Decentralized Active and Reactive Power Control for an AC-Stacked PV Inverter With Single Member Phase Compensation

Abstract

This paper proposes a decentralized control scheme for controlling active and reactive power of grid-tied ac-stacked photovoltaic (PV) inverter architecture using single member phase compensation. Reactive power control is required for the next generation of grid-tied smart PV inverter systems in power networks with high PV penetration. The decentralized control scheme proposed in this paper allows for a fully distributed architecture, both in terms of active and reactive power control and physical implementation of a PV system. This will result in higher reliability and potentially lower cost with minimum communications requirements. A decentralized controller enables higher switching frequencies that can shrink passive components. Therefore, string voltage variations due to voltage drop across passive components will be negligible and the system will be controlled with minimum communications requirement. The relative gain array approach has been used to study the feasibility of the decentralized control scheme. Detailed modeling and analysis are provided to show the effectiveness of the proposed decentralized approach and the effect of this approach on control implementation. Finally, effectiveness of the proposed decentralized approach is verified using mathematical modeling, simulation, and a lab-scale experimental setup in different operation conditions.