reactive power and current. It has been noticed that
situation which leads the inverter to stay connected. the LVRT requirements do not violate the procedure of control-
From Figures 13 and 14, it is observed that double line to ling the inverter and also helps the system to operate smoothly
ground fault (L-L-G fault: 0.45 s–0.6 s) and single line to line by maintaining the grid code. Further, the comparative study
(L-L fault: 1.3 s–1.45 s) occurs at the grid side and continues shows the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy based
during 0.15 s (based on Malaysian LVRT requirement) which on IPT than the conventional strategy. By analyzing and
causes to different scenario based on the implementation of comparing the subsequent results, both the controller shows
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BAGCHI ET AL. 893

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