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A New Design Method for the Passive Damped LCL and LLCL Filter-Based
Single-Phase Grid-Tied Inverter

Article  in  IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics · October 2013

DOI: 10.1109/TIE.2012.2217725

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 60, NO. 10, OCTOBER 2013 4339

A New Design Method for the Passive Damped LCL

and LLCL Filter-Based Single-Phase
Grid-Tied Inverter
Weimin Wu, Yuanbin He, Tianhao Tang, Senior Member, IEEE, and Frede Blaabjerg, Fellow, IEEE

Abstract—A higher order passive power filter (LLCL filter)

for the grid-tied inverter is becoming attractive for industrial
applications due to the possibility to reduce the cost of the copper
and the magnetic material. However, similar to the conventional
LCL filter, the grid-tied inverter is facing control challenges. An
active or a passive damping measure can be adopted to suppress
the possible resonances between the grid and the inverter. For an
application with a stiff grid, a passive damping method is often
preferred for its simpleness and low cost. This paper introduces a
new passive damping scheme with low power loss for the LLCL
filter. Also, a simple engineering design criterion is proposed to
find the optimized damping resistor value, which is both effective
for the LCL filter and the LLCL filter. The control analysis and
the power loss comparison for different filter cases are given.
All these are verified through the experiments on a 2-kW single-
phase grid-tied inverter prototype using proportional resonant
controllers. It is concluded that, compared with the LCL filter, the
proposed passive damped LLCL filter can not only save the total
filter inductance and reduce the volume of the filter but also reduce
the damping power losses for a stiff grid application.
Index Terms—Characteristic resonance frequency, damping
power loss, impedance feature, LCL filter, LLCL filter, passive
damping, PR controller, Q-factor.
I. I NTRODUCTION
T HE RENEWABLE energy generation catches more and
more impact, and the grid-tied voltage-sourced inverter
shown in Fig. 1 has been widely adopted [1]–[3] in a large
power range. A low-pass passive power filter (typical LCL
filter) is often inserted between a voltage-source inverter (VSI)
and the grid to limit the excessive current harmonics, which
is caused by the sine-wave pulsewidth modulation (PWM),
injected into the point of common coupling.
Manuscript received June 19, 2012; revised August 3, 2012; accepted
August 22, 2012. Date of publication September 7, 2012; date of current version
May 16, 2013. This work was supported in part by the Leading Academic
Discipline Project of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission under Award
J50602 and in part by the Project of Shanghai Natural Science Foundation under
Award 12ZR1412400.
W. Wu and T. Tang are with the Department of Electrical Engineering,
Shanghai Maritime University, Shanghai 200135, China (e-mail: wmwu@
cle.shmtu.edu.cn; thtang@shmtu.edu.cn).
Y. He is with FSP-Powerland Technology Inc., Nanjing 210042, China
(e-mail: heyuanbin123@yahoo.com.cn).
F. Blaabjerg is with the Department of Energy Technology, Aalborg Univer-
sity, 9220 Aalborg, Denmark (e-mail: fbl@et.aau.dk).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIE.2012.2217725
0278-0046/$31.00 © 2012 IEEE
Fig. 1. VSI connected to the grid through an LCL filter.
Compared with a first-order L filter, an LCL filter can bet-
ter meet the grid interconnection standards with significantly
smaller size and cost, particularly for applications above several
kilowatts. However, it brings extra control difficulties like caus-
ing the closed-loop control system to be unstable, and it may
also trigger the resonance between the inverter and the grid.
To suppress the possible resonances of an LCL filter, active
damping [4]–[13] or passive damping [14]–[17] measures may
be adopted. If the power system is “weak” and its impedance
changes widely under the different situations, an active damp-
ing method might be preferred, although at the risk of higher
cost of sensors and more control complexity. For a stiff grid ap-
plication, a passive damping strategy is more attractive, owing
to its simpleness and low cost.
A straightforward passive damping method is often adopted
by inserting a resistor in series with the capacitor in the filter.
It is simple, effective, and reliable, yet the damping resistor
will inevitably give rise to extra power loss and weaken the
high-frequency harmonic attenuation ability of an LCL filter.
To overcome its demerit, many improved measures have been
introduced in recent years. One effective solution is to insert an
additional Rd –Cd circuit branch in parallel with the capacitor
of an LCL filter. Channegowda and John [17] analyze the
relationship of power losses, the damping resistor selection,
and the damping effect of this method in detail. However,
since the capacitor in the damping branch is split from the
filtering capacitor, the high-frequency harmonic attenuation of
the passively damped LCL filter is then weakened, compared to
not using any damping LCL filter.
Bloemink and Green [18] proposed a method to decrease
the total inductance of the conventional filter with multituned
traps. However, it may excite a parallel resonance between these
tuned traps. To decrease the total inductance of the conventional
LCL filter and, also, to avoid the possible parallel resonance
between the multituned traps, a new LLCL filter with only one
tuned trap was proposed in [19].
4340
Fig. 2. Schematic diagrams of (a) LCL filter and (b) LLCL filter [19] used in
grid-tied inverters.
Since the LLCL filter is also a kind of high-order power
filters, a passive or active damper is still needed. According
to Channegowda and John [17], an Rd –Cd passive damper
may be favorable, but due to the extra inductor, the parameter
design process may turn very complicated and hard for applica-
tions. Therefore, an engineering design method for the passive
damped high-order power filter-based single-phase grid-tied
inverter is desired, particularly for the LLCL filter-based one.
In this paper, the principle of an LCL filter and an LLCL
filter is first presented for a single-phase power converter. Then,
a new engineering design method to determine the optimized
passive damping resistor through analyzing the impedance fea-
ture of the capacitor circuit is introduced and continued with a
method to set up design criterions for the passive damped LCL
and LLCL filters. The power losses of different methods are
analyzed and compared. Finally, comparative experiments on
a 2-kW single-phase prototype using a proportional resonant
(PR) plus harmonics compensation (HC) controller are used to
verify the theoretical analysis.
II. F ILTER FOR P OWER C ONVERTER
In power converter systems, the switching-frequency har-
monic attenuation is an important performance index in order
to fulfill the standards of the IEEE 1547.2-2008 and 519-1992
[20], [21]. High-frequency component currents will also result
in high-frequency conducted emissions which should be limited
in the range of standards [22]. The electromagnetic interference
(EMI) noise (150 kHz∼30 MHz) depends much on the circuit
layout, and the measurements are often worse than simulations
[23]–[27], mainly due to the parasitic components affecting the
behavior at high frequencies. For the sake of simplicity and
proper length, EMI effects concerned with the LCL or LLCL
filter are not analyzed in depth in this paper.
Compared with an L filter, an LCL filter [see Fig. 2(a)]
can bypass the high-frequency harmonics through an additional
capacitor branch and then reduce the total filter inductance and
volume. The selection of parameters is mainly determined by
the dominant harmonic around the switching frequency. If a
lower impedance of the capacitor branch appears at the switch-
ing frequency, then the inductance of the grid-side inductor of
an LCL filter can be continued to be scaled down, which bene-
fits of a smaller filter volume. As shown in Fig. 2(b), the Lf –Cf
series resonant circuit, bypassing completely the current at the
switching frequency, inserted in the existing capacitor branch
of the LCL filter may perform well. Thus, a novel high-order
filter, named LLCL filter, was proposed in [19].
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 60, NO. 10, OCTOBER 2013
Fig. 3. Transfer functions ig (s)/ui (s) in the case of LCL and LLCL filters
as a function of frequency.
Because the resonant frequency of the Lf –Cf series resonant
circuit is at the switching frequency, the value of the inductor
Lf is generally much smaller than that of L1 or L2 in Fig. 2(b).
Assuming initially that the grid is an ideal voltage source, the
transfer function ig (s)/ui (s) of the LLCL filter can be derived
as shown in
Gui →ig (s) 
ig (s) 
=
ui (s) ug (s)=0
Lf C f s 2 + 1
= . (1)
(L1 L2 Cf + (L1 + L2 )Lf Cf ) s3 + (L1 + L2 )s
If the inductance of Lf is set to zero, then the transfer
function of the LCL filter can be obtained.
Fig. 3 shows the transfer functions ig (s)/ui (s) of both the
LLCL filter and the LCL filter while all the other parameters
are the same except for the Lf . It can be seen that, within
half of the switching-frequency range which determines the low
harmonics of the grid current, the LLCL filter-based grid-tied
VSI has almost the same frequency-response characteristic as
the LCL filter, and comparing with the LCL filter, the additional
inductor Lf of the LLCL filter should not bring any extra
control difficulties. Furthermore, an LLCL filter has nearly zero
impedance around the switching frequency ωs , and the grid-
side inductance is only limited by the harmonics around the
double of the switching frequency. Therefore, the grid-side
inductor of an LLCL filter can be scaled down compared to
that of an LCL filter as the amplitude of the dominant harmonic
of the single-phase inverter output voltage around the switching
frequency is generally higher than that around the double of the
switching frequency.
III. P ROPOSED D ESIGN M ETHOD FOR PASSIVE DAMPING
To attenuate the possible resonance caused by the high-
order power filter, whether an LCL filter or an LLCL filter is
used, and to improve the stability of the closed-loop inverter
system, passive damping or active damping schemes should be
adopted [28]. In view of the simpleness and the cost, the passive
damping method is more attractive than the active damping
method. However, it is a challenge to balance the power losses,
WU et al.: NEW DESIGN METHOD FOR LCL AND LLCL FILTER-BASED SINGLE-PHASE GRID-TIED INVERTER
Fig. 4. Characteristics of the passive damping method with an Rd damper
for an LCL filter. (a) Schematic diagram of an Rd damped LCL filter.
(b) Impedance feature of the capacitor branch (dotted line: without damping
resistor).
the satisfactory damping effect, and the harmonic attenuation in
some cases, when selecting the damping parameters for a high-
order power filter [17]. In this section, a simple engineering
damping design method is proposed.
A. Principle of Passive Damping Scheme of LCL Filter
The aim of the damping is to reduce the Q-factor at the
characteristic resonance frequency, as shown in Fig. 3. It is
often easy to achieve by inserting a resistor in series with
the capacitor as shown in Fig. 4(a) (named as Rd damped
LCL filter). Its characteristic resonance frequency, ωr , can be
calculated as
 where ωr_down is the possible minimum characteristic reso-
L1 + L2
ωr = . (2)
L1 L2 C f
In this case, the inserted damping resistor does not affect the
value of ωr . It is obvious that, to obtain a proper damping effect,
ωr has to be limited in the shadowed areas of Fig. 4(b) (which
shows the impedance feature of the Rd –Cf circuit), where the
capacitor branch represents the resistive feature and a small
Q-factor can be achieved. This damping method is simple and
effective, and the resistance Rd can be optimized by calculating
the Q-factor of the filter [29], [30]. Nevertheless, both the power
loss and the high-frequency harmonic attenuation turn out to be
disappointing by using this method.
To reduce the damping power loss and to maintain the high-
frequency harmonic attenuation, an improved low-loss passive
damping scheme [17] was introduced and shown in Fig. 5(a)
(named as Rd –Cd damped LCL filter).

ig (s) 
Gui →ig (LCL) (s) =  =
ui (s) ug (s)=0 s (L1 L2 Rd Cd Cf s + L1 L2 (Cd + Cf )s2 + Rd Cd (L1 + L2 )s + L1 + L2 )
3
4341
Fig. 5. Characteristics of an improved passive damping method with an
Rd –Cd damper for an LCL filter. (a) Schematic diagram of an Rd –Cd damped
LCL filter. (b) Impedance feature of Cf and Rd –Cd damper (dotted line:
without damping resistor).
It is assumed that the grid is an ideal voltage source, and the
transfer function ig (s)/ui (s) can be calculated as (3) shown at
the bottom of the page.
Compared with the former method, the merit of this method
is that the damping branch does not harm the high harmonic
suppression of the LCL filter [10]–[13]. Unfortunately, un-
like the characteristic resonance frequency, ωr , of the former
method, its characteristic resonance frequency is changeable
with different Rd and Cd . For example, if Rd = 0, then

L1 + L2
ωr_down = (4)
L1 L2 (Cf + Cd )
nance frequency, while if Rd = ∞, then

L1 + L2
ωr_up = (5)
L1 L2 C f
where ωr_up is the possible maximum characteristic resonance
frequency.
To find out the optimized Q-factor, the exact characteristic
resonance frequency should be obtained by calculating the
complex conjugate solutions of a third-order equation of the
transfer function ig (s)/ui (s), with given Rd and Cd before-
hand. Therefore, it seems difficult to select reasonable damping
parameters directly.
In this paper, the design criteria of an LCL filter except for
the damping branch are almost the same as those presented
in [19]. Since the damping branch is aimed to decrease the
Q-factor at the characteristic resonance frequency, in theory,
R d Cd s + 1
(3)
4342 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 60, NO. 10, OCTOBER 2013

larger Cd /Cf is helpful to improve the damping effect, but

inverse to the power losses. To balance the damping effect and
damping losses, an equal value of Cf and Cd may be a proper
selection [17]. Certainly, the total capacitance is suggested to
be limited to less than 5% of the apparent power at rated
load [30].
The impedance of Cf and Rd –Cd damper [shown in
Fig. 5(a)], Zc(LCL) (s), is calculated as

(Rd Cd s + 1)
Zc(LCL) (s) = (6)
(Rd Cd Cf s + (Cd + Cf )) s

with the impedance feature shown in Fig. 5(b).

For the same reason, if the damping effect is expected to be
good, the characteristic resonance frequency, ωr(LCL) , should
also fall into the shadowed areas as shown in Fig. 5(b), which
is helpful to derive the apparent resistance Rd . Accordingly, the
resistance Rd is limited within the range of
Fig. 6. Proposed passive damped (a) LLCL_1 filter and (b) LLCL_2 filter
with an Rd –Cd damper.
1 Cd + Cf
≤ ωr(LCL) ≤ . (7)
Rd Cd Rd Cd Cf
where a = L1 L2 Lf Cf Cd , b = (L1 L2 +(L1 +L2 )Lf )Rd Cd Cf ,
Supposing that the resistance Rd changes from 0 Ω to ∞ Ω, c = (L1 L2 (Cd +Cf )+Lf Cf (L1 +L2 )), d = Rd Cd (L1 +L2 ),
it is easy to deduce that e = (L1 + L2 ), α = Lf Cf Cd Rd , β = Lf Cf , and γ = Rd Cd .

ωr_down ≤ ωr(LCL) ≤ ωr_up . (8) ig (s) 
Gui →ig (LLCL_2) (s) = 
ui (s) ug (s)=0
Combining (7) with (8), the rule of selecting the apparent
resistance Rd is taken as the following: s3 α + s2 β  + sγ  + 1
 1 = (12)
s4 b + s3 c + s2 d + se
Rd Cd ≤ ωr _down
Cd +Cf (9)
Rd Cd Cf ≥ ωr _up . where b = (L1 L2 + (L1 + L2 )Lf )Rd Cd Cf , c = (L1 L2 (Cd +
Cf )+Lf (Cf +Cd )(L1 +L2 )), d = Rd Cd (L1 +L2 ), e = (L1 +
When Cd /Cf = λ, from (4), (5), and (9), the following equa- L2 ), α = Lf Cf Cd Rd , β  = Lf (Cf + Cd ), and γ  = Rd Cd .
tion can be derived: From (11) and (12), one can also find that it is not easy to
√   calculate the characteristic resonance frequency and to select a
λ + 1 Lp λ + 1 Lp reasonable damping resistor at the same time, particularly for
≤ Rd(LCL) ≤ (10)
λ Cf λ Cf the case shown in Fig. 6(a).
Comparing Fig. 6(b) with Fig. 5(a), one can see that an
where Lp = L1 L2 /(L1 + L2 ) and Rd is localized in a narrow Rd –Cd damped LLCL_2 filter differs from an Rd –Cd damped
range. LCL filter in that the former has an extra inductor Lf while
Furthermore, if the impedance of the grid varies in a wide the latter has not. Also, the Lf affects the boundary of the
range and the damping resistor cannot fully meet (9), an in- characteristic resonance frequency as follows:
creased value of λ or L2 might be needed. 

 1
ωr _down =  (13)
L1 L2
B. Passive Damping Scheme of LLCL Filter L1 +L2 + Lf (Cf + Cd )

In Fig. 6, two low-power-loss passive damping schemes of 


 1
the LLCL filter are introduced. ωr _up =  . (14)
Similarly, if the grid is an ideal voltage source, the transfer L1 L2
L1 +L2 + Lf C f
function ig (s)/ui (s) of Fig. 6(a) and (b) can be calculated as
given in (11) and (12), respectively
 Since the capacitive circuit part of Fig. 6(b) is the same as
ig (s)  that of Fig. 5(a), the damping parameter selection of an Rd –Cd
Gui →ig (LLCL_1) (s) =
ui (s) ug (s)=0 damped LLCL_2 filter is similar to that of an Rd –Cd passive
damped LCL filter. Also, if a small Q-factor is required, the
s3 α + s2 β + sγ + 1 characteristic resonance frequency should be selected in the
= (11)
s5 a + s4 b + s3 c + s2 d + se resistive region which is at a lower frequency than the switching
WU et al.: NEW DESIGN METHOD FOR LCL AND LLCL FILTER-BASED SINGLE-PHASE GRID-TIED INVERTER 4343

TABLE I
F ILTER PARAMETER VALUES IN D ESIGN

Fig. 7. Bode plots of ig (s)/ui (s) with two Rd –Cd damped LLCL filters.

frequency ωs . Certainly, the total capacitance of (Cd + Cf ) is

also suggested to be limited to less than 5% of the apparent
reactive power at rated load. Similar to (10), the Rd of an
Rd –Cd damped LLCL_2 filter must meet the requirement as
follows:
√  
λ+1 Lp +Lf λ+1 Lp +Lf
≤ Rd(LLCL) ≤ . (15)
λ Cf λ Cf

Fig. 7 shows the Bode diagram of ig (s)/ui (s) with the pro-
posed damped LLCL_1 and LLCL_2 filters, which have almost
the same characteristic resonance frequency and frequency-
response characteristic within the switching frequency range Fig. 8. Bode plots of transfer functions from ui to ig for Case I (Rd damped
LCL filter), Case II (Rd –Cd damped LCL filter), and Case III (Rd –Cd damped
as if Cd and Rd are the same. Equation (15) can also to be LLCL_1 filter).
used to select Cd and Rd for the proposed passive damped
LLCL_1 filter. It should be pointed out that an Rd –Cd damped
LLCL_2 filter has a poorer harmonic attenuation than an Fig. 8. It can be seen that the passive damping method has a
Rd –Cd damped LLCL_1 filter and it is not preferred in a real strong resonance inhibiting capability and improves the system
application. stability. Furthermore, Case I and Case III attenuate the high-
frequency harmonics by −40 dB/dec, compared to −60 dB/dec
in Case II. It can also be seen that the designed LLCL filter has
C. Design Example better attenuating effect on the harmonics than the LCL filter
around the switching frequency, but opposite around the double
On the condition that fs = 20 kHz, Udc = 350 V, Ug =
of the switching frequency. Moreover, it also shows that more
220 V/50 Hz, and Prated = 2 kW and using discontinuous
studies on the resulting EMI issues using the LLCL filter-based
unipolar modulation [31], where two switches work at the high
system will be interesting.
frequency (20 kHz) while the other two work with the line
The damping resistances for Case II and Case III in Table I
frequency (50 Hz), the filter parameters except for the damping
can be selected using (10) and (15). For example, the ranges
parameters are designed based on the design criteria given in
of the damping resistances for Case II and Case III are limited
[19], which are listed in Table I (Case I is the passive damped
respectively within 24.5 Ω ≤ Rd(LCL) ≤ 34.6 Ω and 14.8 Ω ≤
LCL filter with an Rd damper, Case II is the passive damped
Rd(LLCL) ≤ 20.9 Ω. Here, the damping resistances for Case II
LCL filter with an Rd –Cd damper, and Case III is the proposed
and Case III are selected as 30 and 16.5 Ω.
passive damped LLCL_1 filter), where the resistors R1 , R2 , and
Rf are respectively the parasitic resistances of the inductors
L1 , L2 , and Lf . It should be pointed out that, if the contin-
IV. P OWER L OSS C ALCULATION
uous unipolar modulation is adopted, where the references of
two phase legs are 180◦ phase shifted and all switches work The power losses in the filter are due to the fundamental
at the high frequency (20 kHz), the resonant frequency of frequency current and high-frequency harmonic currents. Since
Lf and Cf should be set at the double switching frequency the inverter-side inductor current ripples of both LCL and
(40 kHz). LLCL filters are the same, the power losses of L1 are also nearly
The grid-side current ripple reduction at the switching fre- the same. The power loss difference is mainly caused by the rest
quency and at the double switching frequency is shown in of the components, particularly by L2 , Lf , and Rd .
4344 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 60, NO. 10, OCTOBER 2013

A. Damping Loss Calculation

When a single-phase full-bridge VSI is operated under the
asymmetrical regular sampled PWM conditions with the dis-
continuous unipolar modulation, the triangle carrier, and the
sine reference, its output voltage ui can be derived as the
following [31]:

ui (t) = mUdc cos(ωo t)

∞

±∞
2Udc Jn (kπm)  nπ
+ sin
n=±1
kπ 2
k=1
× cos(kωs t + nωo t) (16) Fig. 9. Damping loss comparison for the passive damped filters under differ-
ent modulation indexes (2-kW power level).
where m is the modulation index, Udc is the dc link voltage,
and Ωo is the fundamental frequency in radians per second. Rd –Cd circuit branch, which are expressed separately as
Since the current of the grid-side inductor is expected to
be a purely sinusoidal wave form, when one analyzes the ZLC (j(nωo + kωs )) = Lf (j(nωo + kωs ))
1
sideband harmonic currents of the inverter, the impedance can + (22)
be approximately calculated as Cf (j(nωo + kωs ))
1
ZRC (j(nωo + kωs )) = Rd + . (23)
Zo (jω)|ω
=ωo ∼
= L1 jω. (17) Cd (j(nωo + kωs ))

The harmonic amplitudes of the inverter-side current are The total damping losses are
|UAM (n, k)|
|IAM (n, k)| |ω
=ωo = (18) Pd(total) = Pd( 50 ) + Pd(ripple) . (24)
|Zo (jω)| 60

where the amplitudes of the inverter output harmonic voltage The total damping power losses versus the modulation index
UAM (n, k) are m for the different passive damped filters are shown in Fig. 9. It
  can be seen that the Rd damped LCL filter [shown in Fig. 4(a)]
 2Udc Jn (kπm) 
UAM (n, k)| k=1,2,...,∞ 
= . (19) has a much larger damping loss. The power loss of the Rd –Cd
kπ 
n=±1,±3,...,±∞
damped LLCL filter [shown in Fig. 6(a)] is smaller than that
of the Rd –Cd damped LCL filter [shown in Fig. 5(a)] since the
As mentioned earlier, the power dissipated in the damping
former filter has a smaller damping resistor than the latter filter
circuit is calculated separately as the fundamental part and the
and the switching harmonic currents of the former filter have
part related to the harmonic currents. The final expressions of
been mainly bypassed by the Lf –Cf circuit.
damping losses are derived as the following.
1) Fundamental frequency damping loss: The fundamental B. Power Losses in Inductors
frequency (50 or 60 Hz) damping loss of the filters
in Fig. 5(a) and Fig. 6(a) can be calculated approxi- The power losses in an inductor are made up of three
mately as components:
1) copper loss Pcu ;
Ug2 Cd2 ωo2 Rd 2) iron loss Pfe ;
Pd( 50 ) = . (20)
60 1 + Rd2 Cd2 ωo2 3) gap loss Pg .
2) High-frequency damping loss: Neglecting the deadtime In most cases, the skin and proximity effects contribute to
effect and the grid voltage harmonics, the dominating the copper loss in the winding, so the copper loss Pcu is
high-frequency current harmonics are composed of the I 2 (Rdc + Rac ), where the ac resistance Rac is specified in [32].
switching frequency and the double of the switching In the case of the grid-side inductor L2 , the high-frequency
frequency. The high-frequency damping loss can be cal- ripple current is sufficiently attenuated by the filter to meet the
culated as the following: standard requirements so that the power loss will only be due to
 the fundamental frequency current.


1 Compared to the copper loss, the iron loss Pfe can be cal-
Pd(ripple) =
2 culated with sufficient accuracy from the equations supplied by
k=1,2 n=±1,±3,±5

2  the core manufacturers’ data. For the gap loss Pg , it is caused by
|ZLC (j(nωo + kωs ))| |IAM (n, k)| magnetic flux, fringing around the gap and reentering the core,
× Rd
|ZRC (j(nωo + kωs )) + ZLC (j(nωo + kωs ))| which is independent of the core material strip thickness and
(21) permeability. An accurate prediction of the gap loss depends on
the amount of fringing flux [33]
where ZLC (j(nωo + kωs )) and ZRC (j(nωo + kωs ))
2
are the impedances of the Lf –Cf circuit branch and Pg = Ki Elg f Bac (25)
WU et al.: NEW DESIGN METHOD FOR LCL AND LLCL FILTER-BASED SINGLE-PHASE GRID-TIED INVERTER
Fig. 10. Power loss comparison for the different passive damped filters under
different modulation indexes (at 2-kW power level).
Fig. 11. Prototype system configuration for testing the different passive
damped methods.
where
Ki gap loss coefficient;
E strip width of the core, in centimeters;
lg gap length, in centimeters;
f operating frequency, in hertz;
Bac flux density, in teslas.
The power losses of the different passive damped filters
versus the modulation index m are shown in Fig. 10. It is
apparent that the Rd –Cd damped LLCL filter has the lowest
power loss.
V. E XPERIMENTAL R ESULTS
A. Experimental Setup
To compare the losses of the three different passively damp-
ing schemes and to verify the effectiveness of the Rd –Cd
damped LLCL filter, a 2-kW prototype based on a digital signal
processor (DSP) (TMS320LF2407A) controller is constructed,
and the circuit configuration is shown in Fig. 11. The param-
eters of the filters are listed in Table I, and the performance
evaluation of the inverter with the Rd –Cd damped LLCL filter
will be evaluated and investigated under the given conditions
that fs = 20 kHz, Udc = 350 V, Ug = 220 V/50 Hz, Prated =
2 kW, and a deadtime td = 2 μs.
In Fig. 11, a PR+HC (from 3rd to 9th) controller is selected
for the grid-current feedback controller. The PR controller can
be expressed as (26), where Kp is the proportional gain and Kih
represents the individual resonant integral gain
is −52 dB, which is about 0.25% of the fundamental (0 dB).
Kih s
GPR (s) = Kp + . (26)
s + (ω0 h)2
2
h=1,3,5,7,9
4345
Fig. 12. Bode plots of the open-loop transfer function under different grid
impedances.
The size of the proportional gain Kp from the PR controller
determines the bandwidth and stability phase margin in the
same way as for the classical proportional–integral (PI) con-
troller. The integral constant Kih acts to eliminate the steady-
state error [28]. Fig. 12 shows the Bode plots of the PR grid-side
current control open-loop transfer function with Kp = 0.22 and
Kih = 100 for different grid impedances. Obviously, when the
grid impedance increases from 0 to 3 mH, the system is still
able to maintain stability. However, the bandwidth is reduced
from 1500 Hz down to 570 Hz.
B. Obtained Results
Referring to the analysis explained in Section III, the ex-
perimental analysis of the three cases is carried out when the
grid impedance Lg = 0 mH. Case I is the passive damped LCL
filter strategy with an Rd damper, Case II is the passive damped
LCL filter strategy with an Rd –Cd damper, and Case III is
the Rd –Cd damped LLCL filter strategy. The same PR+HC
controller is used in the three cases. Figs. 13–15 show the
experimental measured currents and the spectra of the three
cases, respectively. Observing these figures, the THD values
of the grid-side current in all three cases are nearly the same.
Because of the wider control bandwidth, the low-frequency
disturbance caused by the deadtime and crossover distortion in
Case III is inhibited a little more effectively than in Case I or
in Case II.
The spectra of the grid-side current in the three cases are
shown respectively in Fig. 13(b), Fig. 14(b), and Fig. 15(b),
and the amplitudes of the dominant harmonic current (≥ 35th)
are listed in Table II. Fig. 13(b) shows that the amplitude of
the dominant harmonic current is −53 dB, which is about
0.22% of the fundamental (0 dB). Fig. 14(b) shows that
the amplitude of the dominant harmonic current is −51 dB,
which is about 0.28% of the fundamental (0 dB). Fig. 15(b)
shows that the amplitude of the dominant harmonic current
Therefore, the amplitudes of the dominant harmonic grid-side
current (≥ 35th) in each case meet the recommendations in the
4346 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 60, NO. 10, OCTOBER 2013
Fig. 13. Experimental waveforms with Rd damped LCL filter (Case I with
Ig = 9.1 A and L2 = 1.2 mH). (a) Grid voltage and grid-side current wave-
forms. (b) Power spectrum of grid-side current.
Fig. 14. Experimental waveforms with Rd –Cd damped LCL filter (Case II
with Ig = 9.1 A and L2 = 1.2 mH). (a) Grid voltage and grid-side current
waveforms. (b) Power spectrum of grid-side current.
Fig. 15. Experimental waveforms with Rd –Cd damped LLCL filter (Case III
with Ig = 9.1 A and L2 = 0.22 mH). (a) Grid voltage and grid-side current
waveforms. (b) Power spectrum of grid-side current.
TABLE II
A MPLITUDES OF THE D OMINANT H ARMONIC C URRENT (≥ 35th)
Fig. 16. Current of Rd damper in Case I.
IEEE Std. 519-1992, which recommends that each harmonic
current of higher than the 35th should be less than 0.3% of the
rated fundamental current for a grid-tied inverter system if the
short circuit current of the power system is lower than 20 times
of the nominal grid-side fundamental current.
The currents flowing through the damping branches for
Case I, Case II, and Case III are shown in Figs. 16–18 while
the grid current is 9.1 A and the voltage is 220 V. The measured
and the calculated damping losses are listed in Table III.
WU et al.: NEW DESIGN METHOD FOR LCL AND LLCL FILTER-BASED SINGLE-PHASE GRID-TIED INVERTER 4347

Fig. 17. Currents of Cf and Rd –Cd damper branch in Case II.

Fig. 19. Experimental waveforms with Rd –Cd damped LLCL filter

Fig. 18. Currents of Lf –Cf branch and Rd –Cd damper branch in
(Lg = 0.3 mH and Rd = 16.5 Ω). (a) Grid voltage and grid-side current
Case III.
(Ig = 1.3 A). (b) Grid voltage and grid-side current (Ig = 5 A).

TABLE III
DAMPING L OSSES IN T HREE C ASES

Figs. 19–21 show the experimental waveforms of an Rd –Cd

damped LLCL filter-based single-phase grid-tied inverter,
where Cd = 2 uF, Rd = 16.5 ohm, and the grid impedances
Lg are 0.3, 1.2, and 3 mH, respectively. It can be seen that,
if the optimized damping resistor is set to the condition of the
zero grid impedance, an increasing Lg will bring an increasing
distortion of the grid current, which is in accordance with the
control analysis described in Fig. 12. The distortion of a small
grid current is worse than that of a large grid current, which is
mainly due to the deadtime effect of the power converter.
Fig. 22 shows the grid currents with an increased damping
resistor Rd of 30 Ω while Lg values are 1.2 and 3 mH, respec-
tively. Comparing Fig. 22 to Fig. 20(b) and Fig. 21(b), it can
be seen that, if the grid is weak, an increased damping resistor
Rd (also with a larger damping loss) is helpful to improve the
THD of the grid current, which is verifying the correction of
(10) indirectly.
Furthermore, since, within half of the switching frequency
range which determines the low harmonics of the grid cur-
rent, an LLCL filter-based grid-tied VSI has almost the same
frequency-response characteristic as an LCL filter, it can be
Fig. 20. Experimental waveforms with Rd –Cd damped LLCL filter
deduced that, if only the lower frequency current harmonics (Lg = 1.2 mH and Rd = 16.5 Ω) (a) Grid voltage and grid-side current
are considered, the experimental currents of an Rd –Cd damped (Ig = 1.3 A). (b) Grid voltage and grid-side current (Ig = 5 A).
4348 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 60, NO. 10, OCTOBER 2013
Fig. 21. Experimental waveforms with Rd –Cd damped LLCL filter (Lg =
3 mH and Rd = 16.5 Ω). (a) Grid voltage and grid-side current (Ig = 1.3 A).
(b) Grid voltage and grid-side current (Ig = 5 A).
Fig. 22. Experimental waveforms with Rd –Cd LLCL filter (Rd = 30 Ω).
(a) Grid voltage and grid-side current (Lg = 1.2 mH and Ig = 5 A). (b) Grid
voltage and grid-side current (Lg = 3 mH and Ig = 5 A).
Fig. 23. Output voltage of the inverter and grid-side current waveform with
PR+HC controller in Case III (Ig = 5 A, Lg = 0.8 mH, and Rd = 19 Ω) and
with distortion in the grid.
LLCL filter shown in Fig. 22 are also similar to those of an
Rd –Cd damped LCL filter under the conditions that L2 =
1.2 mH while Lg = 0.22 and 2.02 mH, respectively. It is seen
that the distortion of the grid current in Fig. 22(b) is more
serious than that in Fig. 22(a). Therefore, whether to an LLCL
filter or to an LCL filter with a simple passive damping method,
one cannot expect to achieve an ideal grid current at any
condition of the grid impedance.
For Case III, in order to verify the ability to attenuate the
current distortion which resulted in the background distortion
from the grid voltage and to test whether it is sensitive to
the variation of the grid impedance, the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th,
and 11th harmonics are injected into grid voltage ug , where
the magnitudes of the injected harmonics with respect to the
fundamental component of ug are 1.1%, 2.8%, 1.4%, 2.3%,
and 1.5%, respectively, and the corresponding phase angles are
180◦ , 0◦ , 180◦ , 0◦ , and 180◦ , respectively. The THD of the
grid voltage is about 4.31%. Here, the grid impedance is set
to 0.8 mH, and the damping resistor is selected to be 19 Ω.
The measured 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, and 11th harmonic distortion
values of the grid-side current waveform as shown in Fig. 23 are
respectively 0.75%, 0.7%, 0.7%, 0.9%, and 0.75%. The output
voltage of the inverter Ui (t) is also shown. From Fig. 23, it can
be seen that the grid-side current control system with a PR+HC
controller has a good ability to attenuate the current distortion
that resulted from the harmonics in the grid voltage.
VI. C ONCLUSION
In this paper, a low-power-loss passive damped filtering
scheme, which previously was applied to the LCL filter-based
grid-tied inverter, has been proposed for the LLCL filter-
based one. It uses an Rd –Cd series circuit in parallel with
the capacitor of an LCL filter or the Lf –Cf series resonant
circuit of an LLCL filter, aiming to decrease the Q-factor of
the characteristic resonance frequency.
This paper introduces a simple engineering design method
through (10) and (15) to select the optimized damping re-
sistor for an LCL filter and an LLCL filter-based single-
phase grid-tied inverter, respectively, while the capacitor Cd is
WU et al.: NEW DESIGN METHOD FOR LCL AND LLCL FILTER-BASED SINGLE-PHASE GRID-TIED INVERTER
determined by the desired maximum capacitive reactive power.
It is effective not only for an Rd –Cd damped LLCL filter-based
system but also for an Rd –Cd damped LCL filter-based system.
Furthermore, the Rd –Cd damping method is more attractive to
an LLCL filter-based system in a stiff grid application, where
the damping power loss can be cut down since the harmonic
currents around the switching frequency have been bypassed
mostly by the Lf –Cf series resonant circuit.
A 2-kW single-phase grid-tied VSI system with a PR+HC
controller is implemented to verify the validity of the Rd –Cd
damped LLCL filter. It can be seen that if the grid is stiff, the
system works well even though the THD of the grid voltage
reaches 4.31%. Certainly, research on EMI in the frequency
range of 150 kHz–30 MHz using the LLCL filter is a natural
next step in the overall assessment of the filter.
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Weimin Wu received the Ph.D. degrees from the
College of Electrical Engineering, Zhejiang Univer-
sity, Hangzhou, China, in 2005.
He worked as a Research Engineer in Delta Power
Electronic Center, Shanghai, China, from July 2005
to June 2006. Since July 2006, he has been a faculty
member with Shanghai Maritime University, Shang-
hai, where he is currently an Associate Professor in
the Department of Electrical Engineering. He was
a Visiting Professor in the Center for Power Elec-
tronics Systems, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and
State University, Blacksburg, from September 2008 to March 2009. He was
also a Visiting Professor in Aalborg University, Aalborg East, Denmark, from
December 2011 to December 2012. He has coauthored about 40 papers in
technical journals and conferences. He is the holder of three patents. His areas
of interests include power converters for renewable energy systems, power
quality, smart grid, and energy storage technology.
4350 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, VOL. 60, NO. 10, OCTOBER 2013
Yuanbin He was born in Fujian Province, China, in
1985. He received the B.S. and M.S. degrees from
the Department of Electrical Engineering, Shanghai
Maritime University, Shanghai, China, in 2009 and
2011, respectively.
He is currently with Nanjing FSP-Powerland
Technology Inc., Nanjing, China. His current re-
search interests include digital control technique and
renewable energy generation system.
Tianhao Tang (SM’01) received the B.S. and M.S.
degrees in electrical engineering from the Shanghai
University of Technology, Shanghai, China, in 1982
and 1987, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in
electrical engineering from Shanghai University,
Shanghai, in 1998.
He is currently a Professor of the Depart-
ment of Electrical Engineering and the Director of
Electric Drives and Control Systems in Shanghai
Maritime University, Shanghai. Also, he is the Vice-
Director of the Sino-French Joint Research Institute
of Galileo and Maritime ITS for Safer Seas. In recent years, his research inter-
ests include power electronics and electric drive systems, renewable energies,
and their applications in marine systems.
Prof. Tang is a member of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society.
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Frede Blaabjerg (S’86–M’88–SM’97–F’03) re-
ceived the M.Sc.EE. and Ph.D. degrees from Aalborg
University, Aalborg East, Denmark, in 1987 and
1995, respectively.
He was with ABB-Scandia, Randers, Denmark,
from 1987 to 1988. During 1988–1992, he was a
Ph.D. student at Aalborg University, where he be-
came an Assistant Professor in 1992, an Associate
Professor in 1996, and a Full Professor in power
electronics and drives in 1998. He has been a part-
time Research Leader at Research Center Risoe,
Roskilde, Denmark, in wind turbines. In 2006–2010, he was the Dean of the
Faculty of Engineering, Science and Medicine, and he was a Visiting Professor
at Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, in 2009. His research areas are in
power electronics and its applications like wind turbines, PV systems, and
adjustable-speed drives.
Since 2006, he has been the Editor in Chief of the IEEE T RANSACTIONS
ON P OWER E LECTRONICS . He was recognized as a Distinguished Lecturer
by the IEEE Power Electronics Society from 2005 to 2007 and by the IEEE
Industry Applications Society from 2010 to 2011. He was the recipient of
the 1995 Angelos Award for his contribution in modulation technique and the
Annual Teacher Prize at Aalborg University. In 1998, he was the recipient of the
Outstanding Young Power Electronics Engineer Award from the IEEE Power
Electronics Society. He has received ten IEEE prize paper awards and another
prize paper award at PELINCEC Poland 2005. He was the recipient of the IEEE
Power Electronics Society (PELS) Distinguished Service Award in 2009 and
the EPE-PEMC 2010 Council Award.