Solar Energy 158 (2017) 679–686

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Solar Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/solener

Enhanced performance of PV power control using model predictive control T

⁎
Fernand Diaz Franco , Tuyen V. Vu, David Gonsulin, Hesan Vahedi, Chris S. Edrington
Center for Advanced Power Systems, Florida State University, United States

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: This paper focuses on the use of model predictive control (MPC) to control a DC/DC boost converter in order to
PV system regulate the PV power. When integrated with the grid, the PV system must deliver maximum power most of the
MPPT time; however, if a voltage sag occurs, new grid codes demand that the control system should limit the PV power
MPC generated to avoid over current conditions and, consequently, a grid disconnection. Maximum and reduced
CHIL
power modes are implemented following the MPC strategy to achieve high–performance and stable operation in
the system. First, the system is modeled in Matlab/Simulink and PLECS to understand its operation and to
evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. Secondly, experimental results are verified using the
control hardware–in–the–loop (CHIL) approach on the Real Time Digital Simulator (RTDS).

1. Introduction
During normal conditions, the maximum power point tracking
(MPPT) technique are required on PV installations to maximize solar
harvesting and increase the profit provided by feed-in tariff govern-
mental programs. Different methods for MPP tracking on PV systems
have been proposed in the literature and can be classified into direct
and indirect methods. Indirect methods require prior knowledge of the
PV array characteristics under different irradiance/temperature condi-
tions. In contrast, direct methods use voltage and current measurements
from the PV array to achieve the optimal operation point. The selection
of a specific technique depends mostly on the implementation com-
plexity, number of sensors required, and convergence speed that is re-
quired for a certain application like solar vehicles (Ko and Chao, 2012).
In the literature, the Hill Climbing/Perturb and Observe (P&O)
(Balasankar et al., 2017; Rezk and Eltamaly, 2015) and Incremental
Conductance (López et al., 2016) techniques are the most widely used
because they are easy to implement, and they provide good efficiency
that goes from 96 to 99% (Ezinwanne et al., 2017; Bendib et al., 2015).
Due to the increase penetration of PV systems into the grid, current
grid codes demand ancillary services to improve overall power system
reliability (Nanou and Papathanassiou, 2014). This is the case when a
fault occurs, the PV system must deliver voltage support by injecting
reactive power at the point of connection (Yang et al., 2014; Hudson
and Heilscher, 2012). In this scenario the system should operate in a
reduced power mode (RPM) to decrease the active power injection, and
in this way, avoid over current condition and eventual disconnection of
the PV plant. Therefore, in a RPM, the PV controller must select a lower
power operating point than the MPP to lessen the negative impact of
grid overloading. Therefore, PV controllers must offer a fast and reliable
transition between the normal and fault operation mode to satisfy
current standards.
Pulse width modulation (PWM) techniques are commonly used to
achieve the operation modes previously described. The proper selection
of the switching frequency is an important step in the system design
because it can affect both the size of the converter—by increasing the
size of the energy store elements like inductances—as well as the
overall efficiency of the system (Rodriguez-Rodrıguez et al., 2017).
Moreover, the classical control techniques with PI regulators assume
that the converter is a linear system, and the transient performance as
well as the robustness of the system are limited by the selection of the
compensator bandwidth (Rivera et al., 2013).
Several articles have been published in literature in order to obtain
a RPM from PV arrays. They are implemented for both single- and two-
stage PV systems (Kiran et al., 2015; Urtasun et al., 2013;
Sangwongwanich et al., 2016). All utilize a P&O-based approach
technique to move PV power PPV operation from MPP to a lower point.
This is done by means of a perturbation step change on the PWM duty
cycle. The drawbacks on this method are the oscillations around the
new PV operation point and the speed of the process. Although, similar
P&O modified methods used for MPPT could be implemented to reduce
the mentioned disadvantages (Dileep and Singh, 2015; Harrag and
Messalti, 2015; Sheik Mohammed et al., 2016), the tracking speed re-
mains as the major weakness for a fast controller response during
transient events like grid faults.
Model predictive control (MPC) offers an alternative to overcome

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: fd13c@my.fsu.edu (F. Diaz Franco).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2017.10.005
Received 8 May 2017; Received in revised form 14 September 2017; Accepted 2 October 2017
Available online 15 October 2017
0038-092X/ © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
F. Diaz Franco et al. Solar Energy 158 (2017) 679–686

Nomenclature gB boost cost function

iL boost inductor current
ADC Analog–to–Digital Conversion IN inverter nominal current
CAN Control Area Network IPV PV Current
CUT Controller Under Test Iq inverter reactive current
CHIL Control Hardware–in–the–loop L boost filter inductance
DAC Digital–to–Analog Conversion PINV inverter active power
FCS-MPC Finite Control Set MPC PN inverter nominal power
LVRT Low–Voltage Ride–Through PPV PV power
MPC Model Predictive Control QINV inverter reactive power
MPPT Maximum Power Point Tracking SBoost boost control signal
PI Proportional Integral Ts sampling time
PV Photovoltaic Vdc DC-link voltage
PWM Pulse Width Modulation Vg grid voltage
P&O Perturb and Observe Vgn nominal grid voltage
RPM Reduced Power Mode VPV PV voltage
RTDS Real Time Digital Simulator x∗ reference value of x
CPV PV capacitor

the drawbacks of classical techniques to satisfy fast dynamic response.

MPC is a powerful technique that involves the use of a mathematical
model of the controlled system to find an optimal control solution for a
predefined time horizon (Aguilera et al., 2013). The discrete nature of
the power converters is well suited for this control technique since the
converter states are finite and defined by the number of switching
power electronics employed on a respective topology, such control
approach is referred as finite control set MPC (FCS-MPC). A modulation
technique is not required for the FCS-MPC since the output command is
directly applied to the power electronics. Additionally, the FCS-MPC
offers advantages over classical control techniques such as a fast dy-
namic response, the flexibility in the definition of the control objectives, Fig. 1. Reactive current requirement for voltage support.
and the easy inclusion of nonlinearities (Young et al., 2014; Xia et al.,
2014; Bordons and Montero, 2015). network. In this scenario, low–voltage ride–through (LVRT) capabilities
In this paper, the FCS-MPC approach is used to control a PV system and voltage support are essential to prevent blackouts. In the German
with a boost DC/DC converter to regulate the response of PPV on normal code, the reactive current that the DG system should inject to support
conditions and fault scenarios. The proposed algorithm can track the the grid voltage must follow the profile presented in Fig. 1. In this, full
MPP under solar irradiation changes as well as limit PPV when required reactive current should be injected for voltage sags greater than 50% of
by the system. This control scheme predicts the future power delivered the nominal grid voltage, and for other voltage depths the slope m
by the PV system in terms of the possible switching states, IPV and VPV. condition must be satisfied.
The error between the predicted PPV and the reference is minimized by In the past, during normal operation, PV inverters were set to inject
means of a cost function. full active power; however, new grid codes impose reactive power in-
The remainder of this paper is divided in the following sections. In jection for voltage support during voltage sags. Therefore, PV’s must
Section 2, the grid code requirements and the mathematical modeling modify the PV operation point from MPPT on normal conditions to a
of the proposed technique is studied and the simulations results are RPM when voltage support is required to avoid over current conditions.
presented. The control hardware-in-the-loop (CHIL) experimentation Fig. 2 shows the PV operation point transition and its implementation is
methodology using a real–time digital simulator (RTDS) is described in as follows: (i) the voltage depth indicates the total reactive current as
Section 3. Next, in Section 4, the performance of the proposed tech- shown in Fig. 1; (ii) the required PV power reference PPV∗ is chosen
nique is discussed for the MPPT and RPM operations. Finally, in Section
5, appropriate conclusions are drawn.

2. Grid code requirement and theoretical analysis

In this section, existent grid code requirement for PV systems and its
relationship with PPV control is presented next. Additionally, the
mathematical model using FCS-MPC is elaborated and the algorithm to
accomplish MPPT and RPM is presented next.

2.1. Grid code requirement

Germany, Spain, Italy as well as other leading countries for PV in-

tegration have made significant updates to their grid code requirements
for DG (VDE-AR-N-4105, 2011; IEEE Std 1547a, 2014), allowing DGs to
contribute to the voltage stability and voltage quality. Consequently,
Fig. 2. Active power limitation during voltage sag conditions.
this allows the incorporation of more renewable sources into the power

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F. Diaz Franco et al. Solar Energy 158 (2017) 679–686

based on the converter power limitation; and (iii) the PV operation As shown in (5), the prediction on PPV requires PV kth measured values
point moves from MPP to the required PPV∗ which is located either to for power, current, and voltages at every side of the boost converter.
the left or right of the PV curve (points a and b in Fig. 2). Also, to obtain the capacitor power PCPV, the derivative in (5) can be
Due the fast nature of voltage sags, the conversion from MPPT to discretized using the backward Euler method (Narimani et al., 2015).
RPM must be done in a similar speed range. Moreover, failing to reduce Eq. (5) must be solved for both switching state conditions to later
PPV at the required speed could lead to a protection trip of the system. minimize the cost function defined in (1). One way to improve the
To satisfy the control dynamics during fault scenarios, a FCS-MPC- execution speed for implementation is by solving (5) in terms of SBoost as
based controller is proposed and the modeling and algorithm im-
1 ⎧ L ∗
plementation is explained next. SBoost (k + 1) = 1 + [PPV (k + 1)−PPV (k ) + PCPV ]
Vdc (k ) ⎨
⎩ Ts VPV (k )
2.2. Modeling and control
−VPV (k )⎫,
⎬
⎭ (6)
In a two–stage PV system as shown in Fig. 3, the DC/DC boost ∗
where PCPV is the CPV power loss and (k + 1) has taken the place of
PPV
converter side, also known as the generator–side, regulates the PV
the predicted power. Eq. (6) provides an indication of the optimal
output power. Therefore, the mathematical model of this section is
switching state to achieve the required reference. Using the notation in
developed next. The control objectives are: (1) to achieve MPPT for the
(6), the cost function defined in (1) is modified to
normal operation and (2) to track PPV as it would be required during
fault scenarios. Using MPC-based control, the generator–side cost gB (k ) = [SBoost (k + 1)−SBoost States]2 , (7)
function can be expressed using the quadratic error form as (Sultana
et al., 2017) where SBoost_States represents a vector of the states of the boost converter
∗
(0 and 1).
gB (k ) = [PPV (k + 1)−PPV (k + 1)]2 , (1) The advantage of FCS-MPC offers over PWM techniques is that the
where ∗
(k + 1) represents the power reference for the next iteration
PPV switching state that delivers minimum error is chosen and applied to
that during fault conditions is proportional to the sag depth, and the power converter. Therefore, it can track the reference signal faster.
PPV (k + 1) corresponds to the predicted PPV delivered. As shown in (6), using PV measurements the system can track a re-
To predict the future behavior of PPV, the differential equation that quired reference by calculating the minimum error of the cost function
describe the boost converter dynamics must be obtained. The inductor defined in (7).
current can be found solving the KVL equations when the switch is on It has been shown the mathematical modeling of the generator–side
∗ ∗
and off, and it is given by (Diaz-Franco et al., 2016) in order to track PPV . Next, the selection of PPV is discussed for normal
operation (MPPT) and RPM.
diL 1
= [VPV + (SBoost −1) Vdc ],
dt L (2)
2.3. PPV reference calculation
where SBoost represents the switching state of the boost converter that
can be either 1 or 0. Using the first order approximation for the deri- In the RPM, PPV ∗
is calculated based on the voltage sag depth, and
vative in (2), and shifting the output current into one future sample the PV system capacity as it was shown in Fig. 2. However, in normal
∗
(Yaramasu et al., 2015; Sultana et al., 2017), the predicted current in conditions, the PPV must track the optimal operation point at all times
discrete time notation is given by to guarantee maximum power delivery. Using the approach described
Ts in Section 2.2., conventional methods such as P&O and IncCond (Alik
iL (k + 1) = [VPV (k ) + (SBoost −1) Vdc (k )] + iL (k ), and Jusoh, 2017; Gad et al., 2017) can be adapted to track MPP using
L (3)
the FCS–MPC principle. Such methods originally vary VPV or the duty
where Ts corresponds to the sampling time. If the sampling time is small cycle by Δ steps to climb to the MPP; therefore, if such methods were
enough, it can be assumed that VPV (k ) ≅ VPV (k + 1) . Therefore, one can implemented following the FCS–MPC approach, the variation term
multiply both sides of (3) by VPV (k ) to solve in terms of PV power must be modified to update instead PPV ∗
in (6).
Ts VPV (k ) The approach followed in this paper is different since it considers
PPV (k + 1) = [VPV (k ) + (SBoost −1) Vdc (k )] + PPV (k ). the natural behavior of the boost converter and the optimal switching
L (4)
state provided in (6). To explain the methodology, consider first the
Eq. (4) supposes no power loss on CPV. This valid if CPV is chosen large data presented on Table 1 and Fig. 4. In the steady state condition, one
enough and the sampling time given by Ts is small. If the conditions can assume that PCPV ≈ 0 ; therefore, the term [PPV∗
(k + 1)−PPV (k )], now
previously stated were not satisfied, (4) can be modified to include CPV referred as ΔP in (6), can be either positive or negative. If ΔP > 10 , the
dynamics as
Ts VPV (k ) Table 1
PPV (k + 1) = [VPV (k ) + (SBoost −1) Vdc (k )] + PPV (k ) Simulation parameters.
L
dV
−CPV VPV PV . Variable Description Value
dt (5)
PV Parameters
VOC PV Open Circuit Voltage (V) 32.9
ISC PV Short Circuit Current (A) 8.21
Number of PV Modules in Series—Parallel 6–4
VMPP PV String Array MPP Voltage (V) 169.1
IMPP PV String Array MPP Current (A) 28.4
PPV Power PV array (kW) 4.8
DC/DC Converter and Controller Parameters
L Boost Filter Inductance (mH) 10
CPV PV Capacitance (μF) 512
Cdc DC-Link Capacitance (μF) 380
TS Sampling Time (μs) 25
Vdc Vdc bus voltage reference (V) 400
Fig. 3. Circuit diagram of the PV system.

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F. Diaz Franco et al.
∗
Fig. 4. Operation principle to select PPV .
minimization function will choose to close the switch for all values of
Vpv. On the other hand, if is ΔP < −25, the result will be to leave it open.
Therefore, the response of the boost converter using FCS-MPC can be
used to control the PV operation point path on the PPV vs VPV curve as
shown in Fig. 4 so that the MPP is always on the track.
A flow chart shown in Fig. 5 summarizes the process for the cal-
∗ 2.4. Simulation results
culation of PPV during the normal operation of the PV system, and
through grid voltage sag conditions. Both functions are explained next:
The right–side of Fig. 5 corresponds to the RPM operation. During
voltage sag conditions, the PV power reference must be careful selected
to avoid overcurrent and eventually disconnection from the grid.
∗
Therefore, PPV is chosen to comply grid code requirements presented in
Fig. 1, and to satisfy the inverter power rating as shown in Fig. 2.
∗
Fig. 5. PPV calculation based on FCS-MPC principle.
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Solar Energy 158 (2017) 679–686
On the other hand, the left-side of Fig. 5 shows the normal operation
of the PV system, this is MPPT enabled. The Update MPP block is set to
true by an irradiation change detection—given by δ—or using a
time–based approach. If the MPP reference needs to be updated, a
∗
perturbation step is applied making PPV = 1.05PN which forces the
power switch to conduct as explained in Fig. 4. If during this time a
drop in PPV is detected, it means that the current PV operation point is
∗
located at the left side of the MPP. In such case, PPV is changed to, for
∗
instance PPV = 0 , which forces the system to correct the direction and
climb to the MPP. Finally, the Find Peak step can be easily implemented
by storing previous PPV points as it approaches the MPP. Once the PPV
∗
starts to decline, the PPV can be obtained as the maximum value from
the stored values.
The generator–side controller can be summarized in the following
steps: (a) measurement of the PV electrical signals (b) identification of
∗
the converter operation mode provides PPV , if normal, the reference is
calculated following the steps on left–side of Fig. 5; (c) SBoost is calcu-
lated using (6); (d) the optimal switching state is computed by means of
the minimization function given by (7); and finally, (e) the optimal
state is applied to the boost converter.
The performance of the proposed FCS-MPC for PPV control is eval-
uated using MATLAB/Simulink with the modeling of the PV system in
PLECS blockset. The analytical five–parameter PV model has been used
for the implementation of irradiance variations as outlined in (Djoudi
Gherbi et al., 2017; Chouder et al., 2012). The system parameters for
simulation are listed in Table 1. The PV system parameters were chosen
based on the power rating of a testbed available in the lab, additional
information about the testbed can be found in (Hasanzadeh et al., 2014;
Vu et al., 2017); whereas the control parameter Ts is selected small
enough to satisfy the condition described in Section 2.2.
A first test is performed to show the performance of the proposed
∗
controller to follow a designed PPV profile and the results are shown in
Fig. 6. In this test, both solar irradiation and temperature are main-
tained constant to 1 kW m−2 and 25 °C, respectively. The profile chosen
tests the ability of the controller to respond to fast transients like those
expected during voltage sag conditions. It is observed that the system
has good tracking performance, even when a large variation in the
Fig. 6. Simulation of the boost converter for PV power tracking in the RPM.
F. Diaz Franco et al.
Fig. 7. MPPT response under irradiation change for different updating time. (a) 50 ms, (b) 10 ms.
power reference is required as shown at time 0.55 s. Moreover, from the
∗
VPV and IPV curves, it is observed that the PPV is always achieved on the
right–side of the MPP where the system is more sensitive to VPV var-
iations.
A second test is performed to verify the MPPT method under solar
irradiation change conditions and 25 °C constant temperature, the results
are presented in Figs. 7 and 8. To better illustrate the proposed method,
50 ms is initially chosen has the MPP update time and the results are
shown in Figs. 7a and 8. The figures indicate how the algorithm perturbs
∗
the system to update PPV and tracks this value for the next 50 ms. The
enhanced performance is obtained by decreasing the update time so that
the tracking of the MPP looks like a continuous–time reference signal. The
results of decreasing the updating time parameter can be seen in Fig. 7b
where a 10 ms update time was chosen. It can be clearly seen the ad-
vantage of the proposed methodology compared to other techniques
where the MPP is reached by varying the duty cycle by Δ steps.
The nature of FCS-MPC method forces a change on the switching
state when the current converter state does not deliver minimum error;
therefore, it is expected that the switching frequency not to be constant.
Table 2 shows the average switching frequency Fsw for the simulated
cases. It can be seen that although all cases use the same sampling time,
there is a large variation on the Fsw for all cases. This is due to the PV
operating point on the PPV vs VPV curve. The results presented in Fig. 6
showed that the operating point is located at the right–side of the MPP;
therefore, small variations on VPV could lead to larger fluctuations on
IPV. On the other hand, as the PV operating point is located closer to the
Fig. 8. MPPT path for irradiation changes. Update time 50 ms.
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Solar Energy 158 (2017) 679–686
MPP, the impact on the harvested power of similar VPV fluctuations is
less noticeable.
3. CHIL experimentation methodology
In order to verify the efficacy of the proposed methodology, the
real–time implementation of the PPV controller is performed using RTDS
Technologies product. CHIL is a combination of computer simulation in
real–time and a controller under test (CUT) that is connected to the
real–time simulator. The methodology offers a more realistic environ-
ment than software simulation because it can help to identify limita-
tions of the CUT, and verify CUT performance for an electrical system
whose design has not yet been prototyped (Edrington et al., 2015).
The generator–side of the system depicted in Fig. 3 and the para-
meters given in Table 1 are modeled on RSCAD, which is a built–in
graphical user interface software that manages the real–time simulator.
Details on modeling a PV system on RTDS/RSCAD are not addressed in
this document; however, interested readers are encouraged to read
(Islam et al., 2015) that describes in detail RTDS/RSCAD modeling
principle, more specifically, large- and small–time step interfacing ap-
proach.
The proposed control is implemented using a Texas Instrument
C2000 F28377S Launchpad evaluation board that runs at speed of
200 MHz. The F28377S has 14 analog–to–digital converter ADC chan-
nels available used to interface with the real–time simulator, one di-
gital–to–analog DAC channel used for debugging purposes, two Control
Area Network (CAN) ports used to connect it to a local network where
measurement devices and other equipment are connected. The con-
troller program is developed in Matlab Simulink using Embedded Coder
with support for Texas Instruments C2000 family.
The experiment setup is shown in Fig. 9. The CUT is connected to
Table 2
Average switching frequency for the simulated cases.
Test FSW (kHz)
Fig. 6. PPV tracking. No irradiation change 17.8
Fig. 7a. MPPT. 50 ms update time 13.4
Fig. 7b. MPPT. 10 ms update time 8.55
F. Diaz Franco et al. Solar Energy 158 (2017) 679–686

Fig. 11. Experimental results for PV power tracking.

RTDS using a GTDI card that receives the switch control action from the
CUT, and a GTIO card that provides the analog signals to be measured
by the digital signal processor. All these signals are multiplexed to a
Yokogawa scope for data recording and analysis. Finally, both cards
transfer the data to and from the real–time simulator located in a dif-
Fig. 9. Experiment setup.
ferent lab using fiber optic cables.

Fig. 10. CHIL results for PV power tracking.

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F. Diaz Franco et al.
Fig. 12. Experimental results for MPPT operation scope image.
4. Results and discussion
The first CHIL test is conducted to validate the PPV tracking response
of the system. The recorded scope signals and the scaled physical
magnitudes are shown in Fig. 10 and Fig. 11 respectively. From the
results, the performance is similar to the results shown in Fig. 6, where
the controller presents a fast-transient response, and it always operates
the PV array at the point in which it delivers the required power.
Moreover, it can be seen clearly in Fig. 10 zoom2 area how the
FCS–MPC maintains an optimal switching state of the converter when a
fast response is required. This improves the settling time and reduces
the power loses produced by a constant PWM switching. Additional
analysis showed that the Fsw is 6.1 kHz, which is below the results
shown in Table 2. This decrement on the switching frequency for ex-
perimental results is in concordance with previous results published by
other authors (Choi and Lee, 2015; Panten et al., 2016).
A second experiment was performed to verify the proposed MPPT
operation, and the results are shown in Figs. 12 and 13. After a tuning
process, 1 ms update time was chosen to improve the performance of the
MPPT method. The solar irradiation rate for decreasing and increasing
were set on RSCAD to be −100 and 200 W s−1 respectively. For the ir-
radiation profile implemented, it is observed that the proposed algorithm
converges quickly to the MPP as the atmospheric conditions vary.
Fig. 13. Experimental results for MPPT operation.
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Solar Energy 158 (2017) 679–686
5. Conclusions
In this paper, a FCS–MPC is proposed to control the operation point
of a PV array to satisfy MPP and RPM required by new grid codes. The
mathematical approach of the proposed algorithm is developed to
control the DC/DC converter stage of a 5 kW PV system. Simulation and
a CHIL experimental results showed that the proposed algorithm is able
to harvest the required power reference during normal conditions and
in the RPM. Additionally, the developed method offers about 1 ms re-
sponse to reach a new PV operation point which makes it a good can-
didate for the control of the DC/DC stage during LVRT operation.
Acknowledgment
Authors thank Florida State University and the Center for Advanced
Power Systems (CAPS) for the hardware and software provided to
conduct this research, as well as the Administrative Department of
Science, Technology and Innovation of Colombia (COLCIENCIAS) and
Fulbright Colombia for F.D.F scholarship.
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