Modelling, simulation and experimental verification for renewable agents connected to a distorted utility grid using a Real-Time Digital Simulation Platform

The large number of Photovoltaic plants and its utilization as agents of a Distributed Generation Systems justified the increasing efforts towards the optimal design of the overall grid-connected System. In a Distributed Generation environment the low voltage 3-phase utility grid could be affected by some disturbances such as voltage unbalanced, variations of frequency and harmonics distortion and it is mandatory that the control algorithms used in the inverter can be able to maintain the power flow between the renewable agent and the low voltage 3-phase utility grid; in addition a unitary power factor must be attained. A Proportional-Resonant regulator is used to performance a current control with the output current of the inverter and a Multiple Second Order Generalized Integrator Frequency-Locked Loop (MSOGI-FLL) is used to detect the frequency of the low voltage 3-phase utility grid. Some low order harmonics are introduced in the low voltage 3-phase utility grid in order to see the effect of the harmonic compensator. In order to validate the model of the Photovoltaic Renewable agent, the synchronization algorithm and the inverter control algorithm, some simulations using MATLAB/SIMULINK from The MathWorks, Inc. are shown firstly, and secondly, some Real-Time Digital Simulation tests using a Real-Time Digital Simulation (RTDS) Platform are carried out. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.