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Local Reactive Power Control Methods for Overvoltage Prevention of Distributed Solar Inverters in Low-Voltage Grids
Erhan Demirok, Student Member, IEEE, Pablo Casado Gonz lez, Student Member, IEEE, Kenn H. B. Frederiksen, a Dezso Sera, Member, IEEE, Pedro Rodriguez, Senior Member, IEEE, and Remus Teodorescu, Fellow, IEEE

AbstractThe main objective of this study is to increase the penetration level of photovoltaic (PV) power production in low-voltage (LV) grids by means of solar inverters with reactive power control capability. This paper underlines weak points of standard reactive power strategies which are already imposed by certain grid codes, and then, the study introduces a new reactive power control method that is based on sensitivity analysis. The sensitivity analysis shows that the same amount of reactive power becomes more effective for grid voltage support if the solar inverter is located at the end of a feeder. Based on this fundamental knowledge, a location-dependent power factor set value can be assigned to each inverter, and the grid voltage support can be achieved with less total reactive power consumption. In order to prevent unnecessary reactive power absorption from the grid during admissible voltage range or to increase reactive power contribution from the inverters that are closest to the transformer during grid overvoltage condition, the proposed method combines two droop functions that are inherited from the standard cos(P) and Q(U) strategies. Its performance comparison in terms of grid losses and voltage variation with different reactive power strategies is provided by modeling and simulating a real suburban LV network. Index TermsLow-voltage (LV) network, reactive power control, solar inverters.

I. INTRODUCTION

S the penetration of grid-connected distributed generators increases on public electricity networks, possible problems such as voltage rise, overloading of network equipment, harmonic current emissions, network resonance, false islanding detection, and dc current injections are becoming more of an issue to be addressed carefully. This study focuses on grid voltage rise and transformer overloading limitations in the case where

Manuscript received July 12, 2011; revised September 10, 2011; accepted October 10, 2011. Date of publication December 7, 2011; date of current version December 27, 2011. This work was supported by Aalborg UniversityDanfoss Solar Inverters A/S Partnership. Any opinions, ndings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this paper are those of authors and do not necessarily reect those of Danfoss Solar Inverters A/S. E. Demirok, D. Sera, and R. Teodorescu are with the Department of Energy Technology, Aalborg University, DK-9220 Aalborg, Denmark (e-mail: ede@et.aau.dk; des@et.aau.dk; ret@et.aau.dk). P. C. Gonz lez and P. Rodriguez are with the Technical University of Cata alonia, 08034 Barcelona, Spain (e-mail: pablo.casado.gonzalez@gmail.com; prodriguez@ee.upc.edu). K. H. B. Frederiksen is with the Renewable Energy Department, EnergiMidt A/S, DK-8600 Silkeborg, Denmark (e-mail: kef@energimidt.dk). Color versions of one or more of the gures in this paper are available online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. Digital Object Identier 10.1109/JPHOTOV.2011.2174821

low power demand of electricity consumers coincides with high real power injections from solar inverters. In practice, utility companies can prevent reverse power ow (or voltage rise) on the grid by limiting the number of solar inverter connections, allowing reactive power absorption, as well as requiring certain protection relay mechanisms from the inverters regarding the voltage abnormal changes. Storage system utilization and demand-side management are the other ways to further increase the penetration level, although only system owners can decide to put them into practice. This is also a focus area of the International Energy Agency Photovoltaics Power Systems Programme, which has initiated a research project called Task 14 with focus on high penetration of PV systems in electricity grids. The main goal of 14 is to promote the use of gridconnected photovoltaics (PV) as an important source in electric power systems at the higher penetration levels that may require additional efforts to integrate dispersed generators. It is straightforward to benet from the available solar inverters that are connected to the grid to increase their penetration level more. Reactive power capability of an inverter is limited by the current carrying capacity of semiconductor switches. When the real power injection is less than the inverter rated power, remaining capacity can be utilized for the reactive power supply/absorption. The most new generation solar inverters are already oversized such that 0.9 power factor (PF) can be preserved at the nominal real power injection for grid ancillary services. Reactive power control permission of the grid-connected inverters on low-voltage (LV) distribution networks has been dened in [1] as draft grid code for the time being in Germany by reecting the medium voltage (MV) grid code requirements [2] into the LV networks. In this study, the minimum PF value will be limited to 0.9. Country settings for reactive power control methods may differ from each other, but the droop parameters in the context of this paper can be adapted to any specic grid code. Since grid overvoltage and transformer overloading are the most prevalent limitations, admissible grid voltage levels must be dened clearly at rst. In [1] and [2], total voltage rise due to the power injections from distributed generators on LV and MV networks are limited at 3% and 2% of the nominal grid voltage, respectively. Therefore, short-circuit impedance and its impedance angle at each connection point are required to estimate these voltage changes that are caused by the generators, and eventually, maximum allowable power injections are determined before commissioning of the inverters. On the other hand, the vast majority of grid codes dene only normal

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Fig. 2.

Two-bus load ow demonstration and related notations for (1) and (2).

Fig. 1. Admissible voltage window in 10 min average and disconnection time imposed by (left) VDE 0126-1-1 [3] and (right) IEC 61727 [4].

operation range of the grid voltage that the inverters stay continuously in grid-connected mode inside the normal voltage ranges [3], [4] (see Fig. 1). In this case, unlimited number of inverters can be connected to the grid as long as the normal grid voltage range is fullled. In addition to the voltage limitation, power ow on the MV/LV transformers tends to increase with the grid voltage because distributed inverters throughout the network will start absorbing additional reactive power in order to reduce the grid voltage. During this period, the transformer maximum load level can be determined by the estimation of hot spot temperature [5]. The lifetime of oil and windings thermal insulation degrades sharply with high hot spot temperatures. Thus, in practice, the maximum allowable hot spot temperature specied by the transformer manufacturer becomes the limit for the transformer. For the simplicity, 100% transformer loading will be considered as the maximum limit in this study. Various reactive power control methods without requiring communication infrastructures have been proposed so far for the grid overvoltage limitation. Droop control that is already employed in conventional power plants for power sharing and frequency stability can remedy the grid voltage support mechanism of solar inverters [6][9]. The static reactive power droop curves are dened as piecewise linear equations in terms of either local voltage in 10-min average or output active power (see Fig. 6), and xed droop settings are usually assigned to all inverters that are connected to the same transformer. Instead of applying the same droop settings for all inverters, a location-dependent adaptive Q(U) method is proposed in [9] in order to achieve higher voltage drop at the end of feeder. However, the inverter location information is obtained through the short-circuit impedance measurement at the connection point. In [10], a similar approach without impedance measurement has been proposed such that only local variables, i.e., voltage and output active power, are utilized and processed in a rule-based approach. This study develops the same previous idea by replacing the fuzzy inference method with a second droop function, as discussed in the following sections. The objective of this paper is to propose a reactive power control strategy that is able to provide mainly the following targets to a feasible extent. First, the inverters should have coordination among each other to operate in the admissible grid voltage without a communi-

cation medium by means of only measurable local variables (terminal voltage, active power, etc.). Next, total reactive power absorption from the inverters should stay in minimum levels provided that the most critical bus voltage is inside the normal operation range. Finally, all the inverters on the same network should participate on the voltage support mechanism when the critical bus voltage is above the limit value. Section II presents voltage sensitivity analysis which is applied on a simplied radial feeder. Section III reviews the standard reactive power methods for grid voltage support feature and a real suburban LV network model will be employed to examine the performance of these reactive power strategies in terms of grid losses and voltage variation at the critical bus. Afterward, a new reactive power method is described in Section IV, and nally, the paper is concluded in Section V with some remarks regarding the simulation results. II. VOLTAGE SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS Voltage sensitivity analysis can determine the most effective locations and amounts to serve reactive power for the grid voltage support from the distributed solar inverters. A voltage sensitivity matrix S is derived by solving two nonlinear load ow (1) and (2) using NewtonRaphson algorithm. The system Jacobian matrix is updated at each iteration until convergence tolerance is satised and the resultant Jacobian matrix is inversed to compute S matrix [11]. Fig. 2 shows the two-bus power ow notations where P, Q, U, , Y, and denote, respectively, the active power ow, reactive power ow, phasor bus voltage, voltage angle, line admittance, and impedance angle
n

Pi = |Ui |
j =1

|Uj | |Yij | cos(ij i + j )

n

(1)

Qi = |Ui |
j =1

|Uj | |Yij | sin(ij i + j ) S Q SU Q P . Q

(2)

S P SU P

(3)

J 1 =S

An 8-bus radial test feeder is used for sensitivity analysis, as depicted in Fig. 3 and the required parameters for the load ow calculations are given in Table I. It is assumed that the test feeder has three-phase balanced power ow. Power demand from the consumers is also neglected. Solving the load ow (1)(3) for the previously given parameters results in the voltage sensitivity to active power SU P and

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Fig. 3.

Simplied radial test feeder for the voltage sensitivity analysis. TABLE I RADIAL TEST FEEDER PARAMETERS (SEE FIG. 3) TABLE II REQUIRED POWER FACTOR VALUES TO COMPENSATE VOLTAGE RISE AT PV7 WITH CABLE ARRANGEMENT

Fig. 5. Fig. 4. Voltage sensitivity at PV7 to P and Q variation for (upper) cable and (lower) overhead line.

PV7 voltage regulation of the solar inverters.

the voltage sensitivity to reactive power SU Q matrices. Fig. 4 plots the voltage sensitivity magnitudes at bus PV7 for the two types of conductors [cable and overhead line (OHL)] that have different R/X impedance ratios. With bigger impedance, there is always higher voltage impact by both active and reactive power variations. It is also observed from Fig. 4 that SU Q is higher than SU P at the connection points of inverters that are closest to the transformer. This is caused by having short-distance line connection to the transformer. Therefore, short-circuit reactance of the transformer Xtr becomes dominant over the short-circuit resistance at these locations. As the distance to the transformer increases along the feeder, line resistance contributes more on the impedance compared with the transformer Xtr so that the real power control becomes more effective on the voltage support than the reactive power control. On the other hand, PV applications especially low-power residential installations should rarely practice real power control in order to increase energy yield from the sun.

Ideally, the voltage rise that is caused by real power injections from the inverters PV1PV7 can be fully compensated by the reactive power control. Using (3), the required PF set values for each inverter can be determined as [12] U = SU P P + SU Q Q = 0 PFi = 1 1+ m2 i , mi = SU P (j, i) SU Q (j, i) (4) (5)

where PFi is the required PF at ith bus, and j corresponds to the critical bus number (PV7 connection point in this case). Ten kilowatts of constant real power injection (P = 10 kW) is assigned to all inverters at the same time, and the required PFs to keep the voltage level of PV7 unchanged are presented in Table II and plotted in Fig. 5. The relevant voltage sensitivity matrices SU P and SU Q associated with P = 10 kW can be found in the Appendix. Voltage control in LV networks may not be an efcient solution with solar inverters. As seen from Table II and Fig. 5, the typical required PF ranges are quite low to regulate the PV7

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voltage at 1.02 p.u. Nominal power of the inverters and overloading of network equipments (transformers and cables) usually prevent the inverters that are operating below 0.9 PF. Due to the previous limitations of voltage control, the identical distribution of PF set values among the inverters can be still realized within higher PF ranges (such that 0.91.0), which is the socalled voltage support instead of voltage control. This limited reactive power control can still considerably provide additional voltage drops on the transformer and lines. To sum up, the main conclusion from the sensitivity analysis is that lower PF values should be assigned to the inverters that are connected far away from the transformer. It should also be pointed out that additional reactive power increases inverter losses [6]. In this study, the loss of real power discrepancies between the inverters because of the different PF set values will be neglected. III. REVIEW OF THE STANDARD REACTIVE POWER CONTROL METHODS FOR THE GRID VOLTAGE SUPPORT The recommended or proposed local reactive power strategies regarding 10-min average voltage variations can be mainly grouped as xed reactive power (xed Q), xed PF (xed cos), PF in terms of injected active power cos(P), and local gridvoltage-dependent reactive power Q(U) [6][8]. Each of these methods is dened by using either a constant value and/or rstorder piecewise equations that can be easily implemented in the inverter controllers and be modied remotely. Since xed Q method requires information of load power and PV power production time proles for a known facility, this method will not be examined here. General patterns of the standard reactive power methods are typically shown in Fig. 6. Compared with the xed Q method, in the case of using the xed cos method, the generated reactive power is proportional to the active power (6), and it is inherently enabled as long as the active power is produced. Accordingly, during the low irradiance level, the generated reactive power will also be as low as the active power by keeping the proportionality equal: cos = constant C1 = tan = Q = C1 P. Q P (6)

Fig. 6. Standard reactive power methods. (Upper) Fixed cos. (Middle) cos(P). (Bottom) Q(U).

When the real power production is low, the potential risk of the grid overvoltage becomes smaller as well, since all produced real power then can be consumed locally without sending excessive power to the MV network. In this case, the reactive power control will be unnecessary, and it apparently creates additional network losses. The cos(P) method can improve this drawback of the previous method by changing C1 to another predetermined C2 during the specied low level of real power injection C1, C1 C2 cos = (P P 1) + C1, P1 P2 C2, P < P1 P 1 P P 2 (7) P > P 2.

The methods given so far support the grid voltage indirectly by using only local real power measurement as input. In all these methods, it is assumed that the grid voltage level increases with the produced active power from the solar inverters, regardless of load variation. Nevertheless, when the high irradiance level coincides with the peak power demand, then simply the voltage rise may not reach to the critical value. The Q(U) method directly uses local voltage information that is a consequence of the power production and consumption in the neighborhood (8). Hence, total reactive power absorption of the inverters can be considerably reduced within the cost of weaker voltage support compared with the xed cos and cos(P) methods. In this context, weak voltage support or weak voltage coordination implies that reactive power contribution from the inverters that are nearest to the transformer will be negligible since the measured voltage levels at these inverters will be lower. There is a possibility to see no reactive power absorption from the inverters that are closest to the transformer, although the voltage level at the end of feeder is above the limit value (see PV1 on the bottom of Fig. 6). These advantages and drawbacks of the methods will be demonstrated on a real network model in the following sections: U < U1 Qm ax , Qm ax (U U 1) + Qm ax , U 1 U U 2 U1 U2 Q = 0, U 2 < U U 3 (8) Qm ax (U + U 3), U3 < U U4 U3 U4 Qm ax , U > U 4.

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TABLE III SUMMARY OF THE GRID CHARACTERISTIC

Fig. 7.

Electrical grid map under study.

A. Grid Model The example LV distribution grid, as shown in Fig. 7, is located in Brdstrup: a village in the region of stjylland, Denmark. Only one of the eight MV/LV distribution transformers and its downstream connections in the area are modeled to examine reactive power methods. In reality, the grid under study is operated as meshed topology in order to increase power transfer capacity. For the worst- case scenario in the sense of a voltage rise problem, the interconnecting lines that create a loop (see Fig. 7) are disconnected, and thus, the grid topology is converted to a radial structure in the simulation model. Moreover, cable size at some feeder segments is oversized in such a way that maximum cable loading (%), which is referred to their nominal current carrying capacity, is maintained below the peak transformer loading (%). A 400-kVA 10/0.4-kV Dyn5 oil-immersed power transformer is used to supply 60 residential consumers from the MV grid. The rest of the other grid parameters are summarized in Table III. Currently, 27 rooftops have already been occupied by different sizes of solar modules, but this PV penetration level is extended further in simulation; therefore, as a long-term future case, it is expected that all the houses will have the same rated PV power installations on their rooftops. Real 15-min average power demand and PV power production proles for the year of 2007 are collected from a Sol300 PV project that was launched in 1998 in Denmark [13]. Ap-

proximately 300 residential buildings that spread to eight different geographical communities were equipped with two separate energy meters to monitor both electricity productions and consumptions. Thus, typical 15-min average power demand and production proles that were required for the simulation of the suburban LV grid were obtained by averaging the arbitrarily chosen 100 houses. Fig. 8 demonstrates the nal average proles for two extreme months in 2007. Regarding the steady-state voltage variations and overloading of the transformer that are simulated in Digsilent PowerFactory tool, the following assumptions are made. 1) Loads operate at unity PF. 2) All loads and inverters are PQ sources and are threephase connected. 3) Balanced power ow at fundamental frequency (50 Hz) is considered. 4) All houses have identical average production and consumption proles. A owchart for the load ow script was developed as shown in Fig. 9. Rate of change limiter was also necessary to numerically damp Q oscillations among the inverters. B. Examination of the Standard Reactive Power Methods The average PV power production prole, which is given in Fig. 8(b), does not create a critical voltage level at PV60 in the network. Thus, power production data are scaled up by three during June 3, 2007 as the worst-case scenario. Daily generated reactive power that is associated with the cos = 0.9, cos(P), Q(U) methods at two different locations PV1 (next to the transformer), PV60, and the corresponding voltage variation of PV60 are depicted in Figs. 10 and 11, respectively. The main difference between Q(U) and the other methods is that the cos = 0.9 and cos(P) methods generate location-free reactive power references. The same amount of reactive power is absorbed by PV1 and PV60, and therefore, better voltage support is achieved with these methods. One superior performance of the cos(P) over the cos = 0.9 method is that less reactive energy is consumed by the inverters (see Fig. 10). On the other hand, when all

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Fig. 9.

Load ow simulation script.

Fig. 8. Measured power generation and demand proles in 15-min averages during (a) January 2007 and (b) June 2007 period.

inverters are employed with the Q(U) method, PV1 cannot participate on the voltage support because of its low local voltage level. Total reactive power consumption is considerably reduced, but this time, the voltage at PV60 becomes closer to the 1.1 p.u. The droop parameters that are used for the reactive power methods can be found in the Appendix. IV. PROPOSED REACTIVE POWER METHOD As we have learned from the voltage sensitivity analysis before, it is desired to assign higher reactive power amount to the inverters with bigger network impedance while Q(U) method can already realize this mission. In case the critical bus voltage exceeds the 1.1 p.u. limit, the inverters that are located closer to the transformer should also help to absorb reactive power from

Fig. 10. Reactive power generation at PV1 and PV60 by the different methods during June 3, 2007.

Fig. 11. Voltage variation at PV60 with different reactive power methods during June 3, 2007.

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TABLE IV MONTHLY ANALYSIS RESULTS FROM JUNE 1 TO 30, 2007

Fig. 12.

Proposed cos(P,U) method.

Fig. 13. Voltage variation performance of the proposed method compared with the cos(P) and Q(U) at PV60. Fig. 14. PV capacity of the grid with different reactive power methods.

the grid. If it is enabled, the cos(P) method can increase the reactive amount for these inverters during the overvoltage condition. Therefore, a central or distributed control solution with a communication medium could command all inverters to switch from the Q(U) method to the cos(P) method when the critical bus voltage is above 1.1 p.u. and switch back to Q(U) if the grid voltage is in the admissible range again. In this study, a simple cos(P,U) method is proposed to inherit the previous advantages from the standard reactive power methods and combine them in one method without requiring communication infrastructure. The generic droop function of the proposed cos(P,U) method is represented in Fig. 12. The resulting voltage variation of cos(P,U) stays between the voltage levels of the cos(P) and Q(U) methods (see Fig. 13). The implemented droop parameters that are linked in Figs. 12 and 13 are given in the following: Base power = 6000 W, P1 = 0.5 p.u., P2 = 1.0 p.u., U1 = 1.04 p.u., U2 = 1.08 p.u., C1 = 1.0, and 0.9 C2(U) 1. A. Performance Analysis of the Proposed cos(P,U) Method Performance criteria of a reactive power method can be mainly dened in terms of network losses and the increased amount of PV capacity for the grid. Table IV shows the monthly analysis results for June 2007 when low load consumption mostly coincides with high PV power production in the grid. As expected, the amount of network losses in June, which was caused by the proposed method, is between the amount of network losses of the cos(P) and Q(U) methods. Compared with the Q(U), the cos(P,U) method can reduce the critical bus voltage more at the expense of slightly higher transformer loading. Therefore, more PV capacity can be

added to the grid, as long as the transformer is allowed to be overloaded (>100%) for a short period of time [14], [15]. PV capacity of the grid, as the most signicant performance criterion, is determined in such a way that PV power production per house is increased until the critical bus voltage or the transformer loading reaches their corresponding limit levels. Regarding the worst-case condition in the sense of voltage rise, load demands are neglected. Fig. 14 gives the maximum allowable PV production per house with different reactive power methods and different transformer loading level. If the solar inverters are not allowed to absorb reactive power, maximum 5.3-kW/house power injection can be achieved. Q(U) and cos(P,U) methods perform similar PV capacity (7 and 6.9 kW, respectively) with 100% transformer overloading limit. Since the proposed method provides less voltage rise, the grid will gain more PV capacity than that of the Q(U) method if any further increment beyond 100% for the transformer overloading is ensured (see Fig. 14). Regarding the PV generation, Kerber and Witzmann [14] claim that 150% loading of the oil-immersed transformer does not cause unacceptable aging of the transformer. V. CONCLUSION This paper has reviewed the standard reactive power methods that are introduced by grid codes and presented a new method to increase PV penetration level. The proposed method is inherited from two standard methods: cos(P) and Q(U). As the produced power is getting closer to the nominal power and the grid voltage approaches the allowable limit value, the cos(P,U) method resembles cos(P) method. Furthermore, the inverters that are connected closer to the transformer provide more reactive power

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Fig. 15.

Single-line diagram of the suburban network.

absorption in the case of high-level real power injection, as desired. In Section IV of this paper, PV capacity performance has been examined on an LV grid model with different reactive power methods, and the proposed method achieved higher PV capacity for the slightly overloaded transformer.

SU Q

0.1503 0.1478 0.1457 = 0.144 0.1428 0.142 0.1416

0.1503 0.1949 0.1921 0.19 0.1883 0.1873 0.1868

0.1504 0.1949 0.2386 0.2359 0.2339 0.2326 0.2319

0.1504 0.195 0.2387 0.2819 0.2795 0.2779 0.2771

0.1504 0.195 0.2387 0.2819 0.325 0.3232 0.3222

APPENDIX The computed sensitivity matrices SU P and SU Q for the active power variation of 10 kW with cable feeder are given in the following. Resistive NAYY 4 120 mm2 cable with 100-m length/segment is used

0.1504 0.195 0.2387 0.2387 0.2819 0.2819 . 0.325 0.325 0.3684 0.3684 0.1504 0.195 0.3674 0.4125 As a second case, an OHL type line whose positive and negative sequence impedances are R = 0.253 /km and X = 0.1793 /km, respectively, was used for each 100-m length segment in Fig. 3. Droop parameters used for the simulation in Section II are given in the following. C1 = 0.9 for the xed cos method; C1 = 1.0, C2 = 0.9, P1 = 0.5 p.u., P2 = 1.0 p.u. for the cos(P); U1 = U2 = 0, U3 = 1.05 p.u., U4 = 1.1 p.u. for the Q(U) method (see Fig. 15). REFERENCES
[1] Erzeugungsanlagen am Niederspannungsnetz - Technische Mindestanforderungen fur Anschluss und Parallelbetrieb von Erzeugungsanlagen am Niederspannungsnetz (Generators connected to the low-voltage

0.0589

0.057 0.2028 0.1999 0.1976 0.1959 0.1948 0.1943

0.0555 0.199 0.341 0.3371 0.3343 0.3324 0.3314

0.0544 0.196 0.3363 0.4759 0.4718 0.4691 0.4678

0.0535 0.1938 0.3328 0.471 0.6094 0.606 0.6043 0.0526 0.1917 0.3293 0.4663 0.6034 0.7413 0.8809

SU P

0.0578 0.057 = 0.0564 0.0559 0.0556 0.0554

0.0529 0.1924 0.3304 0.4679 0.6054 0.7438 0.7417

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Kenn H. B. Frederiksen was born in Aarhus, Denmark, in 1967. He received the B.S. degree in technology management and marine engineering from the Aarhus School of Marine and Technical Engineering, and the Diploma in engineering business administration from VIA University College, Aarhus, in 1991 and 2005, respectively. For the last 20 years, he has been doing research in the utility sector in different business areas such as demand-side management, smart meters, smart grid, renewable energy, and business and product development. He has been with several governmental and private business programs abroad within his eld of expertise. He is currently a Manager with the Renewable Energy Department, EnergiMidt. Besides his research with EnergiMidt, he is an expert member of the International Energy Agency Photovoltaic Power System (IEA PVPS) Task 14 High penetration of PV systems in electricity grid and has been a member of the IEA PVPS Task 10 Urban-scale grid-connected PV applications. He is an Evaluator with the support program for the research and demonstration programs under the Danish Energy Agency. Dezso Sera (M09) received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering from the Technical University of Cluj, Romania, in 2001 and 2002, respectively. In 2005, he received the M.Sc. degree from the Department of Energy Technology (DET), Aalborg University, Denmark, and in 2008, he received the Ph.D. degree from the same department, where he currently works as Associate Professor. Since 2009, he has been the coordinator of the Photovoltaic Systems and Microgrids Research Programme at DET. His current research activities are in photovoltaic power systems in general, specically in the modelling, characterization, diagnostics, and maximum power point tracking (MPPT) of PV systems, and in the grid integration of PV power. Pedro Rodriguez (S99M04SM11) received the B.S. degree from the University of Granada, Granada, Spain, in 1989 and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC), Barcelona, Spain, in 1994 and 2004, respectively, all in electrical engineering. During 1990, he was an Assistant Professor with UPC, where he became an Associate Professor in 1993 and is currently the Head of the research group on Renewable Electrical Energy Systems, Department of Electrical Engineering. During 2005, he was a Researcher with the Center for Power Electronics Systems, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg. During 2006, he was a Researcher with the Institute of Energy Technology, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark. He has authored or coauthored more than 100 papers in technical journals and conferences and holds two patents. His current research interests include power conditioning, the integration of distributed energy systems, and the control of power converters. Dr. Rodriguez is a member of the IEEE Power Electronics Society, the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society, and the IEEE Industry Applications Society. Remus Teodorescu (S94M99SM02F11) received the Dipl.Ing. degree in electrical engineering from the Polytechnical University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania, and the Ph.D. degree in power electronics from the University of Galati, Galati, Romania, in 1994 and 1989, respectively. Since 1998, he has been with the Power Electronics Section, Department of Energy Technology, Aalborg University, Aalborg East, Denmark, where he is currently a Full Professor. He has published more than 120 papers, one book, and three patents (pending). He is the Founder and Coordinator of the Green Power Laboratory, Aalborg University, where he is focusing on the development and test of grid converters for renewable energy systems. He is also the Coordinator of the Vestas Power Program. His research interests include the design and control of power converters used in renewable energy systems, distributed generation of mainly wind power and photovoltaics, computer simulations, and digital control implementation. Dr. Teodorescu coreceived the Technical Committee Prize Paper Awards at the 1998 IEEE Industry Applications Society (IAS) Annual Meeting and the Third-ABB Prize Paper Award at the 2002 IEEE Optim. He is currently an Associate Editor for the IEEE POWER ELECTRONICS LETTERS and the Chair of the IEEE Danish Joint Industrial Electronics Society/Power Electronics Society/IAS Chapter.

Erhan Demirok (S05) was born in Aydin, Turkey, in 1983. He received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey, and the M.S. degree in the mechatronics program from Sabanci University, Istanbul, in 2005 and 2007, respectively. He is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree with the Department of Energy Technology, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark. He was a Teaching Assistant with Sabanci University from 2005 to 2007 and was a Senior Researcher with Tubitak Space Technologies Research Institute, Ankara, Turkey, from 2007 to 2009, where he developed and tested small satellite power systems. His research interests include decentralized and centralized control of distributed generators, grid-connected solar inverters, and grid interaction of highly penetrated solar inverters.

Pablo Casado Gonz lez (S11) was born in a Barcelona, Spain, in 1988. He received the B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC), Barcelona, in 2011. He has partly carried out studies on electrical energy engineering as well as the nal degree thesis with Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark, in 2010. He has been an Assistant with the Electrical Engineering Department of the UPC for more than one year. His research interests include the integration of distributed generation into power systems, gridconnected photovoltaic (PV) inverters, and grid interaction of PV inverters.