Robust control strategy for stability enhancement in grid connected PV systems

ROBUST CONTROL STRATEGY FOR STABILITY

ENHANCEMENT IN GRID CONNECTED PV
SYSTEMS
R. Viveka, and S. Kalyani.
viveka.rajasekar@gmail.com
skalyani.mdu@gmail.com

Abstract—In recent years, the electrical power demand has been
growing rapidly and electricity utilities are in need to serve more
demand through their networks and also to provide a stable and
quality power to the customers. Hence the problem of power
system stability has obtained much attention in deregulated
power system. FACTS devices such as SVC, STATCOM are used
to enhance the power system stability. This paper proposes a new
control scheme which uses centralized PV systems in similar to
the structure of the STATCOM. It damps out low frequency
oscillations in a weak and local grid and thus stability gets
improved. To validate the proposed approach simulations are
performed on 3bus test system in MATLAB Simulink. The
results indicate that the stability of the centralized PV Grid
system gets improved without incorporating any FACTS device.
Keywords—Centralized PV Grid system, FACTS.
I. INTRODUCTION
are used to maintain the stability of the power system [4].
With the technology advancement nowadays FACTS
devices like STATCOM, SVC, SSSC, have been used to
improve the stability of the power system [5-8].
In Smart grid high penetration PV Systems are coupled to
the grid [9, 10] .High penetration PV systems have adverse
effects on the power system in case of stability studies [10-
12]. Other authors concluded that the power system’s ability
to handle stability drastically reduces with increase in
penetration level [12-15].
The presented work focuses mainly on the control law to
improve the dynamic stability of the system. The control
law is derived from the Structure Preserving Energy
Function (SPEF) Model. With use of this control law MPPT
does not get affected. The controller designed here makes
use of PV station voltage only. The main feature of this
control law is the improvement of inverter utilization factor.

T HE Solar Photovoltaic (PV) energy is becoming

increasingly important part of the world’s renewable II. SYSTEM DESCRIPTION UNDER STUDY
Solar PV generating systems makes use of Solar
energy. A grid –connected solar PV system consists of solar
cells for energy extraction from the sun and power Photovoltaic Technology to extract from the sun’s radiation.
converters for grid interface. The integration of a large To study the impact of PV station interface with the power
centralized PV generation(CPVG) have led to new issues system PV Station which uses group of inverters are
and challenges such as power quality, power system treated as a big Centralized Voltage source inverter (CVSI).
stability, grid voltage profile and regulation . A “two machine” system, with 100 MW generators, has
The power delivered by a PV system of one or more been considered in this work, as shown in Fig. 1, along with
photovoltaic cells is dependent on the irradiance, the double line transmission model popularly used in power
temperature and the current drawn from the cells. In system stability studies. The generator sets are supported by
general, there is a unique point on the I-V or P-V curve, governors and AVRs. A PV station of 30 MW capacity has
called the maximum power point (MPP), at which the entire been assumed to be tied to the middle of one of the
PV system operates with maximum efficiency and produces transmission lines through a 34MVA Inverter.
its maximum output power.
In power system stability is a major concern. CPVG’S
are designed in such a way that, the stability of the entire
system gets enhanced without the use of any additional
stabilizers and regulators like AVR, PSS. CPVG has a large
capacity to act as a electric energy source with high
potential[1]. The CPVG can provide some ancillary
functions like damping of low frequency oscillations rather
than acting as a large capacity electrical energy source [2].
To maintain the stability of both the utility and PV
distributed generation system under disturbances the
operational parameters should be maintained within the Fig.1. A “two machine double transmission line” model under study with
rated specifications . Conventional power system stabilizers a large centralized PV source interface.
 Robust control strategy for stability enhancement in grid connected PV systems

III CONTROL DESIGN AND STRATEGY
In lyapunov based transient stability studies the structure of
the original network is lost. An alternative approach is to
adopt the structure preserving model in which the active and
reactive demand at each load bus is explicitly represented.
The use of a structure preserving model of the system, first
proposed by Bergen and Hill, aims at overcoming some of
the shortcomings of the classical model , there by allowing
accurate modelling of loads.
The measured or estimated values of power flow
variation or frequency deviation has been used in
conventional methods of damping of power oscillations to
control the variation in power flow transmission angle as
per the following relations.
𝑑∆𝛿
𝛼 ∫ 𝑃𝑎 (𝑡)𝑑𝑡
𝑑𝑡
𝑑∆𝛿
≈ ∆𝑓𝑇
𝑑𝑡
where Pa(t) is the accelerating power associated with the
line or generator.
The structure preserved model maintains the original
network and uses the unreduced admittance matrix,
resulting in a model that can be regarded as having
structural integrity.
Energy function analysis can be used to investigate
power system issues such as disturbance, PSS design,
protection coordination and relay settings, etc., [5], [25].In
this paper , a structure preserving energy function(SPEF)
model is used to derive the control law for a PV-grid
system. The SPEF model of a system is given by:
𝑚 𝑚
1 is independent of the network configuration.
𝑣 ′ (𝜔 ̃ 𝑖2 − ∑ 𝑃𝑀𝑖 (𝛿̃𝑖 − 𝛿̃
̃, 𝜃̃ , 𝑉̃ ) = ∑ 𝑀𝑖 𝜔
𝑜𝑖 ) + ∑ 𝑃𝐿𝑖 (𝜃𝑖 − 𝜃𝑜𝑖 )
2
𝑖=1 𝑖=1 𝑖=1
𝑛 𝑉𝑖 𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑒
𝑄𝑖 (𝑉𝑖 ) 1
+∑ ∫ 𝑑𝑉𝑖 + ∑ 𝑄𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑠
𝑉𝑖 2
𝑖=1 𝑉𝑜𝑖 1 performance of the control law will not get affected. Finally
Where m is the number of generator buses and n is the
number of load buses. Qseries is the reactive power in all
series branches. The suffix “o” denotes steady state values.
Power angles and phase angles are measured with respect to
the center of inertia. Qi(Vi) denote the reactive power
functions associated with various buses and reactive power
controlling devices such as PV-grid inverter.
The SPEF model can be suitably modified for the
system under study is shown in (Fig.1), which upon
differentiation with respect to time yields the following
equation:
𝟐 𝟐
The time derivative of the total energy function must be
negative for effectively damping the electromechanical
oscillations. To ensure damping of power oscillations the
energy released during disturbance must decrease with time.
The model simplification as in equation (4) is based
on the assumption that the reactive power component of
current injection from the station acts as an independent
variable. Since the VSI of the PV grid system operates in
current control mode the above mentioned assumption cab
be incorporated in the control strategy.
Because of the use of decoupling component
between the active and reactive power components of
currents in the VSI , the active and reactive power control
do not interfere. The term that can be used as a damping
control variable can be given by
(1) 𝑉𝑔
𝑑 −𝐼𝑄𝑔 𝑉𝑔
∫ 𝑑𝑉𝑔 ≤ 0 (5)
𝑑𝑡 𝑉𝑔
(2) 𝑉𝑜𝑔
If equation (5) is incorporated in the control law as
given below effective damping of electromechanical
oscillations can be achieved.
𝑑𝑉𝑔
𝐼𝑄𝑔 = 𝐾𝑔 provided 𝐾𝑔 > 0 (6)
𝑑𝑡
Thus, as per equation (6) by controlling the reactive
power component of current from the PV generating station
the electromechanical oscillations occurring during a
disturbance can be damped. Here the control law uses only
the PV station voltage information as feedback, which is
locally available. This shows that the proposed control law
𝑛
̃ ̃
To achieve optimum performance the gain of the
control law must be finely tuned. This implies that even
though the configuration of the network changes the
(3) it is proved that the control law can be used for any system
size with arbitrary number of generator buses.
To implement the control of PV inverter
Synchronously rotating reference frame (SRRF)
transformation has been used. The maximum power point
trackers are used along with the PV panels to extract
maximum power. The reactive power component of current
is modulated as per the control law (6).
𝟑

𝒗′ (𝝎 ̃, 𝑽
̃, 𝜽 ̃) ̃̇𝒊 𝜹̃̇𝒊
= ∑ 𝑴𝒊 𝝎 − ∑ 𝑷𝑴𝒊 𝜹̃̇𝒊 + ∑ 𝑷𝑮𝒊 𝜹̃̇𝒊
𝒊=𝟏 𝒊=𝟏 𝒊=𝟏
𝟑 𝟑
𝑽̇𝒊
+ ∑ 𝑷𝑳𝒊 𝜽̃̇𝒊 + ∑ 𝑸𝒊 (𝑽𝒊 )
𝑽𝒊
𝒊=𝟏 𝒊=𝟏
𝑽𝒈
𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒆 Fig.2. Proposed control strategy for improving the dynamic stability of a
𝒅 −𝑰𝑸𝒈 𝑽𝒈 𝒅 𝟏
+ ∫ 𝒅𝑽𝒈 + ∑ 𝑸𝑳𝒊𝒏𝒆 large PV-grid interface showing dedicated control line with control law
𝒅𝒕 𝑽𝒈 𝒅𝒕 𝟐 incorporated in Gc(s).
𝑽𝒐𝒈 𝟏

(4)
 Robust control strategy for stability enhancement in grid connected PV systems
A wash out filter shown in (Fig. 2) helps the controller from
responding to DC offset and steady state voltage
components. The LPF is used to filter out high frequency
components there by providing noise free voltage feedback
to the control law.
The time derivative of the PV station voltage Vg may
be affected by noise and negative sequence components. So
to mitigate these issues the derivative of V g is implemented
in frequency domain using filtered derivative mode. This is
implemented in the control law as G c(s).
TABLE I
CONTROL DESIGN PARAMETERS
In order to design the various elements (e.g., filters,
controllers, etc.) of the control scheme , information about
the range of power swing frequency is required. In Table I
various control parameters used in the control scheme are
given. To design the controller parameters all system
quantities are considered in per units.
Decoupling component is introduced into the loops of
inverter reference voltages which does not affect the active
power control (MPPT). Even though the PV source nature
is intermittent stabilization control does not get affected.
The PV-DG’S used here does not require any circuit
modifications and thus the control scheme is said to act as a
structure preserving one.
IV SIMULATION RESULTS
MATLAB Simulink software is used to model the test
system under study and to validate the proposed scheme as
shown in Figure 2.
Fig. 3. Simulation result for power angle between buses 1-2 corresponding
to an L-G fault with conventional control of PV source.
Electrical power system have a dynamic and complex
behaviour. Different types of fault can interrupt the healthy
operation of the power system. Electrical fault is the
deviation of voltages and currents from nominal values.
Under normal operating conditions, power system
equipment or line carry normal voltages and currents. But
when fault occurs, it causes excessively high currents to
flow which causes damage to equipments and devices.
There are mainly two types of faults in the electrical power
system. Those are symmetrical and unsymmetrical faults.
Symmetrical faults are more severe and are infrequent in
power systems. Only 2 to 5 percent of system faults are of
this type. They are also known as three phase faults or
balanced faults. In power system the most common type of
fault which occurs is Line to ground (LG) fault. Frequency
of occurrence of such fault is about 65 to 70 percent. This
paper focuses mainly on LG fault and Three phase fault.
A) CASE I LG FAULT ON THE UPPER TRANSMISSION LINE:
Without proposed control scheme:
The frequently occurring LG fault is applied at time
t=20s and it is followed by breaker action. Due to the
long distance between the buses 1and 2 the phase angle
between them has a wide variation there will be still long
lasting electromechanical oscillations are visible in case
of the absence of the proposed controller.
With proposed control scheme:
With the implementation of proposed control scheme the
electromechanical oscillations are reduced compared to
the previous case. To derive the feedback signals and to
generate the reference current for VSI wash out and low
pass filters are used. This generated reference current is
responsible for effective energy control at the time of
fault and after the fault.
Figure 4 (a) shows the power angle between
buses 1-2 and this validates that the proposed control
scheme provides longer critical clearing time to clear the
fault. Figure 4 (b) explains that the oscillations in the PV
station voltage gets damped soon compared to the
system with conventional system without proposed
control scheme. Figure 4 (c) gives some information
about input to the control law which is taken from the
output of LPF which is behind the wash out filter. Fig 4
(d) shows the reference current generated for reactive
power component. Figure 4 (e) shows the actual reactive
and active power injected by the PV station. Figure 4 (f)
shows the power system bus voltage variations.
B) CASE II THREE PHASE FAULT ON THE UPPER TRANSMISSION
LINE:
In this case the most severe three phase fault is simulated
to study the impacts of the fault on the power system in
case of disturbance.
Without proposed control scheme:
Here the three phase is applied at time t=20s and it is
followed by breaker action. The simulation results shown
in figure 5 (a) validate that the system becomes unstable
during the fault with the absence of the control scheme.
It is observed from the figure that the angle between the
bus 1 and 2 leads to much lesser critical clearing time.
For the system to be stable and synchronism the critical
clearing time should be more than fault clearing time.
Thus with conventional PV station control in the
presence of a three phase fault , the system falls out of
step quickly and becomes unstable.
Robust control strategy for stability enhancement in grid connected PV systems

(a)

(b)

(c)
 Robust control strategy for stability enhancement in grid connected PV systems

(d)

(e)

Fig. 4. Simulation results for the proposed control strategy corresponding to an LG fault: (a) input to VSI; (b) Power system bus voltages(B1,B2,B3); (c)
actual reactive and active power injection by the PV station ; (d) power angle between buses 1-2 ; (e) PV station voltage.

(a)
Robust control strategy for stability enhancement in grid connected PV systems

(b)

(c)

(d)

Fig. 5. Simulation results corresponding to a 3-phase fault.

 Robust control strategy for stability enhancement in grid connected PV systems
With proposed control scheme:
In this case the proposed controller comes into role and the
fault is applied at the same time as said in the previous case.
The results prove that with the implementation of the
proposed scheme the dynamic stability of the system gets
improved and the electromechanical oscillations also die
down in a fast manner.
From the presented simulation studies, it is clear that the
proposed control strategy for the centralized PV generating
station provides better PV penetration margin.
V INFERENCE
The salient features of the proposed scheme are
summarized as follows:
1) To enhance the dynamic stability of a weak local area
power system PV-DG’S inverter can be used for damping
out the electromechanical oscillations and hence the system
will be relieved from severe stresses.
2) The penetration level of the distributed energy sources
which is coupled to the grid gets enhanced by the proposed
control scheme.
3) No additional power circuits are needed for incorporating
the control law in PV-DG’S system. Thus it proves that the
control method is structure preserving.
4) Implementation of control scheme requires only locally
available signals as feedback. Thus it makes the system to
be very simple and cost effective.
5) The MPPT control of the PV system will not get affected
and hence the active power control takes place very
efficiently.
VI CONCLUSION
It is clear that the future power systems would be operating
with high penetration of the distributed renewable energy
sources connected to the electrical grid, since the non -
renewable energy sources are depleting in nature. The
distributed renewable energy sources are tied to the grid
with the help of group of inverters. The control scheme used
in this paper demonstrates that these numerous distributed
generation interfaces can be used as an ancillary support for
the systems to enhance the stability of the power system.
The performance of the proposed control scheme has been
compared with conventional control schemes and the results
are found to be very effective.
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Robust control strategy for stability enhancement in grid connected PV systems