Performance Evaluation of Photovoltaic Grid-connected Microgrid with Hybrid Energy Storage using Predictive Current Control

Abstract

A Photovoltaic (PV) microgrid with Hybrid Energy Storage (HES) is gaining popularity in commercial and residential applications. Being noticed that designing of effective and simple control framework is one of the important aspects of PV microgrid deployment, a Finite Control Set Model Prediction (FCS-MPC) based control framework is presented to address the technical challenges associated with existing classical Proportional-Integral (PI) based control frameworks such as degraded performance with control delays, difficulties in designing, tuning, and digital implementation of multiple PI controllers. The presented control framework is intuitive/digital-friendly and free from controller conflict issues. With the proposed control framework, faster dc-grid voltage regulation, lesser maximum peak overshoot of dc-grid voltage and better Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) of grid current is achieved even at high power rating. Basic operational case studies like (i) PV/Load changes under the presence of grid $(\mathbf{G}=\mathbf{1})$ and (ii) PV/Load changes under the absence of grid $(\mathbf{G}=\mathbf{0})$ are carried to demonstrate the effectiveness and applicability of proposed control structure. Moreover, unlike most of the works reported, real-time solar PV along with maximum power point tracking is implemented in this work. Finally, the system is verified through simulation and experimental results.