Study on the unbalanced current injection capability of grid-connected photovoltaic neutral-point-clamped inverter

• Main Authors: Dehghani Tafti, Hossein, Maswood, Ali Iftekhar, Kandasamy, Karthik, Lim, Ziyou, Ooi, Gabriel H. P., Konstantinou, Georgios, Pou, Josep
• Other Authors: School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: Fault-ride-through capability; Photovoltaic power plant
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/80287; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/42131
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Due to high penetration of distributed generation units in power system, fault ride through (FRT) capability is one of the new requirements of the medium-scale grid-tied photovoltaic power plants (PVPPs). This paper proposes and investigates a control strategy for the neutral-point-clamped (NPC) inverter in order to inject proper unbalanced reactive currents to the grid during unbalanced grid faults. The proper unbalanced current injection reduces negative sequence of grid voltages and currents. The current references are scaled up/down individually, based on the grid phase rms voltages and inverter nominal current. The performance of the implemented control algorithm is investigated on a 150-kVA PVPP connected to 12.47-kV medium-voltage grid simulation model under various voltage sag conditions. Results from an experimental setup of grid-tied NPC inverter are presented in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed unbalanced current injection algorithm.