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vs vaN + vbN The grid current is regulated through the conventional FCS-
vN n = − (7) MPC strategy. Following this algorithm, the nine valid switching
2 2
states of the H-NPC converter defined in Table I are used. In
where the term vaN + vbN depends instantly on each commu- order to derive an analytic expression for the current prediction,
tation state and it can assume five different values, which are it is necessary to express the relation between the voltage vab
presented in Table I. Unlike the NPC converter, the H-NPC can and the grid current is in discrete time, from which the future
generate five levels and more redundant switching states, as pre- value of the current can be calculated by using a first-order
sented in Table I. In fact, with the H-NPC the control algorithm Taylor series
flexibility is improved, allowing the inclusion of control goals
with less impact on the output waveform, i.e., capacitor balance Rs Ts Ts
is (k + 1) = is (k) 1 − + (vab (k) − vs (k)) (9)
through the NPV. This results in an important advantage, as Ls Ls
it adds more flexibility to the control algorithm, allowing the where Ts =32 μs is the sampling period. Hence, the future value
capacitor balancing through the NPV minimization and other of the grid current can be predicted as a function of the system
control goals with less impact on the output waveform. measurements and the feasible output voltages vab .
As is illustrated in Table I, it can be seen that the cur-
III. PROPOSED CONTROL SCHEME rent i0 going out from the neutral point varies with re-
The implemented control strategy, depicted in Fig. 3, replaces spect to the applied switching state. To compute this current,
the inner current control loop, the modulation block, and capac- the following definitions related to the capacitor currents are
itor balancing control by an FCS-MPC algorithm. It maintains required:
the MPPT algorithm and the outer dc-link voltage control loop dvc1
that generates the grid current reference. The Perturb and ob- ic1 = C1 = ipv − (Sa1 − Sb1 )is (10)
dt
serve (P&O) algorithm is implemented in this validation, mainly dvc2
due to its simplicity, the low number of measured parameters, ic2 = C2 = ipv − (Sa2 − Sb2 )is (11)
dt
its mainstream use, and good experimental results [21]. There-
fore, the dc-link voltage reference switches in steady state with i0 = ic1 − ic2 = −(Sa1 − Sb1 − Sa2 + Sb2 )is (12)
a three voltage levels fashion. Nevertheless any other MPPT where ic1 and ic2 are the currents related with each capacitor
stage could be used, and it does not compromise the verification and illustrated in Fig. 2. Assuming that C1 = C2 = Cdc , the
of the proposed control strategy [21], [22]. neutral-point potential v0 depends dynamically on the neutral-
point current, and it can be obtained as
A. DC-Link Voltage Control Loop
v0 = vc1 − vc2 . (13)
The dc-link voltage is controlled with the adjustment of the
∗ dv0 dvc1 dvc2
active power injected to the grid. For this, the error vdc − vdc = − (14)
is controlled with a proportional-integral (PI) controller that dt dt dt
generates the reference for the delivery grid current. The de- where vc1 and vc2 are the capacitor voltages and their deriva-
sign procedure can be summarized with a simple parameter tives are directly obtained from (10) and (11). Note that the
ROJAS et al.: LEAKAGE CURRENT MITIGATION IN PV STRING INVERTER 9347
term −(Sa1 − Sb1 − Sa2 + Sb2 )is corresponds exactly to the ing losses per semiconductor, which hinders the system perfor-
neutral-point current in (12). Thus, the final relation is stated for mance. Several methods have been proposed in the literature
the NPV dynamic to address this issue without using modulator. The most basic
solution is a straight forward penalization over the commutation
dv0 1 1
=− (Sa1 − Sb1 − Sa2 + Sb2 )is = i0 . (15) [27], which leads to a reduction in the switching frequency but
dt Cdc Cdc
with no control over the resultant value. This strategy is com-
Thus, the neutral-point potential prediction is given by plemented in [28] with a PI controller to dynamically modify
Ts the weight associated with the commutation, though this PI is
v0 (k + 1) = v0 (k) + i0 (k). (16) not easy to tune appropriately. Other methods solve the problem
Cdc
by improving output current spectrum, either by favoring a cer-
Note that in digital implementations, the time required to com- tain commutation frequency [29] or by reducing certain bands
pute the control actuation takes a considerable portion of the [30], [31].
sampling interval Ts , resulting in one sampling delay. Then, These strategies, though effective, are quite hard to imple-
to take this computation time delay into account, variables at ment and tune, making them less attractive for this paper. Thus,
(k + 1)Ts are extrapolations used as an initial condition for a sliding window approach is performed, where a reference is
prediction variables at (k + 2)Ts [18]. We define the overall set to the number of commutations that occurs in a set time. This
cost function defined as g with two terms approach leads to a very well defined average frequency, while
g = λ2i gi2 + λ2b gb2 (17) also requiring low computation and programming effort. Based
on the problem characteristics, the choice of sliding window is
i∗s − is (k + 2) selected for the system. On the other hand, in recent reported
gi = (18)
Ism ax MPC methods, e.g., modulated MPC, CCS-MPC, etc, a terminal
0 − v0 (k + 2) modulation stage was included to fix the switching frequency.
gb = m ax (19) However, the hardware implementation simplicity of the con-
Vdc
ventional FCS-MPC is lost because dedicated PWM hardware
where λi and λb are the weighing factors associated with grid is required.
current regulation and neutral-point potential minimization, re- In this paper, a sliding window algorithm is implemented,
spectively. Then, the scalar cost function g is computed for all in which the average device switching frequency is computed.
the feasible actuation and the optimal solution is given by The predicted average switching frequency is compared to a
∗
limit value f¯sw = 2.2 kHz. For this, the firing signals used for
S[jop ] = arg min g[j]. (20)
j ∈{0,...,8} each device are stored for a fixed time period (good results were
obtained with the fundamental grid period T1 = 1/fg ). Since
C. dv/dt Limitation each vector size depends on the sample time Ts , the vectors must
store T1 /Ts values. After this procedure, the ON/OFF changes
In order to reduce the dv/dts, only the existing and adja-
on each vector are added and the results are stored in integer
cent voltage levels are allowed to be selected. This emulates
values referred to as ncS xy . Thus, the average device switching
something that would naturally result with carrier-based PWM
frequency can be approximated by f¯S xy = ncS xy /(2T1 ). The
methods [25]. The switching states are chosen according to the
scalar function (17) is modified by adding the average switching
minimization of g. This is why there are some cases where
frequency limitation
|vab (k + 1) − vab (k)| > vdc /2, e.g., the transition between the
state number 2 (vab (k + 1) = vdc ) and the state number 7 b 2 12
1 ∗ 2
(vab (k + 1) = −vdc /2) is a feasible path without actuation re- gf = ¯m ax WS xy f¯sw − f¯S xy (k + 2) (21)
strictions. This produces high-voltage changes and, therefore, fsw x=a y =1
more switching losses in the respective semiconductors.
g = λ2i gi2 + λ2b gb2 + λ2f gf2 (22)
Feasible voltage level paths for an instant k and the cor-
responding near levels for the next one k + 1. Thus, by im- where λf is the constant weighting factor that gives importance
plementing this voltage restriction, it is possible to achieve a to this goal with respect to the other objectives and WS xy is the
dvab /dt reduction. This available state reduction gives the ad- time-varying weighting factor for each commutation function.
vantage to decrease the computation time. This is because now It is important to highlight that the classical way to weight a cost
only between three to seven states are evaluated, in comparison function imposes an average switching frequency as reference
∗
to the fixed nine states of the algorithm without any dvab /dt lim- f¯sw . Nevertheless, the desired outcome is the limitation of the
itation. A simple logic is implemented to avoid dvab /dt during commutation with a maximum frequency and the release of the
the control operation [26]. This logic is based on the knowledge frequency control when the system is below the reference bound-
of the state S[jop ] that is being applied. aries. This restriction is achieved with a time-varying weighting
factor WS xy defined as follows:
D. Average Switching Frequency Control
∗
1, if f¯S xy > f¯sw
An important characteristic of FCS-MPC is an inherently WS xy = ∀ x ∈ {a, b}, y ∈ {1, 2}.
0, if f¯S xy ≤ f¯∗ sw
wide switching frequency range [16]. This leads to high switch-
(23)
9348 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 64, NO. 12, DECEMBER 2017
TABLE II
ACCEPTABLE ABSOLUTE ERRORS
TABLE III
SYSTEM PARAMETERS
General Parameters
Rated active power P pv 1.0 kW 1
Grid voltage line neutral (rms) Vs 110 V 1
Rated dc-link voltage Vd c 190 V 1.73
Grid frequency fg 50 Hz 1
Filter inductance Ls 3 mH 0.12
Filter losses Rs 0.15 Ω 0.018
dc-link capacitance C1 = C2 3.9 mF 9.88
dc-link resistor losses Rc 1 = Rc 2 10 kΩ 1.24 k
PV String Parameters
Series and parallel PV modules ns , np 4, 1 –,–
Max. power of PV mod. Pp m 125.93 0.084
Open-circuit voltage of PV mod. V oc 52.30 0.531
Max. power voltage of PV mod. Vp m 47.70 0.43
Short-circuit current of PV mod. Isc 2.81 0.21
Max. power current of PV mod. Ip m 2.64 0.19
Control Parameters
Av. switching frequency limit ∗
f¯sw 2.2 kHz 40 Fig. 6. Experimental results in a steady state: CH1) inverter voltage
Sampling time Ts 32 μs 625 (yellow), CH2) grid voltage (green), CH3) grid current (blue), and CH4)
dc-link voltage design BW, ξ 2 Hz, 0.707 –,– dc-link voltage (red).
dc-link voltage PI Controller kp , ki −0.0408, −0.177 –,–
P&O updating period Tm p p t 2s 100
P&O updating voltage step ΔV m p p t 5V 0.045
Weighting factors λi , λb 0.1 k, 1 k –,–
Weighting factors λf , λn 62.5, 50 –,–
around 2.2 kHz with an almost fixed value with respect to the
∗
fixed imposed constraint fsw .
Two general dynamic conditions are experimentally tested.
The first one is related to environmental variations, whereas the
second one is related to changes into the control scheme, for
example enabling or disabling some weighting factors of the
predictive control scheme.
TABLE IV
ALGORITHM EXECUTION TIMES WITH T s = 32 (μs)
TABLE V
COMPUTATIONAL BURDEN OF PREDICTIVE CONTROL LOOP
Extrapolation Sums: 11 18 18
Products: 7
Prediction Sums: 66n 1017 339
Products: 47n
Fig. 11. Experimental spectra with CMV control: FFT of (a) v s , (b) v a b Optimization Sums: 6n 108 36
and (c) is . Products: 6n
Total Sums: 72n+11 1143 393
Products: 53n+7
Fig. 13. Efficiency of PR with LS-PWM and FCS-MPC controllers op- Fig. 14. CMV with (a) LS-PWM, (b) PR with modified LS-PWM,
erating at V d c =190 V and P p v=0.1–1 kW. (c) FCS-MPC with five output voltage levels, and (d) proposed FCS-
MPC with three output levels.
[10] Y. Tang, W. Yao, P. C. Loh, and F. Blaabjerg, “Highly reliable trans- [31] R. P. Aguilera et al., “Selective harmonic elimination model predictive
formerless photovoltaic inverters with leakage current and pulsating power control for multilevel power converters,” IEEE Trans. Power Electron.,
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inverters,” IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 730–739, tracker really need to be?” in Proc. 24th Euro. P. Solar Energy Conf., Sep.
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[12] C. Hou, C. Shih, P. Cheng, and A. Hava, “Common-Mode voltage re- [34] IEEE Standard for Interconnecting Distributed Resources With Electric
duction pulsewidth modulation techniques for three-phase grid-connected Power Systems, IEEE Standard 1547-2003, Jul. 28, 2003.
converters,” IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 28, no. 4, pp. 1971–1979, [35] J. Hwang, P. Lehn, and M. Winkelnkemper, “A generalized class of sta-
Apr. 2013. tionary frame-current controllers for grid-connected ac–dc converters,”
[13] J.-S. Lee and K.-B. Lee, “New modulation techniques for a leakage current IEEE Trans. Power Del., vol. 25, no. 4, pp. 2742–2751, Oct. 2010.
reduction and a neutral-point voltage balance in transformerless photo- [36] S. Kouro, M. Perez, H. Robles, and J. Rodriguez, “Switching loss analysis
voltaic systems using a three-level inverter,” IEEE Trans. Power Electron., of modulation methods used in cascaded H-bridge multilevel converters,”
vol. 29, no. 4, pp. 1720–1732, Apr. 2014. in Proc. IEEE Power Electron. Spec. Conf., Jun. 2008, pp. 4662–4668.
[14] X. Guo, R. He, J. Jian, Z. Lu, X. Sun, and J. Guerrero, “Leakage cur-
rent elimination of four-leg inverter for transformerless three-phase PV
systems,” IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 31, no. 3, pp. 1841–1846, Christian A. Rojas (S’10–M’11) was born in
Mar. 2016. Vallenar, Chile, in 1984. He received the En-
[15] J. Gonzalez Norniella et al., “Improving the dynamics of virtual-flux- gineer degree from the Universidad de Con-
based control of three-phase active rectifiers,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., cepción, Concepción, Chile, in 2009, and the
vol. 61, no. 1, pp. 177–187, Jan. 2014. Ph.D. degree from the Universidad Técnica
[16] J. Rodriguez et al., “State of the art of finite control set model predictive Federico Santa Marı́a (UTFSM), Valparaı́so,
control in power electronics,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Informat, vol. 9, no. 2, Chile, in 2013, both in electronic engineering.
pp. 1003–1016, May 2013. In 2013, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow in
[17] J. H. Lee, “Model predictive control: Review of the three decades of the Solar Energy Research Center, and is cur-
development,” Int. J. Control, Autom., Syst., vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 415–424, rently an Associate Researcher in the Advanced
2011. Center of Electrical and Electronics Engineer-
[18] S. Kouro, P. Cortes, R. Vargas, U. Ammann, and J. Rodriguez, “Model ing, UTFSM, both Centers of Excellence in Chile. His research interests
predictive Control—A simple and powerful method to control power include grid-connected photovoltaic conversion systems, energy stor-
converters,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 56, no. 6, pp. 1826–1838, age systems, advanced digital control, matrix converters, variable-speed
Jun. 2009. drives, and model-predictive control of power converters and drives.
[19] J. Böcker, B. Freudenberg, A. The, and S. Dieckerhoff, “Experimental Dr. Rojas was awarded with the Doctoral Thesis 2014 Award of the
comparison of model predictive control and cascaded control of the mod- Chilean Science Academy, Santiago, Chile, for the best Ph.D. thesis
ular multilevel converter,” IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 30, no. 1, among all Chilean science disciplines.
pp. 422–430, Jan. 2015.
[20] G. A. Papafotiou, G. D. Demetriades, and V. G. Agelidis, “Technology
readiness assessment of model predictive control in medium- and high- Matias Aguirre (S’14) was born in Viña del
voltage power electronics,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 63, no. 9, Mar, Chile, in 1987. He received the B.S. de-
pp. 5807–5815, Sep. 2016. gree in electronics engineering from the Univer-
[21] M. de Brito, L. Galotto, L. Sampaio, G. de Azevedo e Melo, and sidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria (UTFSM),
C. Canesin, “Evaluation of the main MPPT techniques for photovoltaic Valparaiso, Chile, in 2013, where he is currently
applications,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 60, no. 3, pp. 1156–1167, working toward the Ph.D. degree in electronic
Mar. 2013. engineering.
[22] D. Sera, L. Mathe, T. Kerekes, S. Spataru, and R. Teodorescu, “On the His research interests include model-
perturb-and-observe and incremental conductance MPPT methods for PV predictive control, power converters, and re-
systems,” IEEE J. Photovolt., vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 1070–1078, Jul. 2013. newable energy systems (photovoltaic and wind
[23] A. Dell’Aquila, M. Liserre, V. G. Monopoli, and P. Rotondo, “Overview energy).
of PI-Based solutions for the control of DC buses of a single-phase H-
bridge multilevel active rectifier,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl., vol. 44, no. 3,
pp. 857–866, May/Jun. 2008.
[24] R. Teodorescu, M. Liserre, and P. Rodriguez, Grid Converters for Photo- Samir Kouro (S’04–M’08–SM’17) received the
voltaic and Wind Power Systems. New York, NY, USA: Wiley, 2011. M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in electronics en-
[25] Y. Deng and R. Harley, “Space-Vector versus nearest-level pulse width gineering from the Universidad Tecnica Fed-
modulation for multilevel converters,” IEEE Trans. Power Electron., erico Santa Maria (UTFSM), Valparaiso, Chile,
vol. 30, no. 6, pp. 2962–2974, Jun. 2015. in 2004 and 2008, respectively.
[26] E. Gutierrez, S. Kouro, C. Rojas, and M. Aguirre, “Predictive control of He is currently an Associate Professor at
an H-NPC converter for single-phase rooftop photovoltaic systems,” in UTFSM. From 2009 to 2011, he was a Post-
Proc. IEEE Energy Convers. Congr. Expo., Sep. 2015, pp. 3295–3302. doctoral Fellow in the Department of Electrical
[27] R. Vargas, P. Cortes, U. Ammann, J. Rodriguez, and J. Pontt, “Predictive and Computer Engineering, Ryerson University,
control of a three-phase neutral-point-clamped inverter,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Toronto, ON, Canada. He is also the Principal
Electron., vol. 54, no. 5, pp. 2697–2705, Oct. 2007. Investigator of the Solar Energy Research Cen-
[28] T. Wolbank, R. Stumberger, A. Lechner, and J. Machl, “Strategy for on- ter, Santiago, Chile, and the Titular Researcher of the Advanced Center
line adaptation of the inverter switching frequency imposed by a predic- of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (AC3E), Valparaiso, Chile, both
tive current controller,” in Proc. IEEE Int. Elect. Mach. Drives Conf., being Centers of Excellence in Chile. He has coauthored more than 150
May 2009, pp. 717–723. refereed journal and conference papers.
[29] P. Cortes, J. Rodriguez, D. E. Quevedo, and C. Silva, “Predictive current Dr. Kouro received the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society Bimal Bose
control strategy with imposed load current spectrum,” IEEE Trans. Power Award in 2016, the J. David Irwin Early Career Award in 2015, the IEEE
Electron., vol. 23, no. 2, pp. 612–618, Mar. 2008. Power Electronics Society Richard M. Bass Outstanding Young Power
[30] H. Aggrawal, J. I. Leon, L. G. Franquelo, S. Kouro, P. Garg, and Electronics Engineer Award in 2012, the IEEE Industry Applications
J. Rodriguez, “Model predictive control based selective harmonic miti- Magazine First Prize Paper Award in 2012, the IEEE Transactions on
gation technique for multilevel cascaded H-bridge converters,” in Proc. Industrial Electronics Best Paper Award in 2011, and the IEEE Industrial
Annu. Conf. IEEE Ind. Electron. Soc., 2011, pp. 4427–4432. Electronics Magazine Best Paper Award in 2008.
9354 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 64, NO. 12, DECEMBER 2017
Tobias Geyer (M’08–SM’10) received the Dipl.- Eduardo Gutierrez was born in Los Ángeles,
Ing. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering Chile. He received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees
from ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, in 2000 in electronics engineering from the Universidad
and 2005, respectively. Tecnica Federico Santa Maria, Valparaiso, Chile,
From 2006 to 2008, he was with the GE in 2010 and 2015, respectively.
Global Research Centre, Munich, Germany. Since 2016, he has been a Lead Applica-
Subsequently, he spent three years at the Uni- tion Engineer of utility-scale photovoltaic sys-
versity of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand. tems with SunPower Corporation, El Salvador,
In 2012, he joined ABB Corporate Research, Chile.
Baden-Dättwil, Switzerland, where he is cur-
rently a Senior Principal Scientist for power con-
version control. He is also a Lecturer at ETH Zurich. He is the author of
more than 100 peer-reviewed publications, 30 patent applications, and
the book Model Predictive Control of High Power Converters and Indus-
trial Drives (Wiley, 2016). His research interests include model predictive
control, medium-voltage drives, and utility-scale power converters.
Dr. Geyer received the 2014 Third Best Paper Award from the IEEE
TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS. He also received two Prize
Paper Awards at conferences. He is as an Associate Editor of the IEEE
TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS.