2010 International Conference on Challenges in Environmental Science and Computer Engineering

The System Analysis of Solar Inverter based on Network Controlling

Huanqi Tao Gujing Han Min Zou

College of Electronics and College of Electronics and College of Electronics and
Information Engineering Information Engineering Information Engineering
Wuhan University of Science and Wuhan University of Science and Wuhan University of Science and
Engineering, Engineering, Engineering,
Wuhan, China Wuhan, China Wuhan, China
taohq@163.com, 33616724@qq.com 136212124@qq.com

Abstract—The solar inverter is an important part of characteristics[1][2]:

photovoltaic power generation, but is also the field of the
research of the electrical source technology and power
electronics technology. In this paper, starting from the
utilization of solar energy, solar inverter status and the basic
control method are analyzed. The practical significance and
application prospects of the digital power conversion
technology and network control are discussed. The new
research directions are explored for the use of solar energy
and electrical engineering development.
Keywords-solar energy utilization; inverter; digital
technology; network control; electrical engineering
Ⅰ. INTRODUCTION
With the continuous exploitation and consumption of
fossil energy, and the ramatic changes in global climate,
Human beings are even more conscious of the importance
and the urgency of the development of clean energy. In a
variety of the clean energy among, Solar energy is the
most widely used of clean energy, Solar power station is
the 21st century's most promising renewable energy one
of the ways. However, the original form of solar cells are
the DC power supply ， to achieve with the existing
communication network consistent with a common,
unified power supply, must go through a transformation
process, to achieve a wide range of applications. therefore,
The major components of sunlight power plant, including
solar cell matrix, batteries, inverter and control of
detection devices, one of the inverter system and its
control technology is an important research content and
direction for the application of solar energy.
Ⅱ. CHARACTERISTICS AND STATUS OF SOLAR
ENERGY INVERTER
Depending on whether connected between the
external power grid, the solar power station is divided
into two kinds of the structure, which are
independent-type and networking-type. Whether
independent-type of solar power station or
networking-type of solar power station, the power
Inverter is needed as a main component parts. Therefore,
the inverter used for solar power station, has become a
hot research topic of profession for power supply and
power electronics.
Compared with the general inverter, the inverter used
for solar photovoltaic power plant has the following
A. High-efficiency Requirements
Because the general matrix of photoelectric
conversion efficiency of solar cells is very low, Less than
15%, therefore the inverter efficiency is very high. When
the power is less than 10kVA, the inverter efficiency
generally is greater than 90%; and when the power is
greater than 10kVA, the Inverter efficiency is greater than
95%.
B. Small Distortion and High Power Factor
The output of networking-type of solar power station
is associated with the external power, therefore the
outputting waveform of inverter must be accordant with
external power grid. required waveform aberrance <5%,
high-order harmonic components <3％，power factor is
almost close to 1.
C. Complex Environment and Poor Conditions
The conditions are demanding: the independent-type
solar power stations generally used in remote
mountainous areas and islands, their environment is very
bad; Furthermore it can guarantee to long-term work In a
small amount of the maintenance conditions. Moreover,
photovoltaic power used for families and paralleling is
demanded to have small electromagnetic interference, to
work steadily, to not Influence people's living
environment, to neither impede the normal operation of
other appliances. At the same time, as functional products,
without doubt there are questions of reducing cost, of
improving capability, of decreasing volume and weight.
The current situation is: solar power inverter do not
have a fixed, unified, mature technical solutions and
specialized control circuitry, just learn from the existing
power inverter technology to be improved at the same
time, or open up new avenues[3][4][5].
Ⅲ. CHARACTERISTICS OF CURRENT INVERTER
AND CONTROL METHODS
The current inverter power system includes an
uninterruptible power supply systems (UPS) and
emergency power system (EPS) are two basic types.
Features of their major decisions on the using inverter
[6][7].
A. Commonly Used UPS Inverter Features

978-0-7695-3972-0/10 $26.00 © 2010 IEEE 244

243
DOI 10.1109/CESCE.2010.258
 In order to ensure continuity of supply for the load,
especially since the advent of computers, in order to
avoid data loss at instant, uninterruptible power supply
has become an important research topic. Uninterruptible
power supply systems used as shown in Figure 1.
From the figure we can see, UPS is a double
conversion uninterruptible power supply structure,
primarily for the load to provide a stable high-quality
energy, the conversion time is generally less than 10ms.
The basic methods of work are:
Figure 1 Uninterruptible Power System (UPS) Diagram
z on-line UPS inverter. In both high-power (5kVA
and above) mainly, with the power grid and
electrical equipment to run, the main function is
regulation and the prevention of voltage
fluctuation and interference;
z Off-line UPS inverter. It is dominated by
low-power (5kVA or less), and its characteristic
is high conversion efficiency, easy maintenance,
start-up time is short, control of high precision
and low prices.
z On-line interactive UPS, mainly for the use of
network. It combines off-line inverter
high-efficient and on-line power supply
high-quality features.
The above three kinds of non-stop Inverter system
should be included similarly the following features in the
traditional sense: Be able to run under a complex power
grid; Does not produce additional interference; Output
power indicators should be comprehensive, high quality
and can meet the requirements of the load; With high
efficiency, high reliability and maintainability.
B. EPS Using the Characteristics of Inverter
Emergency Power Supply System (EPS) has been
widely used in building electric fields and special
emergency power occasions, and become a "city lifeline
system" an important component. Emergency power
supply system shown in Figure 2, the inverter is started
when an external power supply was stopped, the switch is
changed to the inverter output state. The main design idea
is a sudden interruption of power in the city to provide
safe and reliable emergency power supply in order to
effectively avoid the occurrence of disasters, the personal
injury and property loss as a principle. In addition to
normal UPS function, its main features are:
Power conversion time short; Load adaptability;
Strong ability of anti-overload and impact; Multiple
outputs; There is fire linkage and remote control; To
adapt to a variety of harsh environment. There are
244
245
measures of preventing high and low temperature, damp
heat, dust, vibration and salt fog etc for the EPS; There
are long life, energy saving, high efficiency, low cost, no
noise, pollution and other characteristics; It also has
unmanned, automatic control, and timely warning forced
to start function.
Figure 2 emergency power system (EPS) block diagram
C. Inverter Control Method
Currently more popular control methods, from the
form of structure can be summarized into two categories,
namely, analog control and digital control technology.
The former applied a long time and quite mature, in a
certain range are also obtained good results. With the
development of digital technology, the latter in recent
years has also been widely used, and show more
advantages, are constantly being developed and studied.
Whether it is analog or digital control technology,
according to methods of work can be specifically divided
into the following categories[8,9,10]:
z Predictive Control：It can achieve a very small
current distortion, anti-noise ability, but requires
the establishment of accurate load model and
circuit parameters.
z Hysteresis Control：It can achieve fast response
and high stability performance, but the switching
frequency is not fixed, circuit reliability decline.
z Deadbeat control：This is based on current time
state vector and output feedback signal that the
next time a reference sample to calculate the sine
PWM pulse width to achieve the output voltage
correction.
z Sliding Mode Control：This non-linear control, it
makes the system under certain conditions, along
a trajectory to do under the high-frequency,
small amplitude up and down movement;
Through the medium of solving each constant
value for the switching function, making the
selected control strategy to meet the
requirements of sliding-mode movement
stability and dynamic characteristics.
z Duplicate control: This is a principle based on
internal model control method. The purpose is to
eliminate the periodic distortion of outputted
voltage waveform and caused by the rectifier
bridge load, eliminating the steady-state error of
periodic disturbances, but the dynamic
characteristic of UPS inverter used alone to
repeat control is poor.
z Fuzzy control: This belongs to intelligent control
areas. In the given input conditions, A suitable
 output is obtained according to the table for the
fuzzy mathematics rules; It is mainly used to
control hysteretic systems, nonlinear systems
and time-varying systems. Fuzzy control is
similar to the traditional PD control, a fast
response speed, but its static characteristic is
inadequate.
z Neural network control: This is a controlled
manner which simulating intelligence activities
of the human brain and the central nervous
system. Has been widely used in control areas,
particularly in the field of nonlinear systems;
Application of neural network control chip made
some achievements also, but because of
hardware limitations, it can not directly achieve
on-line control to the inverter output voltage
waveform.
z Space vector pulse-width modulation (PWM)
technology：Space vector control can achieve
100% of the DC bus voltage utilization ratio;
Both can be used in open-loop control and can
also be used in closed-loop system; This control
method also need to establish the precise model
of the circuit.
z According to the different control parameters,
control of inverter can be divided into: Voltage
instantaneous value of single-loop feedback
control; Voltage, current dual-loop feedback
control; And multi-loop feedback strategy for
control.
z In accordance with the requirements of
high-power, parallel inverter system control
method: There are centralized parallel control,
master-slave parallel control, distributed parallel
control, non-internet-wire parallel control.
Analysis of the above control methods, the future
development will be in network technology, based on the
digital composite control and network remote control,
This will be the inverter power control method of
development trends and research focus[11][12].
Ⅳ. THE CONTENT AND PROSPECTS
As the well-developed Ethernet network and power grid
facilities, solar energy inverter operation and network
control provides an important material base. Inverter
power system network control block diagram shown in
Figure 3. From the figure we can see, the network control
system consists of the Internet, power grids, power
inverters and control system components. The main
research contents include: The inverter network control
content:
A. Network Communication Protocol
It can be divided into the physical layer protocol,
power grid layer protocols, as well as the agreement
between the Internet and power grid.
B. Network Topology and Network Control Method
It contains hardware circuit structure, networking
method and control software system design, etc.
245
246
C. Electromagnetic Compatibility
It includes wide range of technical fields that are
shielding electromagnetic interference, system stability
and reliability. Inverter control system network analysis
and study, its prospects is to achieve power systems for
remote operation and control; Centralized management
and scheduling; Easy to achieve human-machine
interaction; Information data is transmitted rapidly;
Remote fault diagnosis and maintenance; To reduce labor
intensity, improve work efficiency, achieve self-adaptive
network-based operation. But also for the development of
electrical engineering disciplines to open up new research
directions.
Figure 3 Schematic diagram of inverter power network control
Ⅴ. CONCLUSION
The solar photovoltaic power generation in the 21st
century's most promising clean energy sources, its control
and conversion technology has become the science and
technology, extensive research hotspot, the network
control will be the most promising development in the
technology direction, in promoting the application of
clean energy will play an important role.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was supported by Hubei Province Clean
Development Mechanism (CDM) service center support;
Got also the careful guidance of CESCE expert group;
Authors thank them for their help. Even more thank all
the members of the project team.
REGERENCES
[1] Xu Zewei. Inverter Used in Solar Power Station and Electromagnetic
Components. Power Supply Technology Application, 2005，8（1） ：
5—55
[2] Huang Shisheng, Arc Welding Power supplies and Digital Control.
Beijing: Mechanical Industry Press, 2007. 221-259
[3] Wang Xiaohuan, Feng Jianzhou. The research of Inverter Power
Supply based on DSP. Telecom Power Technologies, 2006(5):14-16
[4] Chen Yaai, Zhang Weiping, Zhou Jinghua et al. A summarize of
Control Technology based on Power Converter. Electrotechnical
Application, 2008(4): 4-9
[5] WANG Feng-Yan, WU Song-Rong, XU Jian-Ping, et al. Modeling
and Simulation of V2 Controlled Switching Converters. International
Conference on Communications Circuijts and Systems. 2003(11):
613-617
[6] FENG Guang, E Meyer, LIU Yan-Fei. High Performance Digital
Control Algorithms for DC-DC Converters based on the Principle of
Capacitor Charge Balance. Power Electronics Conference of PESC’
06. 37th IEEE 2006
[7] Yang Jin ， Cai Lijuan. Digital Technology Application and
Development in Switching Power Supply Control. Power World,
2006（2） ：6-8
[8] Wang Linbing, He Xjiangning. Comparison and Analysis Among
 Control Methods for UPS. Power Supply Technology Application,
2005，8（1） ：46-50
[9] Auzani bin Jidin, Nik Rumzi Nik Idris, Senior Member. Sliding
Mode Variable Structure Control Design Principles and Application
to DC Drives. Power and Energy Conference, 2004: 78-82
[10] Yang Shuitao ， Zhang Fan ， Qian Zhaoming. DSP-Based
Multiple-Loop Control Strategy for UPS Inverters With Effective
Control Delay Elimination. Electrotechnical Journal，2008，23（12）：
84-91
[11] Spiazzi G, Mattavelli P, Rossetto L.Sliding mode Control of
DC-DC Converter. Brazilian Power Electronics Conference
(COBEP), 1997
[12] Yougi-dong, Pyongtaek. Development of a New Neuro-Fuzzy
Hybrid System. The 30thAnnual Conference of the IEEE Industrial
Electronics Society. 2004(11): 2-6

246
247