Modeling and Analysis of New Multilevel Inverter for Solar Photovoltaic Power Plant

Xiaoqiang Guo,Mehdi Narimani,Ran He

doi:10.1155/2016/4063167

Xiaoqiang Guo, Mehdi Narimani + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1155/2016/4063167

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Abstract

Solar photovoltaic (PV) power plant is an effective way to utilize the renewable energy sources. EMI is one of the major concerns in PV power plant. Typically, the multilevel inverters are used in high voltage PV power plant. However, the conventional multilevel inverters require more semiconductors, which complicate the circuit structure and control algorithm. In this paper, a novel five-level inverter is introduced for the high voltage PV power plant applications. The model of the inverter is analyzed. With the redundant switching states, a new modulation strategy is proposed to reduce the common-mode voltage and EMI. The proposed approach is able to eliminate the common-mode voltage; meanwhile it has the capability of balancing the capacitor voltages. The cosimulation tests with the Matlab/Simulink and S-function are carried out. The results verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Highlights

The solar photovoltaic power plant is recently attracting much attention throughout the world
The modeling and analysis of a novel five-level inverter for PV power plant applications has been presented in this paper
The balancing of flying capacitor voltages can be achieved with a simple control strategy

Summary

Introduction

The solar photovoltaic power plant is recently attracting much attention throughout the world. The classic multilevel topologies include the diode clamped, flying capacitor, and cascaded H-bridge converters [7,8,9,10,11,12]. These kinds of converters give rise to common-mode voltage (CMV), which could induce the ground leakage currents, as well as electromagnetic interference (EMI). The CMV reduction strategies for neutral point clamped topologies have been reported in [20,21,22]. The modulation strategy which is able to eliminate the CMV and balance the capacitor voltage needs further investigation

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Conclusion