Modeling and Analysis of an LCL Filter for GridConnected Inverters in Wind Power Generation Systems

Bochuan Liu and Byeong-Mun Song, Senior Member, IEEE

Abstract- This paper presents the modeling and analysis of a three-phase grid-connected wind energy conversion system using Matlab. The modeled system is characterized and analyzed for validation. An inverter control algorithm for effective power control is also proposed and evaluated. An LCL filter is designed to reduce the switching frequency ripple. But the LCL filter also makes the system unstable because of the zero impedance at the resonant frequency. Two current-loops with PR control strategy are analyzed in this paper to make sure the stability of the system. All analysis and evaluation have been conducted for a 3.5 kW power system with 208V grid voltage. Index Terms- Wind power, grid-connected wind energy, gridconnected inverter, LCL filter, PR controller.

This paper presents the modeling and analysis of an LCL filter for the three-phase grid-connected inverters using Matlab. In addition, this paper also proposes a new PR controller to increase the stability of the control system. All design procedures of a LCL filter along with the proposed controller will be discussed and verified for the usefulness in the 3.5kW wind power system with 208V grid voltage. II. SYSTEM MODELING AND CHARACTERISTICS A. Overall System Configuration Fig. 1 shows the overall control system configuration of a grid-connected wind power generation system. The system consists of a wind turbine and synchronous generator, AC/DC and DC/AC power converters, and the grid. The wind turbine is directly connected without a gear box to the rotor shaft of the synchronous generator, which is a ploy-phase synchronous type. While the wind turbine rotates, the exciter of the generator produces an output voltage and it is first converted into dc voltage through an AC/DC converter. The converter controls the produced power that has an arbitrary magnitude and frequency of the voltage and current of the synchronous generator driven by a wind turbine to get a certain dc source. This dc voltage produced by the DC/AC converter is then converted to ac voltage by a DC/AC inverter to supply the grid.

HERE are various types of wind power systems, most of which are connected to power system grid, since they can continuously provide electric power to customers[1]-[2]. With recent improvements in power conversion technologies, the wind power resources can easily be connected to the power grid. In order to interface the power sources to the power grid, it is necessary to have a filter to reduce the harmonic content of the injected inverter output current. A series inductor is typically used to the filter, which highly depends on switching frequency and harmonic attenuation levels. Such a filter may caucus high voltage drop over the filter at the grid frequency along with bulky and heavy components [3]. LCL filter is an alternative solution to achieve a higher attenuation level and cost reduction in weight and size. Since LCL filters exhibit a better attenuation at switching frequency, this kind of filter is used in most case of wind power systems [4]. But the LCL filter may destroy the stability of the whole system. So, damping resistors are widely used to increase the stability of the system, resulting in larger power loss in the filter. Other approach is that a direct-quadrant PI controller is used to reduce the harmonic distortion in the conventional control system [5], but it still needs a very complex frame transformation and calculation. In recent years, proportional plus resonant (PR) controllers are proposed to get the same performance with PI controller but in stationary frame. These PR controllers are required with two current-loops that can be adopted to increase the stability of the system without increasing power loss [6].

I. INTRODUCTION

Fig. 1. Overall control system configuration of a grid-connected wind power system with LCL filter.

B. Liu and B. M. Song are with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Baylor University, Waco, TX 76798 USA (e-mail: Ben_Song@baylor.edu).

Fig. 2 shows the equivalent circuit of a three-phase gridconnected inverter with LCL filters. Source power is a wind turbine power generator with permanent magnets. The grid side inverter is controlled by the current controller. The LCL filter is connected to the output of an inverter.

978-1-4577-1002-5/11/$26.00 2011 IEEE

to zero for filter analysis (vs = 0). Ignoring the influence of Rg and Ri, the transfer function of the model can be defined as

G( s) =

ig v

1 Lg Li C f s + s( Lg + Li )
3

(2)

Fig. 2. Grid-side equivalent circuit of a three-phase inverter with LCL filter.

For the modeling and analysis, the voltages and currents under coordinate can be written as:

Li + ii ( , ) Ri + vcf ( , ) dt dis ( , ) Lg + is ( , ) Rg + vs ( , ) vcf ( , ) = dt dvcf ( , ) ii ( , ) = is ( , ) + c f dt

v( , ) =

dii ( , )

According to the principle of LCL filter design, parameters are calculated with several steps: 1) First, the overall inductance value of Ls is chosen. In order to improve the ability of current for tracking and the speed of system response, Ls should be small, but we can get better filter effect if Ls is large. Here we choose a suitable value of Ls:
vdc 2 Em 2 3 I m

(1)

vdc 4 3iripple f sw

Ls

(3)

Where Ri is the resistance and Li is the inductance of the inverter side filter; Rg is the resistance and Lg is the inductance of the grid side filter. vcf is the voltage of the filter capacitor. III. LCL FILTER DESIGN In this system, the nominal power P = 3.5KW, dc bus voltage Vdc = 400V, grid frequency f = 60Hz, PWM carrier frequency fs = 10kHz, and the grid line-to-line voltage Vab(L-L) = 208V. Fig. 3 shows an equivalent LCL circuit.

where Em is the peak phase voltage of grid, Im is peak current of grid, fsw is the switching frequency, iripple is current ripple. iripple is set to be 20% of Im. 2) Second, the capacitance value of Cf is chosen. To avoid the lower power factor, generally the reactive power absorbed from the capacitor filter should be less than 5% of the nominal power of the system. (4) 3 2 f n En 2 where fn is the grid frequency and En is rms value of phase voltage. 3) Finally, choose the inductance values of Lg, Li. The chosen ripple attenuation of high order harmonics at the switching frequency is d, and r (= Lg/Li) is defined. The selected d, Cf, and Ls are related a positive solution in eq (5). If the solution is not positive, the values of d, Cf, Ls can be rechosen to obtain a positive solution.
Qc 0.05 Pn

Fig. 3. LCL filter circuit.

d 2 + (2d + 1 dsw 2 Ls C f ) r + d + 1 = 0
Using r, we can get Li and Lg. L Li = s 1+ r Lg = rLr

(5)

Where, Lg is the grid side inductor filter, Rg is the gird side inductor resistance, Li is the inverter side inductor, Ri is the inverter side inductor resistance, Cf is the capacitor filter, and Ls = Lg+ Li. In order to design a higher order filter, an input filter model is designed based on the filter parameters as shown in Fig. 4.

(6)

It is necessary to check the resonant frequency to satisfy eq. (8). If it does not, the parameters should be rechosen. The resonant frequency fres is given by

f res =

1 2

Li + Lg Li Lg C f

(7) (8)

10fn fres 0.5fsw

Fig.4. Input LCL filter model.

Grid voltage is assumed as ideal voltage source and represents short circuit for harmonic frequencies, and it is set

From the three steps above, the LCL parameters are obtained as in Table .

Parameter Li Ri Rg Lg Cf fpwm f Pout vab(L-L) Vdc

TABLE I. PARAMETERS OF SYSTEM Description Inverter side inductor filter Inverter side inductor resistance Grid side inductor resistance Grid side inductor filter Capacitor filter PWM carrier frequency Grid frequency Nominal power Line-to-line rms base voltage Dc bus voltage

Value 2.0mh 470m 236m 1mh

gain at the specific frequency [7]. Fig.6 is the bode plot of PI and PR controller. As we can see, there is a peak at the fundamental frequency with PR controller, so it can provide a large gain at this frequency to achieve zero steady state error in stationary frame. Except this peak, PR controller has the same frequency response after the fundamental frequency.
Bode Diagram PI 100 Magnitude (dB) PR

10uF 10KHz 60Hz 3.5KW 208V 400V

50

90 45

The transfer function in an L filter is given:

Phase (deg)

0 -45 -90

Gl ( s) =

i 1 = v Ls s

(9)

10

10

10 Frequency (rad/sec)

10

The bode plots of L filter and LCL filter can be shown in Fig. 5.
Bode Diagram 150 100 Magnitude (dB) 50 0 -50 -100 90 45 Phase (deg) 0 -45 -90 L filter LCL filter

Fig. 6. Bode plots of PR and PI controller.

Use the two current-loops feedback control strategy to increase the stability of the system with LCL filter without damping resistor [8]. The outer loop is grid current with PR controller and the inner loop is capacitor current loop with proportional controller. Fig. 10 is the feed-back control block diagram. Gc(s) is the transfer function of PR controller:
Gc ( s ) = K p + 2Ki s s + g 2
2

(10)

Where

is the fundamental frequency. For analysis

10

10

10

Frequency (rad/sec)

simplification, PI controller is analyzed first and then change to the equivalent PR controller. The open loop and closed loop transfer functions are given by (11) and (12): a0 s + a1 (11) Gop ( s ) = 4 b0 s + b1s 3 + b2 s 2 + b3 s
Gcl ( s ) = a0 s + a1 b0 s + b1s + b2 s 2 + (b3 + a0 ) s + a1
4 3

Fig. 5. Bode plots of L filter and LCL filter.

(12)

The blue line is L filter and the green line is LCL filter. We can see a peak in green line at the resonance frequency, and thats why LCL filter will destroy the stability of the system. And after the resonance frequency, the attenuation is much larger than L filter and it can reduce the harmonics at the switching frequency significantly. IV. PR CONTROLLER DESIGN PI controller is used in most controller strategies because of the easy implementation. But it can only provide infinite gain at zero frequency, so it must be used in the synchronous frame [6]. If the frame transformation is not correct, errors could occur. PR controller is adopted to solve this kind of problem. It can perform well under stationary frame with infinite

Where a0 = KpK, a1 = KiK, b0 = LiLgC, b1 = RiLgC + RgLiC + LgCK, b2 = Li + Lg + RiRgC + RgCK, b3 = Ri + Rg. Fig. 8 shows the root locus of the system. K and Ki are fixed (K = 30, Ki = 80) and Kp is variable because the system stability is primarily determined by Kp [9].

Fig.7. Two current-loops feed-back control block diagram.

4 3 2 1 Imaginary Axis

x 10

Root Locus

0 -1

-1600 1620i. Fig.10 is the bode diagram of the open-loop transfer function. The phase margin is 66.1 degree and the gain margin is 23.5 dB which indicate the system is stable. As we know, the impedance of the grid will change sometime. If the grid side inductance increases to 200% of its original value, the stability will still be stable. Fig. 11 is the bode diagram with 2mH grid side inductor. Both phase and gain margin indicate the stability of the system.
Pole-Zero Map 2000 0.997 0.994 0.987 0.974 0.94 0.8

-2 -3
1500 0.999 1000

-4 -3

-2.5

-2

-1.5 Real Axis

-1

-0.5

0
Imaginary Axis

1
4

x 10

500 2.5e+004 2e+004 1.5e+004 1e+004 5e+003

Fig. 8. Root locus plot

0 -500 1 -1000

Gcl _ new(s) =

x0 s3 + ( y1 x1)s 2 + ( y2 x1( y1 x1 ))s + x0

(14)

Magnitude (dB)

There are two conjugated poles and two other poles near the zero at the origin of the coordinate. When gain is 0, the conjugated poles are 7630 6450i . We can make the conjugate poles as dominated poles with a large Kp. We can make one pole at the same place of the zero, so the impact of this pole can be eliminated. Hence the nominator of the closed-loop transfer function is a factor of the denominator. After transformation, new three order transfer function can be obtained as: x0 Gop _ new(s) = 3 (13) 2 s + ( y1 x1 )s + ( y2 x1 ( y1 x1 ))s

-1500 0.999 0.997 -2.5 -2 0.994 -1.5 Real Axis 0.987 -1 0.974 0.94 -0.5 x 10 0.8 0
4

-2000 -3

Fig. 9. Pole-Zero map of the closed-loop system.

Bode Diagram Gm = 23.5 dB (at 1.22e+004 rad/sec) , Pm = 66.1 deg (at 1.96e+003 rad/sec) 50

Gm=23.5

-50

-100

Where x0=a0/b0, x1=a1/a0, y1=b1/b0, y2=b2/b0, y3=b3/b0,

Phase (deg)

-150 -90

y3 x1 ( y2 x1 ( y1 x1 )) = 0

(15)

-135 -180 -225 -270

Pm=66.1 deg

The transfer function (14) can be regarded as a three order system with two dominant pair of roots and a third pole. (14) can be transformed into (16): x0 (16) Gcl_ new(s) = 2 (s + 2ns +n2 )( 1/ + s) When << 1 / n , the third pole will have little effect on the step response. Usually, 1 / 10 n , here 10 is used. Then combination of (14) (15) can get (16):
12b3 (20 2 + 1)nb2 + (20 2 + 1)2 3b0 = 0

10

10

10

10

10

10

Frequency (rad/sec)

Fig. 10. Bode diagram of the open-loop transfer function.

Bode Diagram Gm = 25.6 dB (at 9.75e+003 rad/sec) , Pm = 60.8 deg (at 1.47e+003 rad/sec) 50

(17)

Magnitude (dB)

Gm=25.6

-50

Choose =0.6, then we can get Kp, Ki, K, from (15), (16) and (17): K = 61.1, Ki = 36.2, Kp = 0.2, = 4277.3 rad/s. And then use Rouths stability Criterion to make sure the system is stable. The characteristic equation of (12) should satisfy this criterion. The calculated parameters can satisfy it. Then the poles and zeros of the closed-loop transfer function (12) are showed in Fig. 9. The position of the poles and zeros are located where we expect. One zero and one pole are almost at the same place and one pole stays far away from the pair of dominant conjugated poles. The dominant poles are located at

-100

-150 -90 -135 Phase (deg) -180 -225 -270

Pm=60.8

10

10

10

10

10

10

Frequency (rad/sec)

Fig. 11. Bode diagram of the open-loop transfer function.

V. SIMULATION RESULT The PR controller will be used to simulate the control system. The parameters of PI controller can be adopted for PR controller in (18) [7]: 2K s (18) Gc ( s ) = K p + 2 i 2 s + g where Kp=0.2, Ki=36.2,

10 8 6 4 Capacitor Current (A) 2 0 -2 -4 -6 -8 -10 0.015 0.02 0.025 0.03 0.035 Time(s) 0.04 0.045 0.05

g = 376.99 rad/s. And the harmonic

compensator is defined as [9] in (19) which can reduce the harmonics at the selected order; Fig.12 shows the grid-side, inverter side and capacitor current waveforms without high order harmonic compensator. Fig. 13 is the THD plot of the first two currents in Fig.12. At the switching frequency, the magnitude of the harmonics decreased to 0.3% from 1%, THD decreased to 2.25% from 3.31% which indicate the effectiveness of the LCL filter. With the harmonics compensator, the major harmonics like 3rd, 5th, 7th can be reduced significantly. Fig.14 shows the THD of grid side current with harmonics compensator. After the 3rd, 5th, 7th harmonics compensation, the THD is smaller.
Gh ( s ) =
150

(c) Capacitor current waveform. Fig. 12. Current simulation waveforms with LCL filter.

i = 3,5, 7

2Ki s s + i 2
2

(19)

100

Inverter side Current (A)

50

(a)

Inverter side current THD=3.31%.

-50

-100

-150

0.015

0.02

0.025

0.03 0.035 Time(s)

0.04

0.045

0.05

(a)
150

Inverter side current waveform.

100

(b) Grid side current THD= 2.25%. Fig. 13. Inverter side and grid side current THD plots without harmonics compensator.

Grid side Current (A)

50

-50

-100

-150

0.015

0.02

0.025

0.03 0.035 Time(s)

0.04

0.045

0.05

(b)

Grid side current waveform.

Fig. 14. Grid side current THD plot with harmonics compensator.

Fig. 15 is the waveform of the actual current and the reference current which shows that they are almost identical. The error is less than 0.1%. Thus, the control strategy can make the actual current follow the reference very well. Fig. 16 shows the grid current and voltage for one phase. The power factor is about 0.99.
150 Reference Current Actual Current 100

[3]

[4]

[5]

50 Magnitude

[6]
0

[7]
-50

-100

[8]

-150 0.03

0.04

0.05

0.06 0.07 Time(s)

0.08

0.09

0.1

[9]

Fig. 15. The wave form of actual current and reference current.
250 200 150 100 50 0 -50 -100 -150 -200 -250 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07 Time(s) 0.08 0.09 0.1 Grid Voltage Grid Current

PSCAD/EMTDC, IEEE 2010 PES Conference on Innovation Smart Grid Technologies, Jan. 19-21, 2010. G. H. Kim, Y. J. Kim, M. Park, I. K. Yu, and B. M. Song, RTDS-based Real Time Simulations of Grid-Connected Wind Turbine Generator Systems, IEEE 2010 Applied Power Electronics Conference (APEC), Feb. 22-25, 2010, pp. 2085 -2090. A. Roshan, R. Burgos, A. C. Baisden, F. Wang and D. Boroyevich, A D-Q frame controller for a full-bridge single phase inverter used in small distributed power generation systems, in Proc. of IEEE APEC, Anaheim CA, Feb. 2007, pp.641-647. R.-Y. Kim, S.-Y. Choi, and I.-Y. Suh, Instantaneous control of average power for grid tie inverter using single phase D-Q rotating frame with all pass filter, in Proc. of IEEE 2005 IECON, Busan, Korea, Nov. 2004, pp. 274-279. C. D. Schauder and S.A.Moran, Multiple reference frame controller for active power filters and power line conditioners, U.S. Patent 5309353, May 1994 D. N. Zmood and D. G. Holmes, Stationary Frame Current Regulation of PWM Inverters With Zero Steady-State Error, IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, vol. 18, no.3, pp. 814-822, May 2003. E. Twining and D. G. Holmes, Grid current regulation of a three-phase voltage source inverter with an LCL input filter, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol.18, no. 3, pp. 888-895, May 2003. X. Yuan, W. Merk, H. Stemmler, J. Allmeling, Stationary-Frame Generalized Integrators for Current Control of Active Power Filters with Zero Steady-State Error for Current Harmonics of Concern Uder Unbalanced and Distorted Operating Conditions, IEEE Trans. on Ind. App., vol. 38, no.2, pp.523-532,Mar./Apr. 2002.

VIII. BIOGRAPHIES
Bochuan Liu received his B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Anhui University of Technology, China in 2009. Since 2009, he is currently pursuing his Master Degree in Electrical Engineering at Baylor University. His research interests include high-power grid-connected converters, and highefficiency inverters for renewable energy application.

Magnitude

Fig. 16. Grid side current and voltage simulation waveform with LCL filter.

VI. CONCLUSION This paper has investigated the design procedures for a LCL filter of a three-phase grid-connected inverter for a 3.5 kW power system with 208V grid voltage. The modeling and analysis of the filter has evaluated by using Matlab. For effective design validation, a PR controller with two currentloops is proposed and analyzed to make sure the stability of the wind power system for the overall inverter performance. The simulation result shows that the THD of the grid current was 1.18%, and the error between actual current and reference was less than 0.1%. VII. REFERENCES
[1] A. Murdoch, R. S. Barton, J. R. Winkelman, and S. H. Javid, Control Design and Performance Analysis of a 6 MW wind Turbine Generator, IEEE Transactions on Power Apparatus and Systems, vol. 102, no. 5, pp.1340-1347, May 1983. E. S. Kim, B. M. Song, and K. Y. Lee, Modeling and Analysis of a Grid-Connected Wind Energy Conversion System Using

Byeong-Mun Song (M90, SM02) received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Chungnam National University, Korea, in 1986 and 1988, respectively, and his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg in 2001. He was with the Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute and General Atomics. In 2004, he established his own venture company, ActsPower Technologies, San Diego, CA and served as the CEO/President and CTO. In August 2009, Dr. Song joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Baylor University, Waco, Texas. His interests are in the design, analysis, simulation and implementation of high power converters, motor drives, and power electronics systems. Dr. Song is a Senior Member of IEEE.

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