Passivity-Based Design of Grid-Side Current-Controlled LCL-Type Grid-Connected Inverters

The frequency-domain passivity theory offers an effective way to assess the stability of inverters connecting to complex grid conditions, e.g., inductive grid, capacitive grid, and system comprising multiple inverters. In this article, an admittance model for the grid-side current-controlled LCL-type inverter with capacitor voltage feedforward active damping (CVF-AD) is built to facilitate the passivity-based stability assessment and controller parameter design. Especially, it is found that if the antiresonance frequency of the inverter-side inductor and the filter capacitor is designed in a certain region, i.e., (0.66f(c) + 0.034f(s), 0.22f(s)), all frequencies' passive output admittance of the inverter can be achieved via a modified CVF-AD scheme with simple digital implementation. Thanks to the proposed methods, the inverter can be connected to the grid regardless of the grid impedance, which means a robust plug-and-play functionality suitable for microgrid applications. In addition, the controller parameters are analytically designed; time-consuming iterations are, hence, avoided. The allowable tolerance of power circuit parameters for a valid controller parameter design is as high as 64% or more. The validity of the theoretical analysis and effectiveness of the proposed method are verified by using experimental results on a laboratory prototype.