Single-phase grid-connected PV system using three-arm rectifier-inverter

A grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) power supply system with on-line voltage regulation capability is presented. It employs the three-arm rectifier-inverter topology with PV modules connected directly on the dc-link. The common-arm is with line-frequency switching and synchronous to the input voltage, aiming for a lower switching loss and decoupling the control of rectifier and inverter portions. As a result, the rectifier and inverter portions can be controlled independently with the rectifier-arm and inverter-arm, respectively. For maximum power point tracking (NIPPT) of the PV modules and balancing the power among utility, PV, and the load, a variable dc-link voltage is adopted and controlled by the rectifier-arm based on the MPPT control algorithm. The inverter-arm then regulates the load voltage with good regulation and low distortion. Due to large variation of the dc-link voltage, a feedforward plus feedback control technique with variable gain is developed to keep constant bandwidth of the current loop at any operation condition. Therefore, the performance of the rectifier and inverter portions can be ensured. A system containing a 2 kVA converter and a 1.2 kW PV module is set up, and some experimental results are provided for demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed method.