Improved Power Conditioning System of

Micro-Hydro Power Plant for Distributed

Generation Applications
Marcelo G. Molina1, Mario Pacas2
1

CONICET, Instituto de Energa Elctrica, Universidad Nacional de San Juan, J5400ARL, San Juan, Argentina
2
Institute of Power Electronics and Electrical Drives, Universitt Siegen, D-57068, Siegen, Germany
E-mail: mgmolina@ieee.org

Abstract- A small-scale hydropower station is usually a run-ofriver plant that uses a fixed speed drive with mechanical
regulation of the turbine water flow rate for controlling the active
power generation. This design enables to reach high efficiency over
a wide range of water flows but using a complex operating
mechanism, which is in consequence expensive and tend to be
more affordable for large systems. This paper proposes an
advanced structure of a micro-hydro power plant (MHPP) based
on a smaller, lighter, more robust and more efficient higher-speed
turbine. The suggested design is much simpler and eliminates all
mechanical adjustments through a novel efficient electronic power
conditioning system (PCS) for connection to the electric grid. In
this way, it allows obtaining higher reliability and lower cost of the
power plant. Moreover, a full detailed model of the MHPP is
derived and a three-level control scheme is designed, comprising a
full decoupled current control strategy in the synchronous-rotating
d-q reference frame. The dynamic performance of the proposed
systems is fully validated by digital simulation carried out by using
SimPowerSystems of MATLAB/Simulink.

I.

INTRODUCTION

In the last decade, problems related to energy factors (oil

crisis), ecological aspects (climatic change), electric demand
(significant growth) and financial/regulatory restrictions of
wholesale markets have arisen worldwide. These difficulties,
far from finding effective solutions, are continuously
increasing, which suggests the need of technological
alternatives to assure their solution. One of these technological
alternatives is named distributed generation (DG), and consists
on generating electricity as near as possible of the consumption
site, in fact like it was made in the beginnings of the electric
industry, but now incorporating the advantages of the modern
technology [1]. Here it is consolidated the idea of using clean
non-conventional technologies of generation that use renewable
energy sources (RESs) that do not cause environmental
pollution, such as wind, photovoltaic, hydraulic, etc. [2].
Recently, a rising interest on grid integration of micro-hydro
power plants (MHPPs) has emerged, mainly because they are a
proven technology with a very good performance and feasible
with low investment costs, resulting in the technology based on
RESs with smaller costs even when are compared to wind

978-1-4244-5697-0/10/$25.00 2010 IEEE

generation [3]. This trend is expected to be increased even more

due to the high potential of application of MHPPs in DG and to
the large amount of benefits for the use of renewable energy
sources. These benefits include favorable incentives in many
countries and the retributions coming from trading carbon
emission reduction (CER) credits that impact in the commercial
acceptance of the technology.
A small-scale hydro power station (from pico to mini-hydro
power plants) is usually a run-of-river plant that uses a fixed
speed drive with mechanical regulation of the turbine water
flow rate through adjustable guide vanes and runner blades for
controlling the active power generation. This double-regulated
design enables to reach high efficiency over a wide range of
water flows but using a complex operating mechanism, which is
in consequence expensive and tends to be more affordable for
large-scale systems.
This paper proposes an advanced structure of a MHPP based
on a smaller, lighter, more robust and more efficient higherspeed turbine. The suggested design is much simpler and
eliminates all mechanical adjustments through a novel
electronic power conditioning system (PCS) for connecting to
the electric distribution grid, as depicted in Fig. 1. In this way,
this topology allows obtaining higher reliability and lower cost
of the power plant. A full detailed model of the MHPP is
derived and a new three-level control scheme is designed. The
model includes a run-of-river hydraulic turbine directly coupled
to a synchronous generator and the PCS is made up of an
AC/DC/AC static converter. The control consists of a multilevel hierarchical structure and incorporates a maximum power
point tracker (MPPT) for better use of the hydro resource. In
addition, reactive power compensation of the electric grid is
included, operating simultaneously and independently of the
active power generation. The dynamic performance of the
proposed control schemes is completely validated through
digital simulation carried out by using MATLAB/Simulink.
II. MODELING OF THE MICRO-HYDRO POWER PLANT
The proposed hydropower station is a run-of-river plant
which consequently does not have any significant water
reservoir such as large dams. Only a fraction of the available

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The hydraulic turbine implemented and characterizated in the

laboratory is a 350 W rated power one designed for an average
1.5 m head and a water flow rate of 35 l/s. Fig. 1 describes the
whole arrangement employed for studying the proposed turbine.
The hydraulic turbine model is obtained from its steady-state
characteristics, assuming water to be incompressible. The
output hydraulic power available from the hydraulic turbine is
given as follows [4]:
Phyd = g H Q ,
(1)

Fig. 1. Layout of the implemented MHPP.

stream flow at a given time is used, this leading to a good

agreement with the environment and permitting the utilization
of low head water sources for DG applications. In order to
allow extended control features when they are integrated into
the electric power grid and also to provide the enough
flexibility to adapt to the specific conditions of rivers with low
water flow rate, a variable speed turbine is proposed to use in
this work. Thus, by optimizing the turbine working point in
order to extract the maximum power of the water flowing per
second, superior efficiencies respect to traditional hydro
turbines can be obtained. Moreover, by replacing mechanical
controls with advance technologies in power electronic devices,
higher reliability stations with better efficiencies can be
reached. The modeling approach of the proposed micro-hydro
power plant is based on the structure of Fig. 1. The MHPP
consists of a variable speed micro-hydro turbine directly
coupled to a permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG)
and connected to the electric grid through an advanced power
conditioning system (PCS). The proposed PCS is composed of
a three-phase rectifier bridge, and an impedance-fed DC/AC
power inverter.
A. Hydraulic Turbine Characteristics
The proposed hydro power is a basic reaction turbo-machine
well suited for low water heads and low water flow rates. This
hydraulic turbine is a propeller type, modified from a Kaplan
turbine with neither blade pitch control nor upstream guide
vane one. In addition, the turbine does not implement a gear
box for coupling to the generator which yields a simple and
robust design. The turbine is a vertical axis machine with a
spiral case and a radial guide vane configuration. The water
flow enters in a radial way inward and makes a right angle turn
before entering the runner in an axial direction. The turbine
design is made with an optimum water swirl before entering the
turbine runner through appropriate guide-vanes setting, so as to
obtain the best efficiency for the rated power.

being the specific density of water (1000 kg/m3 at

approximately 4 C), g the acceleration due to gravity
(9.8 m/s2), H the water net head (m) and Q the water flow rate
or discharge (m3/s).
The potential energy in water is converted into mechanical
energy in the turbine as a result of the water pressure which
applies a force on the face of the runner blades and then
decreases as it passes through the reaction turbine. The relation
between the mechanical and the hydraulic powers can be
obtained by using the hydraulic turbine efficiency h, as
expressed in (2).
Pm = h Phyd ,
(2)
Since the proposed hydraulic turbine can operate over near all
the range of rotor speeds, the assumption of linear torque versus
speed characteristic (at a given rated water flow per second and
water head) cannot be used, as usually considered in the
literature. As a result, the mechanical power characteristic could
not be considered simply a parabola (as typically) [4, 5].
Indeed, the hydraulic turbine efficiency that yields Pm is highly
dependent of the turbine design and operating conditions (Q, H,
and the angular speed of the turbine rotor ), and thus is very
complex to be analytically determined. Consequently,
numerical approximations have been developed in this article to
calculate the mechanical power characteristic of the
implemented hydraulic turbine and an expression of h as a
function of Q and has been proposed and validated in the
laboratory by a static behavior test.
1 90
50
(3.33 Q) ,
(3)
h (, Q) = + Q + 0.78 exp

i
2 i
1

RA

1
,
0.0035 and =
(4)
with i =
(
)

+
0
.
089

Q
being R the radius of the hydraulic turbine blades (m) and A the
area swept by the rotor blades (m2).
Fig. 2 illustrates the steady-state mechanical power
characteristic function Pm versus the rotating-speed of the
hydraulic turbine at various constant water flow rates Q, with
H fixed at 1.5m. The point of optimal efficiency is designed to
be at rated water flow rate and head, where the turbine captures
the maximum power. It can be observed that, for each water
flow rate, there exists a specific point in the hydraulic turbine
characteristic where the output mechanical power is maximized,
aka maximum power point (MPP). Thus, the control of the

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Fig. 2. Mechanical power vs. rotor speed curves measurements and

simulations at various water flow rates for the studied hydraulic turbine.

turbine rotor results in a variable-speed operation aiming at

tracking the MPP for the particular operating conditions such
that the maximum power can be extracted continuously from
the water.
B. Power Conditioning System
The power conditioning system used for connecting RESs to
the distribution grid requires the flexible, efficient and reliable
generation of high quality electric power [6]. The PCS proposed
in this work is depicted in Fig. 3, and is composed of a back-toback AC/DC/AC converter that fulfills all the requirements
stated above.
Since the variable speed hydro turbine is directly coupled to
the synchronous generator, this later produces output voltages
with variable amplitude and frequency. This condition demands
the use of an extra conditioner to meet the amplitude and
frequency requirements of the utility grid. A three-phase
uncontrolled full-wave rectifier bridge is proposed here for
performing the AC/DC conversion. This device has the benefit
of being simple, robust, cheap, and needs no control system. On
the other hand, a three-phase DC/AC voltage source inverter
(VSI) using IGBTs is employed for connecting to the grid. As
the power rating of the inverter for DG applications is generally
in the order of kWs, the output voltage control of the VSI can
be achieved through pulse width modulation (PWM)
techniques. The connection to the utility grid is made through a
step-up transformer and a low pass filter in order to reduce the

perturbation on the distribution system from high-frequency

switching harmonics generated by the PWM control. As the
VSI needs a fixed DC link in order to allow a decoupled control
of both active and reactive powers exchange with the electric
grid, an interface in the DC side of the VSI is required. For this
purpose, an intermediate DC/DC converter (or chopper) in a
boost topology can be used [7], thus allowing linking the output
of the full-wave rectifier bridge to the DC bus of the inverter
using only one switching device. This arrangement of rectifierchopper allows replacing the conventional six-pulse voltage
source inverter employed in the rectifier mode, while resulting
in a lower cost and simpler control. This two-stage
configuration represents a good solution in terms of greatly
reducing the inverter current rating and hence the cost of the
whole system. However, still retains some disadvantages when
compared to single-stage topologies:
Reduced power conversion efficiency: because of the twostage configuration (DC/DC boost converter and DC/AC
inverter), which inevitably reduces the power conversion
efficiency.
Reduced reliability: because more components are used in
this configuration with the addition of the chopper.
Higher volume and weight: the boost stage increases
system size/weight because of the extra components used.
To overcome these problems, this paper proposed the use of a
novel inverter topology capable of coping with the output
voltage variation of the primary energy source and still
preserving a fixed higher voltage DC link, all in one singlestage. This structure utilized to realize both inversion and boost
function in a single stage is an impedance-source (or
impedance-fed) power inverter (aka Z-source inverter) [8], and
is shown in Fig. 3. A unique impedance source (Z-source),
consisting of a two-port network with a couple of inductors (or
a split-inductor) and capacitors connected in X shape, is used
for coupling the DC power source converter (the rectifier bridge
output terminals in this case) to the standard three-phase
inverter. In this way, with the proper design of the pulse width
modulation scheme to the inverter, the voltage boosting (or
bucking) function can be realized simultaneously and
independently of the inverter operation, without affecting the
voltage waveforms seen from the electric grid within a wide
range of obtainable voltages.
The Z-source concept uses a modified PWM control

Fig. 3. Detailed model of the proposed micro-hydro power plant.

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technique based on introducing an additional switching state (or

vector) to the eight states (six active and two null states) of the
traditional three-phase voltage source inverter [9]. The
traditional three-phase VSI has six active vectors when the DC
voltage is applied to the load (coupling transformer to the
electric grid in this case) and two zero vectors when the load
terminals are shorted through either the lower or upper three
IGBT devices, respectively. However, the three-phase Z-source
inverter has one extra zero state when the load terminals are
shorted through both the upper and lower devices of any one
phase leg (i.e., both devices are switched on), any two phase
legs, or all three phase legs. This shoot-through zero state
provides the unique buck-boost feature to the inverter.
Without changing the total zero-state time interval, shootthrough zero states are evenly allocated into each phase, so that
the active states (or non-shoot-through states) are unchanged.
However, the equivalent DC link voltage to the inverter is
boosted because of the shoot-through states. Mathematically,
the boosted DC link average voltage Vi is related to the Zsource input DC average voltage in steady-state as follows:
Vi =

1
1 2

T0
T

Vd

1
=
V d = BV d ,
1 2 D0

(5)

where,
T0: total shoot-through time interval.
T: switching period.
D0: shoot-through duty ratio, D0 [0, 1m].
m: modulation index of the VSI, mi [0, 1].
B: boost factor, B [1, 1]
The peak value Vinv of the phase-to-neutral output AC voltage
for the Z-source VSI can be expressed through (6).
where,
a=

V
Vinv = m a B d ,
2

(6)

3 n2
: turns ratio of the coupling transformer.
2 n1

Clearly from (5) and (6), the AC output voltage depends on

both B and M, and can be boosted by increasing B above unity
or stepped down by holding B at unity and decreasing M.
The Z-source inverter can be considered as an ideal
sinusoidal voltage source shunt-connected to the electric system
at the point of common coupling (PCC) through an equivalent
inductance Ls, accounting for the leakage of the step-up
coupling transformer and an equivalent series resistance Rs,
representing the transformer winding resistance and VSI
semiconductors conduction losses. The magnetizing inductance
of the step-up transformer can also be taken into consideration
through a mutual equivalent inductance M. Under the
assumption that the three-phase system has no zero sequence
components, all currents and voltages can be uniquely
transformed into the synchronous-rotating dq reference frame.
Thus, the new coordinate system is defined with the d-axis
always coincident with the instantaneous voltage vector (vd=|v|,
vq=0). As a result, the d-axis current component contributes to

the instantaneous active power and the q-axis current

component represents the instantaneous reactive power.
Rotating reference frame is used because it offers higher
accuracy than stationary frame-based techniques.
The dynamics equations governing the instantaneous values
of the three-phase output voltages in the AC side of the Zsource VSI and the current exchanged with the utility grid can
be derived in the dq reference frame as follows:
v

id Rs
id
Ls M
Ls M

=
Rs

i
i
q
Ls M q 0

(7)

where,
s=d/dt: Laplace variable, defined for t > 0.
: synchronous angular speed of the grid voltage at the
fundamental frequency.
III. PROPOSED CONTROL STRATEGY OF THE MHPP
The proposed control of the three-phase grid-connected
MHPP consists of an external, middle and internal level, as
depicted in Fig. 4.
A. External Level Control
The external level control (left side of Fig. 4) is responsible
for determining the active and reactive power exchange
between the MHPP and the utility grid, through an active power
control mode (APCM) and a voltage control mode (VCM),
respectively.
The VCM is designed for controlling (supporting and
regulating) the voltage at the PCC of the VSI through the
modulation of the reactive component of the output current
(fundamental quadrature component, iq1). To this aim, the
magnitude of the voltage vector at the PCC (vm) is compared to
a voltage reference (vr). An error signal is produced and then
fed to a proportional-integral (PI) controller with a regulation
droop Rd, which acts as a first-order lag-compensator (LC1).
The main purpose of a grid-connected MHPP is to transfer
the maximum hydro power into the electric system. In this way,
the APCM aims at matching the active power to be injected into
the electric grid with the maximum instant power capable of
being generated by the hydraulic turbine generator. Maximum
power point tracking means that the MHPP is always supposed
to be operated at maximum output voltage/current rating. From
(3) and (4), the optimal rotational speed opt of the hydraulic
turbine rotor for a given water flow rate Q can be used to obtain
the maximum turbine efficiency hmax and then the maximum
mechanical output power of the turbine. Unfortunately,
measuring the water flowing per second in the rotor of the
hydraulic turbine is difficult and increases complexity and costs
to the DG application; so that to avoid using this measurement
for determining the optimal rotor speed, an indirect approach
needs to be implemented.
The proposed MPPT strategy is based on directly adjusting
the shoot-through duty ratio of the Z-source inverter and

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Fig. 4. Proposed multi-level control scheme for the three-phase grid-connected MHPP.

consequently the generator rotor speed, according to the result

of the comparison of successive output power measurements.
The control algorithm uses a Perturbation and Observation
(P&O) iterative method widely used in photovoltaic solar
systems with good results [10], and proves to be efficient in
tracking the MPP of the MHPP for a wide range of water flow
rates. The algorithm, which was, has a simple structure and
requires few measured variables. The hydro power station
MPPT algorithm operates by constantly perturbing, i.e.
increasing or decreasing, the rectified output voltage Vd(k) of
the MHPP generator and thus controlling the rotational speed of
the turbine rotor via the Z-source inverter and comparing the
actual output power Pd(k) with the previous perturbation sample
Pd(k-1). If the power is increasing, the perturbation will
continue in the same direction in the following cycle so that the
rotor speed will be increased, otherwise the perturbation
direction will be inverted. This means that the hydraulic turbine
output voltage is perturbed every MPPT iteration cycle k at
sample intervals Ttrck. Therefore, when the optimal rotational
speed opt for a specific water flow rate is reached, the P&O
algorithm will have tracked the MPP and then will settle at this
point but oscillating slightly around this.
B. Middle Level Control
The middle level control makes the expected output to
dynamically track the reference values set by the external level
(middle side of Fig. 4). In order to derive the control laws for
this block, the dynamic model of the VSI described by (7) is
employed [11]. By using two conventional PI controllers (PI1
and PI2) with proper feedback of the inverter output current
components id1 and iq1 yields a resultant overall model with no
crosscoupling of , as required. In addition, as described in
detail in [11], there exits an additional coupling from the DC

link voltage Vi. This problem demands to maintain the DC bus

voltage as constant as possible, in order to decrease the
influence of the dynamics of Vi. The solution to this problem is
obtained by using a PI controller (PI3) which eliminates the
steady-state voltage variations at the Z-source inverter DC link.
C. Internal Level Control
The internal level (right side of Fig. 4) is responsible for
generating the switching signals for the six IGBTs of the threephase two-level Z-source inverter, using a carefully designed
carrier-based PWM scheme based on [9]. This level is mainly
composed of a line synchronization module and a firing pulses
generator for the inverter. The line synchronization module
simply synchronizes the VSI carrier-based switching pulses
with the positive sequence components of the AC voltage
vector at the PCC using the phase s of a phase locked loop
(PLL). The design of the PLL is based on concepts of
instantaneous power theory in the dq reference frame.
IV. DIGITAL SIMULATION RESULTS
In order to investigate the effectiveness of the proposed
models and control algorithms, digital simulations were
implemented using SimPowerSystems of MATLAB/Simulink
[12]. For validation of both control strategies, i.e. APCM and
VCM of the micro hydro power station, two sets of simulations
were carried out.
Simulations depicted in Fig. 5 show the case with only active
power exchange with the utility grid, i.e. with just the APCM
activated, for the studied MHPP connected to the AC system.
The water flowing per second in the rotor of the hydraulic
turbine is forced to vary in the manner described in the figure
(stepped every 1 s), producing changes in the maximum power
drawn from the generator. As can be observed, the P&O
maximum power tracking method proves to be accurate in

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Fig. 5. Simulation results for active power exchange with the utility grid
(APCM).

following the MPP of the micro hydro power station, designed

with an optimum duty cycle perturbation step in accordance
with the turbine-generator group dynamics. As can be noted, all
the active power generated by the MHPP (shown in blue dashed
lines) is injected into the electric grid, except losses, with small
delays in the dynamic response. It can be also seen the case
with fixed voltage control of the rectified voltage Vd, i.e. with
no MPPT control (T0 at all times) and consequently with near
constant rotor speed operation (shown in green dotted lines). In
this case, the power injected into the electric grid is much lesser
than with MPPT, about an average 30 % lower. Eventually, no
reactive power is exchanged with the electric grid since VCM is
not activated (shown in red solid lines).
Simulations of Fig. 6 show the case with active and reactive
power exchange with the utility grid, i.e. the APCM is activated
all the time while the VCM is activated at t=0.6 s. As can be
seen, all the active power generated by the MHPP is injected
into the electric grid, except losses, in the same way than the
case with only APCM activated. The rapid injection of almost
300 var of reactive capacitive power into the electric system
(shown in red solid lines) when the VCM is activated aims at
increasing the PCC voltage from 0.99 p.u. up to 1 p.u. (shown
in the last figure). This reactive power generation increases the
VSI losses, which causes a slightly lower exchange of active
power than the previous case studied with both controls of the
Z-source inverter (with and without MPPT).
V. CONCLUSION
In this paper, a novel power conditioning system and control
strategy of a three-phase grid-connected MHPP, incorporating a
MPPT for dynamic active power generation jointly with
reactive power compensation of distribution systems, has been
presented. Simulation studies and experimental results
demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed detailed models
and control approaches in dq reference frame. The fast response
of power electronic devices and the enhanced performance of

Fig. 6. Simulation results for active and reactive power exchange (APCM and
VCM).

the control allow taking full advantage of the MHPP as a

distributed generator.
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