International Journal of Electronics

ISSN: 0020-7217 (Print) 1362-3060 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tetn20

Development of High Performance Solar

Photovoltaic Inverter with Reduced Harmonic
Distortions
Albert Alexander
To cite this article: Albert Alexander (2016): Development of High Performance Solar
Photovoltaic Inverter with Reduced Harmonic Distortions, International Journal of Electronics,
DOI: 10.1080/00207217.2016.1196746
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00207217.2016.1196746

Accepted author version posted online: 08

Jun 2016.
Published online: 08 Jun 2016.
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Date: 09 June 2016, At: 09:51

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Journal: International Journal of Electronics
DOI: 10.1080/00207217.2016.1196746

Development of High Performance Solar

Photovoltaic Inverter with Reduced Harmonic
Distortions
1

Abstract In addition to the focus towards growing demand on electrical energy due to the increase in population,

industries, consumer loads etc., the need for improving the quality of electrical power also need to be considered. The design

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and development of solar Photo Voltaic (PV) inverter with reduced harmonic distortions is proposed. Unlike the
conventional solar PV inverters, the proposed inverter provides the advantages of reduced harmonic distortions thereby
intend towards the improvement in power quality. This inverter comprises of multiple stages which provides the required
230VRMS, 50Hz inspite of variations in solar PV due to temperature and irradiance. The reduction of harmonics is governed
by applying proper switching sequences required for the inverter switches. The detailed analysis is carried out by employing
different switching techniques and observing its performance. With a separate mathematical model for a solar PV
simulations are performed in MATLAB software. To show the advantage of the system proposed, a 3kWp photovoltaic plant
coupled with multilevel inverter is demonstrated in hardware. The novelty resides in the design of a single chip controller
which can provide the switching sequence based on the requirement and application. As per the results obtained, the solar
fed multi stage inverter improves the quality of power which makes this inverter suitable for both standalone and grid
connected systems.
Key words- Harmonics, Multilevel systems, Modulation strategy, Photovoltaic systems, Power Quality.

I. INTRODUCTION
In the present scenario, development of an individual and society is basically depends on the
availability of electrical energy. In India, providing electrical power to all the consumers without
interruption is a major issue. To overcome this, many power plants are installed and proposed in
meeting the demand. For the construction of a power plant it requires thousands of crores as the
investment and also consumes more number of years for its debut power generation. Inspite of this, the
power demand is not met for the growing population.
In the conventional power generation system, it causes problems in terms of fossil fuel
1
This work was supported in part by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India under Technology System Development Scheme
Grant (Ref. No.DST/TSG/NTS/2009/98).

exhaustion and drastic effects in environment. To overcome these problems, renewable energy sources
are in high demand. It has been estimated by Cecati, Ciancetta, and Siano (2010) that the energy
generated by non conventional energy sources is estimated to quantify 50% of the total power demand
in 2050. But quality of power from these sources has to be improved to protect the loads connected in
the system and also to enable the continuity of supply to the consumers without any disturbances. Power
quality refers to maintaining near sinusoidal voltage to a bus at rated voltage and frequency. In addition
to the focus towards growing demand on electrical energy due to the increase in population, industries
and consumer loads, the need for improving the quality of electrical power also to be considered
seriously.
There are major considerations over the deviation of voltage, current and frequency in an
electrical system when connected to the load and also to the grid. This affects the entire system and
possesses major problems in connecting the non conventional energy sources towards the common grid.
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It is not only the technical problem, it also exhibits financial problem. In USA, poor quality of power
results in economic loss of $120 billion/year as estimated by Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI,
2004). Hence the combination of power quality and power quantity will certainly result in providing
clean power from green energy sources. The discrimination of POWER QUANTITY or POWER
QUALITY results in acceptance of both the parameters. In Indian sub continent, power quality is a
major issue which needs to be addressed in creating a healthy and reliable power grid and utility
enhancing productivity and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth.
The proposed work enlists both the extremes such that the solar Photo Voltaic (PV) postulated
towards quantity and the inverter design with switching sequence controller approximated with quality.
To meet the objective, a power electronic interface with harmonic reduction capability needs to be
connected between the source and load. Unlike conventional inverters, the Multi Level Inverter (MLI)
is recommended by Rahim, Mohamed Elias, and Hew (2013) as the high quality outputs obtained from
the multilevel inverter overcomes the system size and filter requirements. The proposed inverter
provides the advantage of reduced harmonic distortions which intend towards the improvement in
power quality. This inverter comprises of multiple stages which provides the required 230VRMS, 50Hz
inspite of variations in solar PV due to temperature and irradiance. The switching sequence for the MLI
is controlled by single chip controller which enables the power quality. The input source considered is
solar PV which intends the power quantity. It is much convenient to both power quality and power
generation in the same system as mulled by Cavalcanti, Farias, Oliveira, Neves, and Afonsa (2012).
Pertaining to power quality, harmonics appear as the waveform distortion of the voltage or
current. The presence of harmonics in inverter output will lead to power supply failure and other system
components. Hence MLIs when compared to conventional two level inverters can be used in diverse
applications which require the quality of electrical power needs to be improved as claimed by Zambra,
Rech, and Pinheiro (2010).

Alexander and Manigandan (2014) compared the various structures of MLI and found Cascaded
Multilevel Inverters (CMLI) utilizes minimum number of switching devices in ahead of other types of
MLIs. In CMLI, each DC link can be fed by an isolated sources hence it does not possess a voltage
unbalance problem as pointed by Kouro et al. (2010). Due to these merits the CMLI based structure can
be used as power conversion unit in renewable energy sources like solar PV as considered by Rahim
and Selvaraj (2010) and fuel cell by Babaei, Alilu, and Laali (2014).
This paper vindicates the performance improvement in CMLI and also addresses the challenges
of it. By eliminating harmonics, utilizing suitable control algorithms and adopting new multilevel
structures the performance can be improved as experimented by Abu-Rub, Holtz, Rodriguez, and
Baoming (2010). Reducing switching frequency and improving quality of power are the challenges of
MLI as pointed by Govindaraju and Baskaran (2011). For eliminating harmonics, the step modulation
proposed by Liu, Hong, and Huang (2009) computes the gating signals but this method cannot be used
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for solar PV applications as this method intend towards equal DC sources. Newton Raphson (NR) based
iterative methods depend on the guess value and possess certain discrepancy when the inverter levels
are increased which was analysed by Fei, Du, and Wu (2010). Chiasson, Tolbert, McKenzie, and Du
(2005) found that resultant theory is much complicated and consumes more time which is capable to
calculate only three switching angles for asymmetrical DC and six switching angles for symmetrical DC
sources. For increasing the inverter levels it requires a new expression.
In this paper, a detailed analysis is carried out by employing different switching techniques and
observing its performance. MATLAB/Simulink is used to perform the simulation studies. The paper is
organised as: Section II formulates the problem design considerations and Section III describes the
various modulation strategies. Section IV describes simulation and its corresponding results. Section V
illustrates experimental outcome and some final discussions.
II. PROBLEM FORMULATION
In CMLI H Bridge each cells are referred as stages. The increase in the number of stages
increases the number of levels at the inverter output whose shape approximates near sinusoidal
waveform. It is henceforth considered that the increase in levels intend towards the reduction in Total
Harmonic Distortion (THD) which is the measure that quantifies how close the waveform is to pure
sine. Figure 1 shows the power circuit of a solar PV fed seven stage inverter to achieve a fifteen level
output.
Figure 1 Solar PV fed fifteen level inverter

Figure 1 also shows the phase voltage waveform of a cascaded fifteen level inverter with seven
PV array inputs. The phase voltage is synthesized by the sum of seven inverter outputs given by the
relation: van = va1+va2+va3+va4+va5+va6+va7. Each inverter level can generate three different voltage

outputs, +Vdc, 0 and Vdc by connecting the PV array source to the AC output side by different
combinations of the four switches in the individual inverter stage. As a case, in the first stage of the
inverter, turning switches 1 and 4 ON yields the output +Vdc and turning switches 2 and 3 ON yields the
output Vdc. Turning OFF all the switches provides the output 0. Similarly, the AC output at each level
can be obtained in the same manner. If Ns is the number of input PV sources, the output phase voltage
level is m= 2Ns+1. Thus, a fifteen level cascaded inverter needs seven separate DC sources and seven
full bridges. Controlling the switching angles at different inverter stages can minimize the harmonic
distortion of the output voltage which in turn improves the power quality.
In India, the consumer loads operate at the input supply of 230VRMS (Root Mean Square) with
frequency 50Hz. To achieve this, the design procedure is started from the solar cell modelling. The
system considered is single phase standalone PV system with battery storage which enables it to operate

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even during weak weather conditions. The proposed system is application specific especially intended
towards rural areas where there is less concentration of utility grid. Each solar cell of specification
Voc=0.5V, Isc=7A is chosen based on the data sheet of the commercial solar PV specifications. Solar
cells of 24 numbers are connected in series/parallel combinations at standard test conditions (1000W/m2
and 250C) to develop a 12V, 7A which constitutes a single solar module. Solar modules are connected
appropriately to achieve 48V, 7A solar PV array or panel. The series connection of the module is the
same as that of cell. This 48V, 7A solar PV serves as the input source for the single inverter stage. In
the proposed work, seven numbers of such input sources are utilized to power the seven inverter stages,
thereby a fifteen level output waveform is obtained. The following relations given in Equations (1) and
(2) hold for the desired design requirement:
Vpeak = 48V 7 = 336 V

(1)

336
= 237.59V
2

(2)

VRMS =

In order to extend the system for making it suitable for grid connected system, the condition
given in Equation (3) has to meet as indicated by Rahim, Chaniago, and Selvaraj (2011).

Vdc > 2Vgrid

(3)

In the proposed design, the total Vdc=336V is greater than the square root of the grid voltage
(230VRMS) as per the condition given in the Equation (3). As the design made for Standard Test
Conditions (STC), it produces the fixed DC output from solar panel without any variations. Most of the
models in various literature deals with the fixed output supply panels. Hence the PV panel model which

exhibits the variations occurring due to temperature and irradiance is required to adhere the real time
specifications. In order to achieve this, a detailed analytical study on temperature and irradiance
variations is undertaken throughout the year by solar PV observatory for the geographic location where
the experiment is conducted. The radiation measurements used are beam and diffuse horizontal surface
radiation gathered with a PV pyranometer. Figures 2 and 3 shows the analysis which depicts the
irradiation and temperature levels measured for the months of January and November. Based on the
analysis it is found that the irradiance varies from 0W/m2 to nearly 900W/m2.
The Solectric 9000 model is taken into consideration for modelling which provides 115W of
nominal maximum power and it has 24 numbers of series connected polycrystalline silicon cells for a
single module. It consists of two bypass diodes each of which is connected in antiparallel with 12 series

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connected PV cells to protect them against hot spots. For providing a PV array input, 96 series
connected cells are used for modelling. Figure 4 shows the characteristics of modelled solar PV array
which serves as the inverter input.
Figure 2 Solar data for the month of January (Min: 0W/m2, Max: 892W/m2)
Figure 3 Solar data for the month of November (Min: 0W/m2, Max: 887W/m2)
Figure 4 (a) V-I and (b) V-P characteristics of solar PV array

III. MODULATION STRATEGIES

In order to improve the modular characteristics and performance of MLIs, unique modulation
techniques, control and protection features are required. A high number of power electronic devices and
switching redundancies bring a higher level of complexity compared with the two level inverters. This
complexity could be used to add additional capabilities to the modulation techniques by reducing the
switching frequency (fs), minimizing the Common Mode Voltage (CMV) and balancing the DC
voltages as studied by Malinowski, Gopakumar, Rodriguez, and Prez (2010).
By using Sinusoidal Pulse Width Modulation (SPWM) techniques, the inverters fundamental
voltage can be controlled and the harmonics will be attenuated. In this method, a carrier signal at the
desired frequency is generated and compared with the modulating voltage signal to generate gating
signals for the switching devices. When the modulating signal is above the carrier, the upper switch is
ON and when below the carrier, the lower switch is ON. Unlike the single carrier used in the SPWM
approach for the two level inverters, multiple carriers PWM with various sequence modifications are
proposed to improve power quality in solar PV fed CMLI. Multiple carrier based PWM has several
triangle carrier signals which can be modified in phase and/or vertical position in order to reduce the
output voltage harmonic content. The frequency of the triangular signal establishes the switching

frequency of the switches and the frequency of the modulating signal determines the inverter output
frequency.
The multiple carrier modulation is classified into vertical and horizontal distribution; in which
vertical distribution of carriers does not increase the equivalent carrier frequency. This technique is
further classified into Alternate Phase Opposition Disposition (APOD), Phase Opposition Disposition
(POD) and Phase Disposition (PD). Mei, Xiao, Shen, Tolbert, and Zheng (2013) found that PD PWM
has voltage balance capability and better output voltage harmonic profile than phase shift PWM. Cougo,
Gateau, Meynard, Rafal, and Cousineau (2012) shown POD is better in terms of differential mode of
phase currents. Figure 5 shows the carrier arrangements for PD, POD and APOD considering a five
level inverter in normal case with equal distribution of carriers without any modification in frequency or
amplitude. The novelty of the work is in achieving all these modulations in a single chip with

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movement of carriers above and below the zero reference for solar PV applications.
Figure 5 Carrier arrangements of (a) PD (b) POD and (c) APOD

For an m level inverter, these level shifted modulation schemes require (m-1) triangle carriers,
all having the same frequency and peak to peak amplitude. The (m-1) carriers are vertically disposed
such that the bands they occupy are contiguous. The frequency modulation index (mf) and amplitude
modulation index (ma) are given in Equations (4) and (5).
mf =

f cr
fm

(4)

ma =

2Vm
Vcr (m 1)

(5)

where fcr and fm are the frequencies of the carrier and modulating signals respectively. Vcr is the peak
amplitude of the modulating signal and Vm is the peak amplitude of each carrier signal. The value of ma
is between 0 to 1, beyond which it is termed as over modulation region which has to be avoided to
achieve better results.
IV. PROBLEM STATEMENT
The paper aims at design and implementation of a solar PV fed cascaded fifteen level inverter
with various modulation strategies in order to reduce the harmonic distortions. This includes the
multiple carrier PWM techniques such as APOD, PD and POD along with the SPWM techniques. The
modifications were made in both carrier and reference arrangements to provide the best suited strategy
for solar PV applications in spite of variations in the solar PV input. Appropriate modulation technique
with the choice of various parameters such as modulation index, switching frequency and signal
arrangement will certainly improve the power quality by reducing the harmonics in the system. The

methods considered for each of the multicarrier PWM topologies and analysed from single stage three
level inverter to seven stage fifteen level inverter are: a) Multiple carrier with sinusoidal reference,
b) Multiple carrier of variable frequency, c) Multiple carrier of variable amplitude, d) Multiple carrier
with modified sinusoidal reference, e) Multiple carrier with Trapezoidal Amalgamated Reference
(TAR), f) Phase Shifted Carrier (PSC) and g) Unipolar and bipolar modulations.
SIMULATION AND RESULTS
MATLAB/Simulink software R2010b is used for simulation of all the modulation strategies. The
modelled solar PV panel with the input 48V, 7A depicts as the input for the separate inverter stages of
CMLI. For simulations, parameters used are, amplitude modulation index ma=1, switching frequency
fs=1000Hz as considered by Kouro, Roboelledo, and Rodriguez (2010), inverter output frequency=

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50Hz and frequency modulation index mf=20. Zhang, Jouanne, Dai, Wallace, and Wang (2000) have
prescribed that the switching frequency of 1 kHz will be much appropriate for PWM inverters to reduce
the losses which was also analysed by Zhang, Jouanne, Dai, Wallace, and Wang (2000). The load
considered is RL whose values are R=100 and L=10mH. For a fifteen level inverter, 14 carrier signals
are required to generate the switching pulses in which seven carriers each are placed above the zero
reference and the remaining seven carriers are positioned below the zero reference. Figure 6 shows the
multi carrier arrangements for APOD, POD, PD, PSC (each carrier signals are phase shifted by 25.710),
unipolar modulation (with bias at 3.2V) and inverted sine reference with TAR. Figure 7 shows the
carrier arrangements for APOD in which the modifications are made in frequency and amplitude. The
similar modifications are also considered for POD and PD whose results are given in Figure 8.
Figure 6 Multi carrier arrangements for solar PV fed fifteen level inverter
Figure 7 Modified multi carrier arrangements for solar PV fed fifteen level inverter

The comparisons given in Figure 8 (a) to (h) illustrates the resultant THD obtained from solar
PV fed single stage inverter to seven stage inverter with aid of various approaches such as normal,
variable amplitude, variable frequency and modified reference. Based on the results it infers that by
increasing the levels, the harmonic distortions are summarily reduced to a great extent.
Figure 8 Comparison of THD for various modulation strategies

A minimum THD is achieved when the inverter output level reaches fifteen. Further increase in
levels can also be made, but as the design procedures suitable for Indian sub continent is developed for
the fifteen levels, it gets limited with this level. While comparing the THD for the multiple carrier PWM
methods, the lesser THD values are obtained at APOD, PD and POD in variable frequency modes and
PSC in unipolar mode.

V. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
A 3kWp solar PV power supply unit is designed and implemented for the seven stage fifteen level
solar fed CMLI with multiple carrier PWM generation in a single chip. Table 1 shows the rating of the
individual solar PV module. Solar panels are connected to the loads in any of three divisions: direct,
standalone and grid connected. For application oriented, the first one is not applicable. In the proposed
set up, stand alone type is used which can also be extended to grid connected systems.
Table 2 reveals the specifications of the entire hardware setup. Figure 9 shows the 3kWp solar
PV plant and Figure 10 shows the complete hardware setup of the proposed CMLI. Here the notation
INV specifies the individual inverter stage. Gu et al. (2013) postulated the necessary to utilize
MOSFETs as a switching device.

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The DSP controller is utilized for the generation of switching pulses for the MOSFET switches
based on POD, APOD and PD schemes. The carrier signals are generated and level shifted above and
and below the zero reference to produce the desired pulses. A change over switch is included which will
subsequently make the choice for any of the three schemes.
Table 1 Solar PV panel specifications

Table 2 Specifications of experimental set up

Figure 9 Solar PV plant of 3kWp with 28 modules

Figure 10 Experimental setup of the proposed solar fed fifteen level inverter

These carrier signals are level shifted above and below the zero reference as per the program to
achieve PD, POD and APOD signals. Figures 11 to 13 show the carrier arrangements generated by the
controller pertaining to APOD, PD and POD modulation schemes. A DSP based processor for PV
system with tuning parameters for filter design is given by Zhang, Tang, and Yae (2015). Unlike DSP,
an analogue based circuit design for switching function generation in boost converters is investigated by
Cho, Kwak, and Lee (2015). Figure 14 shows output voltage waveform of the proposed solar inverter.
Figure 11 APOD based carrier arrangement
Figure 12 POD based carrier arrangement
Figure 13 PD based carrier arrangement
Figure 14 Fifteen level inverter output voltage waveform

Table 3 shows the harmonic analysis conducted for each modulation strategies using Power
Quality Analyser (PQA) WT3000 which depicts both voltage and current THD values. WT3000 is a
high precision analyser which can display 20 parameters along with the THD and the magnitude of
harmonic orders. Based on the results it is found that inspite of variations in solar PV, by using CMLI
the required output of 230VRMS, 50Hz is achieved.
Table 3 Harmonic analysis for APOD, POD and PD

The experimental setup developed for a 3kWp solar PV inverter comprising 28 panels of each
115Wp in a standalone mode, the harmonic measurements are undertaken. The different modulations

given in Figures 11 to 13 are thus obtained based on the shifting mechanism of carrier waveforms above
and below the zero reference with an aid of DSP processor. High care should be ensured that the carrier
shifting remain same for all the stages in both its amplitude and frequency. Deviations if any will results
in the abnormal waveforms across the inverter output. This is due to the consideration that the
comparison of carrier and reference signals will not be the same for all the three methodologies which
can be clearly viewed for the lower modulation index. The detailed information on harmonic analysis
for the proposed inverter is shown in Table 4.
Table 4. Detailed information on harmonic analysis

Voltage regulation is the process of obtaining the required output voltage in closed loop system.
The actual voltage obtained at the CMLI output in aid of solar PV variations is compared with the
required 230V. The error thus obtained is utilized as modulating signal for POD and compared with its
respective carriers. By adopting this technique, the THD is also reduced and adhere to the IEEE

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standard 519-1992.
Table 5 shows the comparison of results .Table 6 shows the comparison of results obtained
from other methods in literature with the aid of resultant THD and the number of levels considered.
Table 5 Comparison between simulation and experimental results
Table 6 Comparison with the other methods

The results thus obtained thus indicate that by the appropriate choice of switching schemes will
eventually improves the power quality by reducing the value of THD. Of the three schemes investigates,
POD provides the lesser THD when compared to its counterparts APOD and PD. When comparing with
other methods listed in various literatures, much of the methods are proposed for lesser number of
inverter levels and the implementation is not considered for solar PV applications. For the method
proposed, higher number of levels with reduced harmonic distortion is achieved and a single chip
controller for all the modulating strategies for level shifting makes the method unique when compared
to other methods listed in Table 5.
VI. CONCLUSION
A solar fed cascaded fifteen level inverter for power quality improvement is developed. The
multiple carrier PWM techniques are eminently suggested for the reduction of THD in a solar fed
CMLI. In the multiple carriers, the variations are made in both carrier and reference signals and their
performance is analysed from three level to fifteen level solar PV fed inverters. Based on the results, it
is found that POD method provides the least THD when compared to its counterparts. All the methods
considered for comparison deal with low power systems and uses DC power supply as its input source.
An experimental investigation is carried out for a 3kWp solar PV system with DSP based controller in
generating the switching signals to the MLI. As per the results obtained, the solar fed multi stage
inverter improves the quality of power which makes it inverter suitable for all the systems.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors acknowledge and thank the Department of Science and Technology (Government of
India) for sanctioning the research grant for the project titled, DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF
MULTILEVEL INVERTERS FOR POWER QUALITY IMPROVEMENT IN RENEWABLE
ENERGY SOURCES (Ref.No.DST/TSG/NTS/2009/98) under Technology Systems Development
Scheme for completing this work.

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Figure 1 Solar PV fed fifteen level inverter

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Figure 2 Solar data for the month of January (Min: 0W/m2, Max: 892W/m2)

Figure 3 Solar data for the month of November (Min: 0W/m2, Max: 887W/m2)

(a)
(b)
Figure 4 (a) V-I and (b) V-P characteristics of solar PV array

(a)

(b)
Figure 5 Carrier arrangements of (a) PD (b) POD and (c) APOD

(c)

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(a) APOD

(b) POD

(c) PD

(d) PSC

(e) Unipolar with bias

(f) TAR

Figure 6 Multi carrier arrangements for solar PV fed fifteen level inverter

(a) Variable amplitude

(b) Variable frequency

(a) Modified reference

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Figure 7 Modified multi carrier arrangements for solar PV fed fifteen level inverter

(a) APOD: Comparison for voltage THD

(b) APOD: Comparison for current THD

(c) POD: Comparison for voltage THD

(d) POD: Comparison for current THD

(e) PD: Comparison for voltage THD

(f) PD: Comparison for current THD

(g) PSC: Comparion of voltage and current THD

(h) Dual reference and TAR: Comparison

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Figure 8 Comparison of THD for various modulation strategies

Figure 9 Solar PV plant of 3kWp with 28 modules

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Figure 11 APOD based carrier arrangement

Figure 12 POD based carrier arrangement

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Figure 13 PD based carrier arrangement

Figure 14 Fifteen level inverter output voltage waveform

Table 1 Solar PV panel specifications

Parameter

Value

Model

Solectric 9000

Pmpp

115Wp

Voc

21.2V

Isc

7.4A

Vpm

16.5V

Ipm

6.95A

Max system voltage

540V

Tolerance at peak power

5%

Number of panels

28

Total power

3220Wp

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Table 2 Specifications of experimental set up

Parameter

Rating

Charge Controllers (CC)

Make

Sukaam

V-I Rating

48V,10A

Number of CC

Battery bank
Make & Model

EXIDE 6LMS100L

Rating

12V, 100Ah

Number of batteries

28

Power circuit
Semiconductor devices

MOSFET IRF 840

Number of devices

28

Switching sequences

APOD, POD, PD

Control circuit
Controller

DSP - TMS320F2812

Measuring Instruments
Power quality analyser

Yokogawa WT3000

Oscilloscope

Tektronix

Logic Analyser

0+ LOGIC CUBE 32128

Table 2 Specifications of experimental set up

Table 3. Harmonic analysis for APOD, POD and PD

VRMS

IRMS

P1

S1

Q1

VTHD

ITHD

PTHD

APOD

229.05

2.140

439.419

439.429

0.873

8.813

7.740

2.168

POD

229.45

2.294

439.524

439.534

0.871

7.955

7.851

2.206

PD

229.95

2.619

495.398

415.391

0.713

9.514

9.526

2.400

Method

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Table 4. Detailed information on harmonic analysis

PLL
Freq
U1
I1
P1
S1
Q1
1
1 D
Uthd1
Ithd1
Pthd1

Or.
Tot.
dc
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20

U1
49.667 Hz
230.611 V
2.843 A
639.8497W
639.8548 VA
-0.6372 var
0.99987

0.916
3.539%
3.445%
1.805%

U1 [V]
230.611
--------------228.488
0.127
27.670
0.207
10.994
0.176
7.289
0.369
1.433
0.120
3.566
0.410
1.795
0.917
0.536
0.395
0.877
0.176
1.556
0.360

hdf[%]
----------------99.079
0.055
1.999
0.090
0.767
0.076
0.161
0.160
0.621
0.052
1.546
0.178
0.779
0.398
0.232
0.171
0.380
0.076
0.675
0.156

I1 [A]
2.843
---------------1.247
0.136
0.606
0.145
8.153
0.136
5.422
0.238
1.063
0.087
2.649
0.292
1.316
0.673
0.369
0.294
0.648
0.141
1.152
0.240

hdf [%]
----------------99.092
0.079
1.922
0.084
0.717
0.079
0.137
0.137
0.615
0.050
1.533
0.169
0.761
0.389
0.213
0.170
0.375
0.081
0.666
0.139

Table 5 Comparison between simulation and experimental results

S.No.

Simulation

Modulation

1.
2.
3.

Experimental

VTHD (%)

ITHD (%)

VTHD (%)

ITHD (%)

8.98
7.84
8.04

7.23
5.63
5.96

8.813
7.955
9.514

7.740
7.851
9.526

APOD
POD
PD

Table 6 Comparison with the other methods

Authors

Levels

Methodology

THD (%)

Application to solar PV

Zhao, He, and Zhao (2010).

PD

38.73

Malinowski, Gopakumar,

PSC

30.2

Rodriguez, and Prez (2010)

Bipolar

29.9

Bipolar

21.8

Gupta, Ghosh, and Joshi (2010)

Multiband

27.0

Zambra, Rech, and Pinheiro

PD

8.29

15

POD

7.9

(2010)
Proposed