International Conference on Recent Advances in Mechanical Engineering and Interdisciplinary Developments [ICRAMID - 2014]

Fault Analysis on Photo Voltaic Fed Grid

Connected Systems
V.Jamuna#1,

N.Saritha*2,

N.Nanthini#3,

Professor, Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Jerusalem College of

Engineering, Chennai,India.
PG Scholar, Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Jerusalem College of
Engineering, Chennai,India.
1
jamuna_22@yahoo.com, 3nandhusuji2@gmail.com,
Research Scholar, Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Jerusalem College of
Engineering, Chennai, India.
2
saritha.fdma@gmail.com
in power systems can be divided into two main fields:
off-grid or stand-alone applications and on-grid or gridconnected applications. The standalone systems are
used in places where there is no connection to the
utility grid. They provide electricity to small rural areas
and are usually used for low power loads (refrigeration,
lightning). Their power ratings are around 1 kW and
they offer a good alternative to meet the energy
demands of off-grid communities. The first large gridconnected photo voltaic power plant was installed in
Lugo, California, U.S.A with energy producing
capacity of 1 MW [3].
Even though solar energy system has many
advantages, major disadvantages of PV energy system
are the requirement of very high system installation
cost and the low photo voltaic energy conversion
efficiency. To overcome these problems, efficiency of
conversion of solar array can be increased and output
power from the solar array can be maximized.

Abstract---This work presents a photovoltaic (PV)

system, connected to a three phase grid. This work
focuses on fault
analysis in a grid connected photovoltaic (PV) energy system. In this work, a three phase
Multi-level Inverter connected with an AC grid fed by
photovoltaic systems with advanced sine PWM control
scheme is presented. The proposed modulation technique
uses single reference signal and number of high frequency
carrier signals to generate the PWM signal. Now a day,
most of the photovoltaic (PV) power sources are
connected to the AC grid. When photovoltaic power
sources are connected to grid, the grid connected PV
system is affected by various power quality issues like
voltage sag, voltage swell, voltage disturbances, waveform
distortions and three phase fault. One of the main power
quality problems is three phase fault and it is appeared in
the grid due to short circuit condition between two phases
and ground. Fault analysis is carried out by creating a
LG, LL, LLL and LLLG fault in the grid connected
systems. Grid side voltage, current and power waveforms
at the grid side are analysed with fault conditions. A
detailed simulation has been done for the Multi-Level
Inverter and the validation of system is verified through
MATLAB/SIMULINK and the results are presented.

II.

Keywords--Photo Voltaic (PV) Systems, Multi-Level

Inverter, Grid connected system, Modulation
Scheme, Three phase fault, Total Harmonic
Distortion.
I.

GRID CONNECTED PV SYSTEM

The configuration of grid connected photovoltaic

system is represented in Fig.1.This system consists of
solar PV panel as a DC source, DC/DC converters, a
multilevel DC/AC inverter, a power transformer, and
an AC grid. The input supply is feed through PV
module and this output voltage magnitude is increased
to require level by DC/DC converter. Output of DC/DC
boost converters is the DC power and it is supplied to
the multilevel DC/AC inverter to convert the applied
DC voltage into AC voltage. This AC voltage is
transformed to the AC grid through interfacing
transformer.

INTRODUCTION

Renewable energy sources are a very good

solution in the global energy problem. The renewable
energy source with grid integration is carried out by
power electronics circuits. The energy generated by
photovoltaic power sources contributes the large part of
the electrical energy obtained from various renewable
energy. Various renewable energy sources such as solar
energy, wind energy, geothermal energy etc., are used
to generate the electric power specifically solar energy
is used to harvest the solar energy. Solar energy has the
advantages of no pollution, low maintenance cost, no
installation area limitation and no noise due to the
absence of moving parts. The major use of PV systems
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Fault analysis can be broadly divided

into
symmetrical and unsymmetrical faults. A fault
involving all the three phases on the power system is
known as symmetrical fault or three-phase fault while
the one involving one or two phases is known as
unsymmetrical fault. Unsymmetrical faults are
classified into single line-to-ground(LG fault), line-toline (LL fault) and double line-to-ground faults. The
various reasons of faults are lightning, insulation
aging, heavy winds, trees falling across lines, vehicles
colliding with poles, birds, kites, etc. During fault
period,power system components are affected in
several ways. The first effect is generation of overhet
and this over heating may damage
electrical
equipments such as bus-bars, generators and
transformers. The second effect is the reduction in
voltage profile of the system to unacceptable limits as
a result of fault. Frequency drop may lead to instability.

Fig.1 Grid connected PV system

Grid connected PV systems can produce and

transform the power directly to the utility grid.
Depending on the number of modules, the PV array
converts the solar irradiation into specific DC current
and voltage. DC to DC boost converter is used in the
case of the voltage required by the inverter is very low.
Energy storage devices can be included in to store the
energy produced in grid.

Power system fault is one of the basic problem in

power system engineering. The results of power system
fault analysis are used to determine the type and size of
the protective system to be installed on the system so
that continuity of supply is ensured even when there is
a fault on the power system.
To provide proper interface between grid-connected
PV systems and the utility grid, some conditions must
be satisfied, such as phase sequence, frequency and
voltage level matching. Providing these conditions
strongly depends on the power electronics technology
of PV inverters. In grid connected PV system, the
balanced voltage feed to the three phases of grid is
given as:
=
= (-120)
= (+120)

Fig.2 Grid connected photovoltaic system with filter

(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)

Where Vp is the peak amplitude voltage.

Grid connected photo voltaic system with filter
inductance is given in Fig.2. In this system, the power
conversion is realized by a three-phase multilevel
inverter which delivers the energy to the grid. High
frequency harmonics that appear due to power
semiconductor switching devices are reduced by
connecting the filter. Filter components are designed to
minimize the ripple current of inverter and reactive
power supplied by inverter.

III.

MULTILEVEL INVERTER
TOPOLOGY

For grid connected photo voltaic fed inverter

systems, seven-level inverter is employed and it
consists of traditional H-bridge inverter and auxilliary
switches and a capacitor voltage divider. This capacitor
volatge divider is created by connecting C 1 ,C 2 and C 3
capacitors as given in Fig.3. In this Fig.3 traditional
H-bridge inverter is replaced by modified H-bridge
inverter. This topology can provide more advantages
over other topologies, i.e., uses less no of power
switches, power diodes, and capacitors for inverters
with same number of levels.

In this work, grid connected PV system is simulated

for various kinds of faults. A fault is defined as any
failure which interferes with the normal current flow. A
fault can produce high value current called as shortcircuit current. This short circuit current flows through
the network and reaches the faulted point. When shortcircuit current flows in the photo voltaic grid connected
system, it can genertae heat which is proportional to
the square of the current magnitude; this huge amount
of heat may damage the insulation of power system
devices such as bus bars, cables, circuit breakers and
switches.

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International Conference on Recent Advances in Mechanical Engineering and Interdisciplinary Developments [ICRAMID - 2014]

In the proposed Multi Level Inverter (MLI)

configuration, one leg of the inverter is operated at a
very high switching frequency that is equivalent to the
frequency of the carrier signal, while the other leg is
operated at the rate of the fundamental frequency (i.e.,
50 Hz). Switches 5 , and 6 are operated at the rate of
high frequency carrier signal. Remaining switches are
operated at the rate of fundamental frequency. Initially,
the seven level inverter is simulated with sine PWM
modulation technique and it is presented in Fig.4.
g

C
E

c1

powergui

S2

S1
Diode

Continuous
Diode 1

S5

R2

Scope

Diode 2

R1

Diode 4

S4

S3

Diode 5

c2

+v
Voltage Measurement

Diode 3

Fig. 3 Seven-level inverter with grid

S6

In this grid connected PV system,

photovoltaic (PV) arrays are connected to the inverter
through a DC to DC boost converter. The output
power generated by the inverter is applied to the power
system network. The DC to DC boost converter is
required ,to boost up the PV panel output
voltage,because the voltage produced by the PV system
is lower than the grid voltage. To filter the ripples in
the output current a filtering inductance L f is used. By
properly switching the inverter switches, it can produce
seven output-voltage levels. The output volatge levels
of seven level inverter are given by, 0, +Vdc/3,
+2Vdc/3, +Vdc, -Vdc/3, -2Vdc/3,-Vdc as given in the
table 1.

Diode 6
c3

Diode 7

Scope 1

S*1
Out3

SWITCH 4

Out4

Conn1

Out5
Out6
AC Voltage Source

SWITCH 2

Out7

Conn2

S*6
Out8

Subsystem

S*5

S*3

Fig.4 Seven level inverter with sine PWM technique

2.5
2
1.5

voltage

1
0.5
0
-0.5
-1

TABLE 1. SWITCHING SEQUENCE OF SEVEN

LEVEL INVERTER

-1.5
-2
0

0.002

0.004

0.006

0.008

0.01

0.012

0.014

0.016

0.018

0.02

Time

V0

S1

S2

S3

S4

S5

S6

Vdc
2Vdc/3
Vdc/3
0
0*
-Vdc/3
-2Vdc/3
-Vdc

On
Off
Off
Off
On
Off
Off
Off

Off
Off
Off
Off
On
On
On
On

Off
Off
Off
On
Off
Off
Off
On

On
On
On
On
Off
Off
Off
Off

Off
On
Off
Off
Off
On
Off
Off

Off
Off
On
Off
Off
Off
On
Off

Fig.5. Sinusoidal PWM signal

Fig.6 Seven level inverter.output voltage

PWM MODULATION

C o ntinuo us

Out 1

C
E

C
E

S5

R2

tin 25

R1

To W ork s pac e

+
-

Out 1

Subs y s tem1

S4

Out 1

S3
c2

Subs y s tem 14

In this work, all the switches of seven level

inverter are triggered with the use of sine PWM
technique. In order to generate the PWM switching
signals, sine PWM technique is introduced. For seven
level inverter, three reference signals ( 1 , 2 ,
r 3 ) are compared with a high frequency carrier signal
( carrier ). The reference signals had the same frequency
and amplitude and are in phase with an offset value
that is equivalent to the amplitude of the carrier signal.
If 1 has exceeded the peak amplitude of carrier ,
2 is compared with carrier until it exceeds the peak
amplitude of .

S6
Out 1

c3

Subs y s tem 2

S7
c4

Out 1

S8

c5

Subs y s tem 3

c6

Out 1

Subs y s tem 4

S9

c7

Out 1

Subs y s tem 5

S1 0

C
E

Out 1

c8

c9

Out 1

S 11
Subs y s tem6

c1 0

S1 2

Subs y s tem 7

g
g

S1 4

c1 2

Out 1

Subs y s tem 9

S 13

c1 1

Out 1

Subs y s tem 8

S 15
Out 1

C
E

c1 3

Subs y s tem 10

S1 6
Out 1

c1 4

Subs y s tem 11

Out 1

S 17
Subs y s tem 12

C
E

c1 5

Out 1

Subs y s tem 13

S 18

Fig.7 Thirty one level inverter without Modulation scheme

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po w ergui

S2

S1

c1

Sc ope
Subs y s tem

IV.

International Conference on Recent Advances in Mechanical Engineering and Interdisciplinary Developments [ICRAMID - 2014]

For the seven level inverter, the generated sine

PWM signal is presented in Fig.5. To reduce total
harmonic distortion, sine PWM signal is applied as
switching signals for switching devices of inverter. The
simulated output of seven level inverter is presented in
Fig.6.
In multi-level inverter topology, as a number of
level increases the measured value of total harmonic
distortion decreases. In this work, simulation of multilevel inverter is extended up to thirty one level inverter
as represented in Fig.7 and its output voltage waveform
is shown in Fig.8. Its FFT analysis is given in Fig.9. It
clearly shows that thirty one levels MLI can produce
very low value of THD 12.36%.

Fig.10 Thirty one level inverter

AND
Scope

OR
Switch 1

AND
OR

A
B

AND

+v
-

Switch 3
OR

AND

Switch 5

OR

AND
Sw1
>=
AND
Sw5

>=

Switch 18

OR

AND
Switch 6

OR

Continuous

AND
>=

Sw6

powergui

AND
>=

Sw7

>=

Sw8

Switch 17

OR

AND

Switch 7

OR
AND

Switch 16

OR
AND

>=

Sw9

>=

Sw10

Switch 8
AND

OR

AND

Switch 15
OR

AND
>=

Sw11

Switch 9

AND
OR

Fig.8 Thirty one level inverter output voltage

AND
>=

Switch 14

Sw12
AND
Sw13

>=

AND

OR
Switch 10

AND

>=

Sw14

OR
AND

Switch 13

>=
Sw15
AND

Sw16

OR

AND

Switch 11

>=
AND
OR
>=

AND
Sw17
AND

>=
Sw18

AND

>=
AND

NOT
S 33

AND
AND

AND
AND

Fig.11 Generation of sine PWM signal.

Fig.9 FFT Analysis of thirty one level inverter

With the use of Sine PWM modulation scheme, the

above mentioned THD value can be further reduced
without any additional control technique. This
technique can eliminate the choice of large filter
inductor and capacitance. In order to reduce the THD
value, the thirty one level MLI is simulated with sine
PWM technique as shown in Fig.10 and Fig.11.

Fig.12 Sinusoidal PWM signal

The waveform of sine PWM signal which is applied

to the power switching devices of thirty one level
inverter is shown in Fig.12. Produced output voltage
waveform is presented in Fig.13. In this method,
frequency of carrier signal is chosen as 10 kHz, it is
considerably very high as compared with the frequency
of carrier signal of seven level inverter.

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International Conference on Recent Advances in Mechanical Engineering and Interdisciplinary Developments [ICRAMID - 2014]

connected with three phase grid with the use of

coupling transformer as shown in Fig.15.

Fig.13Thirty One Level inverter output voltage

Fig.15 Multi-level inverter with grid connection

A three phase to ground (symmetrical) fault is

created on the grid side. The grid current before
initialize the fault (<.02sec) is maintained at 1.5 104A,
when a fault is initialized at 0.02 sec, the current
reduces to 2A.
A. LLL Fault
Fig.14 FFT Analysis of Thirty One Level inverter

For grid connected photo voltaic system, fault

analysis is studied by generating only two types of
faults i.e. LLL fault and LLLG fault. Because, these
two types of faults may severely affect the power
system components. This LLL fault is called as
symmetric three phase fault, since all the three phases
(A-Phase, B-Phase and C-Phase) of grid side output
voltage waveforms getting collapsed and the magnitude
of current waveform raised to very high value. During
fault period voltage and current waveforms at inverter
side as well as at grid side is shown in Fig.16 to Fig.19.
The system maintains the zero values of reactive power
at grid side during no fault period and during fault
period it shoots up to 18104 MVAR. This value of
reactive power is very high when compared with other
three types of faults like LL fault, LG fault, and LLG
fault. During this LLL fault the active power decreases
up to 4104 W.

To validate the advantage of thirty one level inverter

output with modulation over without modulation, FFT
analysis is used. It indicates that THD value is very low
i.e.4.76% with modulation scheme.

V.

FAULT ANALYSIS

To analyze an effect of three phase fault in grid

connected PV system, three phase seven level inverter
is connected to grid via transformer using
MATLAB/SIMULINK. The grid connected PV system
is analyzed for various fault conditions. The system is
simulated for various types of three phase fault
conditions. The three phase fault is generated on the
grid side. The fault duration is set for 0.08 second only.
It starts from 0.02 and ends at 0.1 second. During the
fault period, the grid side voltage and current
waveforms and inverter side voltage and current
waveforms are taken and observed. To validate the
performance of grid connected systems, FFT analysis is
also done and THD values are observed and tabulated.
For different fault conditions, active and reactive power
values are observed and tabulated. Initially the system is
simulated with LLL fault condition.

At inverter side, the system maintains zero value of

reactive power during no fault period and during fault
period it is changed to -3.5 MVAR. This value of
reactive power is very high as compared with other
three types of faults like LL fault, LG fault and LLG
fault. During this LLL fault the active power decreases
to 0.4107 W. Under this fault condition THD of
voltage is increased from 0% to 2.9% at inverter side
and 3.15% at grid side. The THD of current is also
increased from 0% to 2.7 % at inverter side and 3.9 % at
grid side.

In this work, the three phase multi-level inverter is

simulated for 260 V DC input and the output is

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International Conference on Recent Advances in Mechanical Engineering and Interdisciplinary Developments [ICRAMID - 2014]

B. LLLG Fault

During LLLG fault period voltage and current

waveforms at inverter side as well as at grid side is
shown in Fig.23 to Fig.26. The system maintains the
zero value of reactive power at grid side during no fault
period and during fault period it shoots up to
3.5104 MVAR. This value of reactive power is very
high when compared with other three types of faults
like LL fault, LG fault, and LLG fault. During this LLL
fault period, the active power decreases up to 3.5107 w

Fig.16 Voltage at grid side under LLL fault

At inverter side, system maintains the zero value

of reactive power during no fault period and during
fault period it is changed to 16104MVAR. This value
of reactive power is very high when compared with
other three types of faults like LL fault, LG fault, and
LLG fault. During this LLL fault the active power
decreases to 0.5107 W. Under this fault condition
THD of voltage is increased from 0% to 2.36% at
inverter side and 3.34% at grid side. The THD of
current is also increased from 0% to 1.64% at inverter
side and 3.28% at grid side as shown in Fig.23 to
Fig.26. From voltage and current waveforms under
various kinds of fault conditions, it has been observed
that LLLG fault is more severe than LG, LL, LLG and
LLL fault. It has been also concluded that fault on the
grid side will have severe effect compared with inverter
side.

Fig.17 Grid current under LLL fault

Fig.18 Inverter voltage under LLL fault

Fig.20 Grid voltage under LLLG fault

Fig.19 Inverter Current under LLL fault

Fig.21 Grid current under LLLG fault

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International Conference on Recent Advances in Mechanical Engineering and Interdisciplinary Developments [ICRAMID - 2014]

Fig.22.Inverter voltage and current under LLLG fault

Fig.25 Voltage THD at grid side

Fig.23 Voltage THD at inverter side

Fig.26 Current THD at grid side

Thus three phase fault analysis on grid side and

inverter side have been performed for different types of
fault conditions like; LLL and LLLG faults. The change
in value of active and reactive power and voltage and
current THD without fault condition and with fault
conditions are observed and analyzed. For different
types of faults, inverter side and grid side parameters
are compared and presented in TABLE2.

Fig.24 Current THD at inverter side

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International Conference on Recent Advances in Mechanical Engineering and Interdisciplinary Developments [ICRAMID - 2014]

Based Photovoltaic System, IEEE Trans. On sustainable

energy vol, 4, No. 3, July 2013.

TABLE 2. COMPARISON OF SYSTEM

PARAMETERS UNDER VARIOUS FAULTS.

S.No

Type of
fault

LLL

Inverter Side

Xianwei Wang, Student Member, IEEE, Fang Zhuo,

Member, IEEE, Jing Li, Lin Wang, and Song
Ni,Modeling and Control of Dual-Stage High-Power
Multifunctional PV System in dqo Coordinate, IEEE
Trans. industrial Electron., Vol. 60, No. 4, April 2013

[4]

Jaume Miret, Member, IEEE, Miguel Castilla, Antonio

Camacho, Matas,Control Scheme for Photovoltaic ThreePhase Inverters to Minimize Peak Currents During
Unbalanced Grid-Voltage Sags, IEEE Trans. Power
Electron., vol 27, No. 10, October 2012.

[5]

Sibasish Pandaa, Anup Kumar Pandab and H.N Pratiharia,

Fault Analysis on Grid Connected MPPT based
Photovoltaic System, International Journal of Current
Engineering and Technology.Vol 22, No.4.April 2012.

[6]

Nasrudin A. Rahim, Senior Member, IEEE, Krismadinata

Chaniago, Student Member, IEEE, and Jeyraj Selvaraj
Single-Phase Seven-Level Grid-Connected Inverter for
Photovoltaic System,IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol..
58, No. 6, June 2011

[7]

Juan Luis Agorreta,, Luis Marroyo, Member, IEEE,

Modeling and Control of N-Paralleled Grid-Connected
Inverters With LCL Filter Coupled Due to Grid Impedance
in PV Plants ,IEEE Trans. Power Electron, Vol. 26, No.
3, March 2011

[8]

Blaabjerg.F , R. Teodorescu, M. Liserre, and A. V.

Timbus, Overview of control and grid synchronization for
distributed power generation systems, IEEE Trans. Ind.
Electron., vol. 53, no. 5, pp. 13981409, Oct.2009

[9]

Michael E. Ropp, Member, IEEE, and Sigifredo Gonzalez,

Development of a MATLAB/Simulink Model of a
Single-Phase Grid-Connected Photovoltaic System IEEE
Trans. Energy Conversion, April 2009.

[10]

Alepuz.S , and J. Rodrguez, Control strategies based on

symmetrical components for grid-connected converters
under voltage dips, IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 56,
no. 6, pp. 21622173, Jun. 2009.

Grid Side

THD V :2.9%

THD V :3.75%

THD I :2.7%

THD I :3.9%

Active Power(P): 0.4107 w

Active
Power(P):
4104 w

Reactive
3.5104 MVAR

[3]

Power(Q):

Reactive
Power(Q):
18104 MVAR
2

LLLG

THD V :2.36%

THD V :3.34

THD I :1.64%

THD I :3.28
7

Active Power(P): 0.510 w

Reactive
16104 MVAR

Power(Q):

Active
Power(P):
3.5104 w
Reactive
Power(Q):
3.5104 MVAR

This table clearly shows that LLL and LLLG fault

can produce the severe effects in power system when
compared with other types of faults. Fault analysis is
very important factor when designing the protection
circuit.

VI. CONCLUSIONS

In this proposed work, advanced sine PWM

switching scheme is presented for the multilevel
inverter. In this method, three reference signals and a
triangular high frequency carrier signal is utilized to
generate PWM switching signals. The performance of
the proposed multilevel inverter is analyzed in detail.
By controlling the modulation index, the desired
number of levels of the inverters output voltage can be
achieved with reduced THD. And also performance of
grid connected system is studied under different fault
conditions like; LLL and LLLG fault. Various
parameters under fault period are tabulated and
compared. It has been concluded that the most severe
fault on power system is LLL fault.

REFERENCES

[1]

Abhijit Kulkarni, Student Member, IEEE, and Vinod John,

Senior Member, IEEE ,Mitigation of Lower Order
Harmonics in a Grid-Connected Single-Phase PV Inverter
,IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol 28, No. 11, November
2013

[2]

Amr Ahmed A. Radwan, Student Member, IEEE, and

Yasser Abdel-Rady I. Mohamed, Senior Member, IEEE,
Analysis and Active Suppression of AC- and DC-Side
Instabilities in Grid-Connected Current-Source Converter-

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