Hardware Implementation of Power Quality Improvement in Photo-Voltaic Fed Cascaded H-Bridge Multilevel Inverter

Abstract

Cascaded H-bridge multilevel inverter (CHMLI) is the most popular high/medium power converter for interconnection of renewable energy sources as they require isolated and constant power supply. With the adverse of technology in the field of power electronics more complex system emerges which requires sophisticated algorithms and high performance processors to overcome the emerging challenges. This study aims to eliminate harmonics in a PV fed CHMLI using selective harmonics elimination (SHE) technique with different algorithms such as Newton Raphson (NR), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Genetic Algorithm (GA). The Real-time implementation of 3 Φ 11 level PV fed CHMLI modelled using MATLABTM/ SIMULINKTM has been carried out using power MOSFET based Intelligent Power Module controlled by FPGA Based Spartan 3 A DSP Board. The effectiveness of harmonic elimination using SHE technique with different algorithms such as NR, PSO and GA have been validated using the laboratory prototype of an 11 level CHMLI. A comparative analysis of these algorithms based on Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) and the selective lower order harmonic contents up to 13th order using FFT analysis have been presented in this study.