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A Novel Multi-String Five-Level PWM Inverter for

Photovoltaic Application
Nasrudin Abdul Rahim, Senior Member, IEEE, and Jeyraj Selvaraj
AbstractThis paper presents a single-phase multi-string ve-
level PV inverter topology for grid-connected photovoltaic (PV)
systems with a novel PWM control scheme. Three PV strings are
cascaded together in parallel conguration and connected to a
ve-level inverter to produce output voltage in ve levels: zero,
+1/2V
dc
, V
dc
, 1/2V
dc
and V
dc
. Two reference signals identical
to each other with an offset equivalent to the amplitude of the
triangular carrier signal were used to generate PWM signals
for the switches. DSP TMS320F2812 is used to implement this
PWM switching scheme together with a digital PI current control
algorithm. The inverter offers much less THD and can operate
at near unity power factor. The validity of the proposed inverter
is veried through a prototype. The experimental results are
compared with conventional single-phase multi-string three-level
grid-connected PWM inverter.
Index Termsgrid-connected, inverter, PI control, multi-
string, ve-level.
I. INTRODUCTION
As the world is concerned with fossil fuel exhaustion and
environmental problems caused by the conventional power
generation, renewable energy sources particularly solar energy
and wind energy have become very popular and demanding.
PV sources are used today in many applications as they have
the advantages of being maintenance and pollution free [1].
Solar-electric-energy demand has grown consistently by 20%-
25% per annum over the past 20 years, which is mainly due to
the decreasing costs and prices. This decline has been driven
by 1) an increasing efciency of solar cells; 2) manufacturing-
technology improvements; 3) economies of scale; [2]. PV
inverter which is an important element in the PV system is
used to convert DC power from the solar modules into AC
power to be fed into the grid. A general overview of different
types of PV inverters is given in [3]. This paper presents a
multi-string ve-level inverter for PV application. The multi-
string inverter shown in Fig. 1 is a further development of the
string inverter, where several strings are interfaced with their
own dc-dc converter to a common dc-ac inverter [4]. This is
benecial, compared with the centralized system, since every
string can be controlled individually. Thus, the operator may
start his/her own PV power plant with a few modules. Further
enlargements are easily achieved since a new string with a
dc-dc converter can be plugged into the existing platform. A
exible design with high efciency is hereby achieved [3]. In
this work, a ve-level inverter is used instead of a conventional
three-level PWM inverter because it offers great advantages
such as improved output waveforms, smaller lter size, lower
EMI, lower THD, and others [5][6].
A novel PWM control scheme is introduced to generate
Fig. 1. Conguration of multi-string inverters.
switching signals for the switches and to produce ve output
voltage levels: zero, +1/2Vdc, Vdc, -1/2Vdc and -Vdc (assum-
ing Vdc is the supply voltage). This inverter topology uses two
reference signals instead of one to generate PWM signals for
the switches. Both the reference signals Vref1 and Vref2 are
identical to each other except for an offset value equivalent to
the amplitude of the carrier signal Vcarrier as shown in Fig.
2.
Fig. 2. Carrier and reference signals.
Since the inverter is used in a PV system, a PI current con-
trol scheme is employed to keep the output current sinusoidal
and to have high dynamic performance under rapidly changing
atmospheric conditions and to maintain the power factor at
near unity. Experimental results are presented to validate the
proposed inverter conguration.
2011 IEEE International Electric Machines & Drives Conference (IEMDC)
978-1-4577-0061-3/11/$26.00 2011 IEEE 510
II. INVERTER TOPOLOGY AND MODULATION
The proposed single-phase multi-string ve-level inverter
topology is shown in Fig. 3. It consists of three dc-dc boost
converters connected to a common dc bus, an auxiliary circuit
and a full-bridge inverter conguration. Input sources, PV
string 1, PV string 2 and PV string 3 are connected to the
inverter via the dc-dc boost converters. Since the proposed
inverter is used in a grid-connected PV system, the utility grid
is used instead of a load. The dc-dc boost converters are used
to track the maximum power point (MPP) independently as
well as to step-up the inverter output voltage V
inv
to be more
than

2 of the grid voltage V


g
to ensure power ow from the
PV arrays into the grid [7].
In this work, multi-string approach is adopted since each
dc-dc-converter can independently perform maximum power
point tracking (MPPT) for its PV strings. This will compensate
for mismatches in panels of like manufacture, which can be
up to 2.5% [8]. It offers the further advantage of allowing
panels to be given different orientations and so open up
new possibilities in architectural applications. Furthermore,
a greater tolerance to localized shading of panels can be
achieved. Another advantage of multi-string conguration is
the mixing of different sources becomes possible i.e. existing
PV panel strings could be extended by adding new higher
output panels without compromising overall string reliability
or performance. Besides that, greater safety during installation
and maintenance adds to the advantages of multi-string con-
guration. Depending on the design, each converter module
may be able to isolate its connected power source, so that the
wiring of series or parallel connection of these strings can be
performed safely. The power-source-converter connection is a
safe low-voltage connection [9]. The dc-dc boost converters
are connected in parallel to avoid high dc bus voltage which
eventually will increase the size of the capacitors and the
inverters cost. Therefore, only two capacitors with equal
capacitance rating are used as the dc bus and the other dc-
dc boost converters is connected to this dc bus as shown in
Fig. 3. Sinusoidal PWM is obtained by comparing a high-
frequency carrier signal with a low-frequency sinusoid signal,
which is the modulating signal or reference signal. The carrier
has a constant period; therefore the switches have constant
switching frequency. The switching instant is determined from
the crossing of the carrier and the modulating signal.
III. OPERATIONAL PRINCIPAL OF MULTI-LEVEL
INVERTER
Combinations of PV strings are used as the input voltage
sources. The voltage across the strings are known as V
pv1
,
V
vp2
and V
pv3
. Voltages V
pv1
, V
vp2
and V
vp3
are boosted
by the dc-dc boost converters to exceed the grid voltage Vg
and the voltage across the dc bus is known as Vpv. The
operational principle of the proposed inverter is to generate
ve-level output voltage i.e. 0, +V
pv/2
, +V
pv
, V
pv/2
, V
pv
as in Fig. 4. As illustrated in Fig. 3, an auxiliary circuit which
consists of four diodes and a switch S
4
is used between the
dc bus capacitors and the full-bridge inverter. Proper switching
Fig. 3. Single-phase multi-string ve-level inverter topology.
control of the auxiliary circuit can generate half- level of PV
supply voltage i.e. +V
pv/2
and V
pv/2
. [10]. Two reference
signals V
ref1
and V
ref2
will take turns to be compared with the
carrier signal at a time. If V
ref1
exceeds the peak amplitude of
the carrier signal V
c
arrier, V
ref2
will be compared with the
carrier signal until it reaches 0. At this point onwards, Vref1
takes over the comparison process until it exceeds Vcarrier.
This will lead to a switching pattern as shown in Fig. 5.
Switches S
4
S
6
will be switching at the rate of the carrier
signal frequency while S
7
and S
8
will operate at a frequency
equivalent to the fundamental frequency.
Fig. 4. Ideal ve-level inverter output voltage, Vinv.
If one of the PV strings is disconnected from the dc bus,
the operation of the other dc-dc boost converters will not be
affected as they are connected in parallel. As the dc-dc boost
converters is used to track the maximum power point tracking
(MPPT) point, it can be concluded that the MPPT tracking of
the PV strings is done independently.
IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
The results are veried experimentally by using a DSP
TMS320F2812. Three PV strings with different types of solar
511
Fig. 5. Switching pattern for single-phase ve-level inverter.
modules and locations are connected to the ve-level inverter
via a common dc bus. Table 1 illustrates the PV modules
characteristics and their location while PWM switching signals
for the switches is generated by comparing a triangular carrier
signal with two reference signals as shown in Fig. 6.
TABLE I
CHARACTERISTICS OF PV MODULES
Model: SIEMENS SP75
No. of Panels 6 in series
Max Power 75W
Short circuit current, I
SC
4.8A
MPPT current, I
MPPT
4.4A
Open Circuit voltage, V
OC
21.7V
MPPT voltage, V
MPPT
17V
Location Roof Top
Model: SIEMENS SP85
No. of Panels 4 in series
Max Power 85W
Short circuit current, I
SC
5.45A
MPPT current, I
MPPT
4.95A
Open Circuit voltage, V
OC
22.2V
MPPT voltage, V
MPPT
17.2V
Location GND Floor
Model: MtsAE125MF5N
No. of Panels 5 in series
Max Power 125W
Short circuit current, I
SC
7.90A
MPPT current, I
MPPT
7.23A
Open Circuit voltage, V
OC
21.8V
MPPT voltage, V
MPPT
17.3V
Location Roof Top
Code Composer Studio (CCS), the programming platform
for DSP TMS320F2812, programs the control algorithm for
the proposed multi-string ve-level inverter. Fig. 7 illustrates
Fig. 6. PWM switching signals for S
4
S
8
, (a) S
4
. (b) S
5
and S
6
(c) S
7
and S
8
.
512
the experimental results for V
i
nv and I
g
. It can be seen that
V
inv
consists of ve levels of output voltage, and I
g
has been
ltered to resemble a pure sinewave. Fig 8 shows V
g
and the
I
g
injected into the grid. To prove that the proposed multi-
string ve-level inverter has advantages over the conventional
multi-sting three-level inverter in terms of THD and power
factor, the corresponding measurements were made on both
inverters. FLUKE 43B Power Quality Analyzer was used for
this purpose. The measured results correspond to those in
Fig. 7. The conventional multi-string three-level inverter for
grid-connected PV application is shown in Fig. 9. The same
current control techniques were used to control the overall
performance of the inverter. The only difference between
both inverters is the elimination of the auxiliary circuit, and
therefore only one dc bus capacitor is used. Fig. 10 shows
the THD measurement for the multi-string ve-level inverter
while Fig. 11 shows the THD measurement for the multi-
string three-level inverter. The %THD for ve-level inverter is
recorded as 5.7% while the %THD for three-level inverter is
9.5%. From both illustrations the THD measurement for multi-
string ve-level inverter is much lower than that of the multi-
string three-level inverter. The power factor measurement is
shown in Fig. 12. It is notable that both the grid voltage V
g
and the current injected into the grid I
g
are in phase with a
power factor of 0.99. Efciency measurement was carried out
to compare the efciency of the multi-string three-level PWM
inverter with the multi-string ve-level PWM inverter for PV
application. The measured efciency of the multi-string three-
level PWM inverter is approximately 92% while the measured
efciency for the multi-string ve-level PWM inverter is 88%.
As expected, the efciency of the multi-string ve-level PWM
inverter is lower compared to the conventional multi-string
three-level PWM inverter. The main reason is the addition
of the auxiliary circuit between the dc-dc boost converters
and the full-bridge inverter conguration. Switching losses of
switch S
4
in the auxiliary circuit caused the efciency of the
multi-string ve-level PWM inverter to be approximately 4%
less than the multi-string three-level PWM inverter. However,
simulation and experimental results show that the THD of the
proposed inverter is lower as compared with the conventional
three-level PWM inverter which is an important element for
grid-connected PV systems.
V. CONCLUSION
A single-phase cascaded PV string multilevel inverter has
been presented in this paper. A novel PWM control scheme
with two reference signals and a carrier signal has been used
to generate the PWM switching signals. The circuit topology,
control algorithm, and operating principle of the proposed
inverter have been analysed in detail. Experimental results
indicate that the THD of the multi-string ve-level inverter
is much less than that of conventional multi-string three level
inverter.
Fig. 7. Experimental Result of V
inv
and Ig.
Fig. 8. Experimental Result of Vg and Ig.
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Fig. 9. Conventional multi-string three-level PWM inverter for PV applica-
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Fig. 10. THD result of multi-string ve-level PV inverter.
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Fig. 11. THD result of multi-string three-level PV inverter.
Fig. 12. Grid Voltage Vg and Grid Current Ig at near-unity power factor.
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