Improvement of Efficiency of Inverters in Hydro Photovoltaic Power Station with Particle Swarm Optimization

Abstract

In the sparsely populated areas without electricity, the hydro photovoltaic power station is a feasible solution for electricity supply. The strategy of distributing the power among the inverters is critical to the efficiency of them. The conventional distributing strategies result in low efficiency of the inverters. In order to improve the efficiency, this paper analysed the loss and efficiency characteristics of the inverter and expressed the power distributing problem as an optimal control problem minimizing the total loss for the inverters. The optimal control problem was solved with particle swarm optimization and the efficiency optimum power distribution strategies in three operation scenarios were obtained. The quantitative analysis method was adopted to evaluate the effect of the efficiency optimum power distribution strategies. The total efficiency of the inverters with the optimal strategies and the conventional strategies were calculated respectively.  The optimal distribution strategies were compared quantitatively with conventional power distribution strategies on the basis of the efficiency. The results demonstrated the validity of the strategies obtained in this paper in improving the total efficiency of the inverters.