Abstract
Medium-voltage (MV) multilevel converters are considered a promising solution for large scale photovoltaic (PV) systems to meet the rapid energy demand. This article focuses on reviewing the different structures and the technical challenges of modular multilevel topologies and their submodule circuit design for PV applications. The unique structure of the converter’s submodule provides modularity, independent control of maximum power point tracking (MPPT), galvanic isolation, etc. Different submodule circuits and MPPT methods to efficiently extract the PV power are reviewed. The integration of the multilevel converters to PV systems suffers unbalanced power generation during partial PV shading conditions. Several balancing strategies to solve this problem are presented and compared to give a better understanding of the balancing ranges and capabilities of each strategy. In addition, the paper discusses recent research advancements, and possible future directions of MV converters-based large-scale PV systems for grid integration.
Highlights
Among different distributed energy resources (DER)s, solar photovoltaic (PV) energy production is gaining an increasing share in the electricity market
The common structure of large-scale PV power plant consists of solar PV modules, dc-dc converters, PV inverters, line filters, and a medium-voltage (MV) transformer
The MV transformer is an essential part of the plant and its objective is to provide both galvanic isolation for the PV system and connection to the MV grid
Summary
Among different distributed energy resources (DER)s, solar photovoltaic (PV) energy production is gaining an increasing share in the electricity market. The CHB converter offers modularity, scalability, and independent MPPT control It has been proposed for various PV applications like low voltage grid-connected rooftops and MV large scale plants. A multi-string PV configuration using high gain dc/dc converters connected in parallel to construct a common dc-link as an input to the MMC was implemented in [52] This system structure guarantees distributed MPPT among all PV strings and allows the application of conventional MMC topology and control. The MMC is becoming a potential candidate for the future of MV-PV plants due to its unique capabilities such as independent MPPT for PV modules, enhanced power quality, modularity, and scalability It permits direct connection of the PV arrays to MV grids by adding more SMs connected in series, so the LFT is no longer needed.
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