P-ISSN 1859-3585 E-ISSN 2615-9619 SCIENCE - TECHNOLOGY

MODEL PREDICTIVE CURRENT CONTROL OFGRID-

CONNECTED THREE-PHASE INVERTER FOR PV SYSTEMS
ĐIỀU KHIỂN DÒNG ĐIỆN DỰ BÁO MÔ HÌNH CỦA BỘ NGHỊCH LƯU BA PHA NỐI LƯỚI
CHO CÁC HỆ THỐNG QUANG ĐIỆN
Nguyen Thanh Son1,*, Pham Hung Phi1, Nguyen The Cong1
Le Anh Tuan2, Pham Van Tuan3

1. INTRODUCTION
ABSTRACT
The lack of fossil energy and the increase of
This paper presents model predictive current control of a grid-connected two-level environmental pollution has significantly
voltage-source three-phase inverter for a photovoltaic(PV) system. The output of a solar promoted the wide use of renewable energy.
array is fed to a DC-DC boost converter to make a DC link voltage that is fed to theinverter. One of the most popular renewable energy
In this PVsystem, the theory of model predictive control (MPC) is applied to design an sources is photovoltaic (PV) systems that can be
effective controller for the grid-connected currents. In addition, asuitable PI controller is used due to advances in technology and low
used to compute the reference grid-connected currents and keep a DC link voltagefor the
prices of solar panels. In PV systems, solar panels
inverter to be constant. Model of the system is established to predict the controlled
are connected generate a DC voltage that is not
variables. Optimal switching states are selected by minimizing a cost function defined
regulated or not at a proper level for power
using the difference between the reference and measured grid-connected currents for each
conversion. Then, such uncontrolled and
sampling period. Simulation results obtained using MATLAB/Simulink show that if the
unregulated DC voltage is regulated depending
reference currents change dynamically, the model predictive controller has the ability of
on specific load requirements. A DC-DC boost
fast current regulation. Moreover, thiscontroller can also result in an effectively injectionof
converter can be used for this purpose. The
the active power into the grid.
converter output voltage is sometimes DC link
Keywords: There-phase inverter, grid-connected, model predictive control, PV systems. voltage and can be assumed as a voltage source.
There are many Maximum Power Point Tracking
TÓM TẮT
(MPPT) control techniques used to extract
Bài báo này trình bày điều khiển dòng điện dự báo mô hình cho một bộ nghịch lưu ba pha maximum power from PV array in which Perturb
nguồn áp hai mức nối lưới trong một hệ thống quang điện. Đầu ra của mảng pin mặt trời được and Observe (P&O) algorithm is most widely used
cấp cho đầu vào của một bộ biến đổi DC-DC tăng áp để tạo một điện áp một chiều cấp cho đầu due to its ease of implementation [1].
vào của bộ nghịch lưu. Đối với hệ thống quang điện này, lý thuyết điều khiển dự báo mô hình
được áp dụng để thiết kế một bộ điều khiển dòng điện nối lưới hiệu quả. Thêm vào đó, một bộ The majority of renewable energy systems
điều khiển P-I phù hợp được sử dụng để tính toán dòng điện nối lưới tham chiếu. Mô hình của (RESs) are used as grid-connected power
hệ thống được thiết lập để dự báo các biến được điều khiển. Các trạng thái chuyển mạch tối ưu sources due to the advantages of these systems
được chọn bằng cách cực tiểu hóa một hàm chi phí dựa trên sai lệch giữa dòng điện nối lưới and their role in emerging technical topics of
tham chiếu và dòng điện nối lưới thực đo được trong mỗi chu kỳ lấy mẫu. Kết quả mô phỏng modern power electronics such as micro-grids
thu được bằng Matlab/Simulink cho thấy rằng nếu dòng điện nối lưới tham chiếu thay đổi, bộ or smart-grids. Grid connection of RESs faces
điều khiển dự báo mô hình có khả năng điều chỉnh dòng điện nhanh. Hơn nữa, bộ điều khiển some challenges as usual. In particular, the
nàycó thể tạo nên quá trình phát công suất tác dụng vào lưới hiệu quả. harmonic generation can be seen one of the
damaging phenomena in power sources that
Từ khóa: Nghịch lưu ba pha, nối lưới, điều khiển dự báo mô hình, hệ thống quang điện.
are connected the electrical network. In
1
addition, these harmonics can be also
School of Electrical Engineering, Hanoi University of Science and Technology considered as the main cause of damage to
2
Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Hanoi University of Industry sensitive equipment. According to the IEEE-
3
Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Vinh University of Technology Education 1547 standard, total harmonic distortion (THD)
*
Email: [email protected] of the injected current into a grid should be less
Received: 15/01/2021 than 5%. There are two reasons for harmonic
Revised: 20/3/2021 generation. The first comes from the nature of
Accepted: 25/4/2021 the inverter such as pulse width modulation

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 KHOA HỌC CÔNG NGHỆ P-ISSN 1859-3585 E-ISSN 2615-9619

(PWM) and switching, and the second reason relates to 3. MODEL OF THE GRID-CONNECTED THREE-PHASE
load and grid. INVERTER
In recent years, MPC has attracted a lot of attention in The power circuit of a grid-connected three-phase
power electronics due to it can handle system limitations inverter can be shown in Figure 2. Vdc is the DC link voltage, L
including nonlinearity, multi-variability and various system is the filtering inductance and R is the line resistance. ea is the
constrains [2, 3, 4]. Different MPC methods have been grid voltage of phase A. ia is the output current of phase A.
developed for power electronic converters [5, 6, 7]. The
well-known MPC method is Finite Control Set-Model
Predictive Control (FCS-MPC) as it does not require any
modulator and control signals can be applied to system
directly. In this research, the grid-connected current at the
output of the inverter is controlled using the FCS-MPC.
The rest of this paper is organized into the following
sections: In Section 2, a PV system is briefly described.
Section 3 presents the model of the grid-connected three-
phase inverter in the αβ-frame. In Section 4, the MPC Figure 2. Power circuit of grid-connected three-phase inverter
method for the grid-connected current is mentioned.
In orderto describe the switching state of the inverter,
Simulation results and discussions are presented in Section
the variables Sa, Sb and Sc are defined as:
5. Finally, Section 6 is the conclusion of this research.
2. PV SYSTEMS 1 if S1 on and S4 off
Sa  
A PV system consists of a number of PV panels 0 if S1 off and S4 on
connected in series or parallel to form a DC PV array. When 1 if S2 on and S5 off
a load is directly connected to the PV array, the operating Sb  
point will rarely be at peak power. The impedance seen by 0 if S2 off and S5 on
the PV array derives the operating point of the PV array. 1 if S3 on and S6 off
Therefore, by varying the impedance seen by the PV array, Sc  
the operating point can be moved towards the peak power 0 if S3 off and S6 on
point. Since the PV array is a DC device, a DC-DC converter These switching signals define the values of the output
such as a boost DC-DC converter needs to be used to voltage:
transform the impedance of one circuit (source) to the (1)
v aN  Sa Vdc
other circuit (load) as shown in Figure 1. Changing the duty
cycle D of the boost DC-DC converter results in an v bN  Sb Vdc (2)
impedance change as seen by the PV array. At a particular (3)
v cN  Sc Vdc
impedance (or duty cycle D), the operating point will be at
the peak power transfer point. MPPT implementation where vaN, vbN and vcN are the phase-to-neutral (N)
utilizes algorithms that frequently sample PV array voltages voltages of the inverter. The switch state vector S is defined
and currents, then adjusts the duty cycle D as needed. In as:
P&O method, the controller adjusts the voltage by a small 2
amount from the array and measure power. If the power S
3
 Sa  aSb  a2Sc  (4)
increases, further adjustments in that direction are tried
until power no longer increases. It is referred as a “hill 1 3
climbing” method because it depends on the rise of the where a  e j2  / 3    j
2 2
curve of power against voltage below the maximum power
The inverter output voltage vector v is defined as:
point.
2
v
3
 vaN  avbN  a2 vcN  (5)

The relationship between the voltage vector v and the

switch state vector S can be described as:
v  Vdc S (6)
The possible combinations of the switching states
generate the voltage vectors listed in Table 1, which can be
represented in the complex plane as shown in Figure 3. The
voltage vectors generated by the inverter are only seven
Figure 1. A DC PV system with MPPT using a DC-DC boost converter different voltage vectors because V0 and V7 produce the

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P-ISSN 1859-3585 E-ISSN 2615-9619 SCIENCE - TECHNOLOGY

same zero voltage vector (V0 = V7). This means that a three- Equation (9) can be expressed in the αβ-frame as:
phase two-level voltage-source inverter can only generate
v  i  d i  e  
7 different voltage vectors.  v   R i   L i    e  (11)
   dt      
Table 1. Switching states and the corresponding voltage vectors of the
inverter If the sampling time is defined as Ts, then:
Sa Sb Sc Voltage vector V d i  1 i (k  1)  i (k ) 
    (12)
0 0 0 Vo = 0 dt i  Ts i (k  1)  i (k ) 
1 0 0 2 From equation (11) and (12), we can obtain:
V1  Vdc
3 i (k  1)  Ts  v  (k )  e (k )   RTs  i (k ) 
1 1 0  i (k  1)    v (k )  e (k )    1   i (k )  (13)
1 3   L      L   
V2  Vdc  j Vdc
3 3 where iα(k) and iβ(k) are the grid-connected currents at
0 1 0 1 3 the k th sampling time in the αβ-frame coordinate. vα(k)
V3   Vdc  j Vdc and vβ(k) are the αβ-frame coordinate components of
3 3
different voltage vectors at the kth sampling time. eα(k) and
0 1 1 2 eβ(k) are the grid voltages at the kth sampling time in the
V4   Vdc
3 αβ-frame coordinate. iα(k+1) and iβ(k+1) are the predicted
grid-connected currents at the (k+1) th sampling time in
0 0 1 1 3
V5   Vdc  j Vdc the αβ-frame coordinate. Equation (13) can be seen as the
3 3 predictive function of the grid-connected current.
1 0 1 1 3 4. MODEL PREDICTIVE CURRENT CONTROL STRATEGY
V6  Vdc  j Vdc
3 3 The main idea behind the model predictive current
control strategy is to implement a discrete-time control
1 1 1 V7 = 0
scheme that selects the switching state that minimizes the
For a balanced three-phase load, the current vector i predicted current error. The optimal switching state is
and the grid voltage vector e can be expressed as: applied during a whole sampling interval. This calculation is
2 repeated during each sampling period using the measured
i
3
 ia  aib  a2ic  (7)
currents i and reference values i* . The measured currents
and the predictive model are used in the calculation of the
2
e
3
 ea  aeb  a2 ec  (8) *
predicted currents i  k  1 , which are calculated for all
possible switching states. Then the predicted currents are
evaluated by using a cost function and the optimal
switching state is selected as the one that minimizes this
function. In this case, the cost function has the following
form:
g  i*  k  1  i  k  1  i*  k  1  i  k  1 (14)
The model predictive current control structure of grid-
connected three-phase inverter for a PV system is shown in
Figure 4. The error between the reference DC link voltage
Figure 3. Voltage vectors of the three-phase inverter Vdc(ref) and the actual DC link voltage Vdc(MPPT)
determined from the MPPT technique is the input of a
The vector differential equation of the load current can
Proportional-Integral (PI) controller. The PI controller results
be described as:
in the appropriated amplitude of the reference current I*
di and a nearly stable amplitude for the DC link voltage (the
v  Ri  L e (9)
dt capacitor voltage). This phenomenon can be explained as
The Clark transform from the abc-frame to the αβ-frame follows: If the power generated by the PV array is greater
has the following form: than the power transmitted to the network, the additional
generated power will be stored in the capacitor resulting in
 1 1  an increase of the capacitor voltage. If the power injected
1  a
  2  2 2   into the network by the inverter is greater than the power
   3   b (10)
   3 3  generated by the PV array, the capacitor voltage will
0   c 
2 2  decrease.

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 KHOA HỌC CÔNG NGHỆ P-ISSN 1859-3585 E-ISSN 2615-9619

*
Loop (PLL). The combination of I and θ can be used to
determine the reference three-phase currents i*a , ib* , i*c .
Figure 5 shows the flow chart of model predictive current
control algorithm.
5. SIMULATION RESULTS
Table 2 shows parameters of the commercial PV panel
used in this research. MATLAB/Simulink software is used for
simulation tasks. There are five branches of PV panels
connected in parallel. For each branch, there are ten PV
panels connected in series. Therefore, the maximum power
of the PV system is approximately 6kW at the nominal
operation condition. Table 3 shows parameters of the input
of the inverter and the grid-connected three-phase load.
Table 2. Parameters of PV panel used for simulation
Parameters Values
Nominal short-circuit voltage Iscn = 5.11 (A)
Nominal array open-circuit voltage Vocn = 29.80 (V)
Figure 4. Model predictive current control structure of grid-connected three- Panel current at maximum power point Ipvn = 4.74 (A)
phase inverter for a PV system Panel voltage at maximum power point Vmp = 25.15 (V)
Panel maximum output peak power Pmax_e = 120 (W)
Voltage/temperature coefficient Kv = -0.38 (V/K)
Current/temperature coefficient Ki = 0.04 (A/K)
Series resistance Rs = 0.1683 (Ω)
Parallel resistance Rp = 211.5173 (Ω)
Nominal irradiance Gn = 1000 (W/m2)
Nominal operating temperature Tn = 25 + 273.15 (K)
Boltzmann constant k = 1.3806503e-23 (J/K)
Electron charge q = 1.60217646e-19 (C)
Ideal diode factor a=1
Table 3. Parameters of the input of the inverter and the grid-connected
three-phase load
Parameters Values
Reference DC link voltage Vdc_ref = 1000 (V)
DC side voltage capacitor C = 3000 (µF)
Filtering inductance L = 10 (mH)
Line resistance R = 0.01 (Ω)
Phase to phase grid voltage e = 380 (V)
Figure 6 shows the DC link voltage stable at 1000(V).
The solar irradiation is assumed to change from
650(W/m2) to 1000(W/m2) at 0.1s corresponding to the
ambient temperature of 250C as shown in Figure 7. The
waveforms of the grid voltages and the grid-connected
currents are shown in Figure 8 and Figure 9, respectively.
Figure 10 is the output powers of the inverter. It is clear that
Figure 5. Flow chart of model predictive current control algorithm the active power injected into the grid is nearly equal to the
mmaximum output power extracted from the PV arrays.
Thus, it is required to select negative coefficients for PI This means that the system has very high efficiency of
controller. The angle θ is obtained by using a Phase Locked power conversion and the reactive power is

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P-ISSN 1859-3585 E-ISSN 2615-9619 SCIENCE - TECHNOLOGY

approximatelyequal to zero. We can also see that the active

power can change quickly according to the step change of
the solar irradiation.
According to the harmonic analysis diagram in Figure
11, the grid-connected current has the THD of 2.85%
corresponding to the solar irradiation of 650(W/m2). When
the solar irradiation rises up to 1000(W/m2), the THD of the
grid-connected current is only 1.76% as shown in Figure 12.
In both cases, the THDs are less than 5%.
Figure 12. Harmonic analysis diagram of the grid-connected current
corresponding to the irradiation of 1000(W/m2)
6. CONCLUSION
This research successfully demonstrates the use of MPC
Figure 6. DC link voltage (stable at 1000V) in controlling the grid-connected current of the three-phase
inverter for a PV system. This control method can maximize
the active power and minimize the reactive power injected
into the grid. In particular, the active power can quickly
change according to the solar irradiation and the reactive
power is approximately equal to zero. Moreover, the grid-
connected currents always have THDs less than 5%, which
Figure 7. Solar irradiation step change at 0.1 second are suitable with the required IEEE standard.

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Figure 8. Grid voltages
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Figure 10. Output powers of the inverter [7]. O. Matiushkin, O. Husev, D. Vinnikov, C. Roncero-Clemente, 2019. Model
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THÔNG TIN TÁC GIẢ

Nguyễn Thanh Sơn1, Phạm Hùng Phi1, Nguyễn Thế Công1,
Lê Anh Tuấn2, Phạm Văn Tuấn3
1
Viện Điện, Trường Đại học Bách khoa Hà Nội
2
Khoa Điện, Trường Đại học Công nghiệp Hà Nội
Figure 11. Harmonic analysis diagram of the grid-connected current 2
corresponding to the irradiation of 650(W/m2) Khoa Điện, Trường Đại học Sư phạm Kỹ thuật Vinh

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