APPLIED

Applied Energy 83 (2006) 1101–1115

ENERGY
www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy

Sliding mode controller for the single-phase

grid-connected photovoltaic system
Il-Song Kim *

LG Chem/Research Park, Mobile Energy R&D, 104-1, Moonji-Dong,

Yuseong-Gu, Daejeon 305-380, Republic of Korea

Received 1 August 2005; received in revised form 9 November 2005; accepted 12 November 2005
Available online 27 January 2006

Abstract

A sliding mode controller for the single-phase grid-connected photovoltaic system has been pro-
posed in this paper. Contrary to the conventional controller, the proposed system consists of maxi-
mum power point tracker (MPPT) controller and sliding mode current controller only. The
proposed MPPT controller generates current reference directly from the solar array power informa-
tion and the current controller uses the sliding mode technique for the tight regulation of current.
The new MPPT controller does not require the measurement of the voltage derivative which can be
a cause of divide-by-zero singularity problems. The sliding mode controller has been constructed
based on a time-varying sliding surface to control the sinusoidal inductor current and solar array
power simultaneously. The proposed system can avoid the current overshoot and make optimal design
for the system components. The structures of a proposed system are simple, but they show the robust
tracking property against modeling uncertainties and parameter variations. The mathematical
modeling is developed and the experimental results verify the validity of the proposed controller.
 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Photovoltaic power systems; Sliding mode controller; Maximum power point tracker

1. Introduction

In recent years the need for renewable energy has become more pressing. Among them,
the photovoltaic system (PV) such as solar cell is the most promising energy. The PV

*
Tel.: +82 42 870 6345.
E-mail address: iskim@powerlab.kaist.ac.kr.

0306-2619/$ - see front matter  2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2005.11.004
1102 I.-S. Kim / Applied Energy 83 (2006) 1101–1115

Nomenclature

A deviation factor from the ideal p–n junction diode, dimensionless

Cn nominal input dc link capacitor in lF
es(t) grid voltage in V
fs inverter switching frequency in Hz
I solar cell output current in A
iL inductor current in A
Iph light generated current in A
Ipk peak value of the current in A
Iref current reference in A
isa solar array current in A
isa avg average solar array current in V
Isat cell reverse saturation current in A
Ln nominal output filter inductor in mH
Np number of parallel modules, dimensionless
Ns number of series modules, dimensionless
PE power transferred to the grid in W
P E avg average power of the grid in W
Pref power reference in W
Psa solar array power in W
P sa avg average solar array power in W
q electronic charge: 1.6022 · 1019 C
RL output filter inductor resistance in X
Rs series resistance in X
Rsh shunt resistance in X.
S1–S4 full-bridge inverter switch
T cell temperature in K
u(t) control input, dimensionless
ueq equivalent input, dimensionless
un nonlinear control input, dimensionless
V solar cell output voltage in V
VEP peak grid voltage in V
Vmp maximum power voltage in V
Vsa solar array voltage in V
V sa avg average solar array voltage in V
a sliding mode controller gain, dimensionless
g1,g2 boundary values of the uncertainties, dimensionless
k Boltzmann’s constant: 1.3807 · 1023 J/K
h grid voltage phase angle in 
r sliding surface, dimensionless
Df1,Df2 modeling uncertainties, dimensionless

energy is free, abundant and distributed through the earth. Among the PV energy appli-
cations, they can be divided into two categories: one is stand-alone system and the other is
grid-connected system. Stand-alone system requires the battery bank to store the PV
 I.-S. Kim / Applied Energy 83 (2006) 1101–1115 1103

energy and suitable for low-power system. Grid-connected system does not require the
battery bank and has become the primary PV application for high power applications.
The main purpose of the grid-connected system is to transfer maximum solar array energy
into grid with a unity power factor.
The output power of PV cell is changed by environmental factors, such as illumination
and temperature. Since the characteristic curve of a solar cell exhibits a nonlinear voltage–
current characteristic, a controller named maximum power point tracker (MPPT) is
required to match the solar cell power to the environmental changes. Many algorithms
have been developed for tracking maximum power point of a solar cell [1–4]. Among
them, the most commonly used methods are perturb and observe (P & O) and incremental
conductance algorithm. The P & O method measures the derivative of power (Dp) and the
derivative of voltage (Dm) to determine the movement of the operating point. If the sign of
(Dp/Dm) is positive, the reference voltage is increased by some amount of value and vice
versa. The other method, the incremental conductance method can track the maximum
power point voltage more accurately than P & O, by comparing the incremental conduc-
tance and instantaneous conductance of a PV array.
The configuration of a single-phase grid-connected photovoltaic system is shown in
Fig. 1. It consists of solar array, input capacitor Cn, single-phase inverter, filter inductor
Ln, and grid voltage es(t). The solar cells are connected in a series–parallel configuration to
match the required solar voltage and power rating. The direct current (DC) link capacitor
maintains the solar-array voltage at a certain level for the voltage source inverter. The sin-
gle-phase inverter with filter inductor converts a DC input voltage into an AC sinusoidal-
voltage by means of appropriate switch signals to make the output current in phase with
the utility voltage and so obtain a power factor of unity.
A typical controller configuration of the single-phase grid-connected photovoltaic sys-
tem consists of a MPPT controller, voltage controller and current controller [5]. The
MPPT controller detects the power slope from the solar-array voltage and current infor-
mation, and generates the reference voltage. The voltage controller controls the solar-
array voltage to follow the reference voltage using the proportional-integral (PI) control-
ler. The output of the voltage controller becomes the DC value of the reference current.
The current controller controls the inductor current to follow the reference current using
a hysteresis or predictive controller. The hysteresis controller has a fast response time, but
it has an irregular switching frequency. The predictive controller has a constant switching
frequency and good current control, but it requires exact information for the circuit
parameters. As the current controller has a cascade configuration with the voltage controller,

isa
S1 S3

+ . RL Ln
Grid Vo ltage

Solar Cn vsa iL ~ es(t)

array
_ .
S2 S4

Fig. 1. Typical configuration of single stage grid-connected PV system.

1104 I.-S. Kim / Applied Energy 83 (2006) 1101–1115

the inductor current overshoots when the reference voltage is changed. This is caused by
the integrator of the voltage controller. This current peak can stress the power device
in the inverter and cause a failure in the switching devices. The additional drawbacks of
the conventional system are the tedious tuning for the PI-gain selection and the require-
ment of exact knowledge for the circuit parameters.
The new controller has been proposed to overcome the above problems. It consists of a
MPPT controller and current controller. The new MPPT controller generates a reference
power instead of a reference voltage. This reference power is used for the current reference
directly by the power-balance relation. For the tight regulation of the inductor current, a
sliding mode controller has been used for the controller current. The sliding mode controller
has a robust control property under the presence of parameter variations and can achieve a
tight regulation of the states for all operating points [6–8]. The mathematical modeling is
evolved and the experimental result verifies the worthwhileness of the proposed controller.

2. Solar cell/array modeling

The electrical equivalent-circuit of a solar cell is shown in Fig. 2(a). It is composed of a

light-generated current source, diode, series resistance, and parallel resistance. The charac-
teristic equation for the current and voltage of a solar cell is given as follows:
n h q i o V þ IR
s
I ¼ I ph  I sat exp ðV þ IRs Þ  1  ð1Þ
AkT Rsh
where I is the solar-cell output current (A), V is the solar cell output voltage (V), Iph is the
light-generated current (A), Isat is the cell reverse saturation current (A), q is the electronic
charge = 1.6022 · 1019 C, A is the dimensionless deviation factor from the ideal p–n junc-
tion diode, k is Boltzmann’s constant = 1.3807 · 1023 J/K4, T is the cell temperature (K),
Rs is the series resistance (X), and Rsh is the shunt resistance (X). The equivalent circuit for
solar cells arranged in Np-parallel and Ns-series is shown in Fig. 2(b) and the mathematical
equation relating the array current to the array voltage becomes:
      
q V sa I sa Rs N p V sa I sa Rs
I sa ¼ N p I ph  N p I sat exp þ 1  þ ð2Þ
AkT N s Np Rsh N s Np
where Np represents the number of parallel modules. Note that each module is composed
of Ns cells connected in series; NpIph corresponds to the short-circuit current of the solar
array. The detailed parameters for the simulation and experiment are shown in Table 1.

Ns
Np Rs
Np
Rs
+
+ Isa
I
..
.

N p I ph Ns Ns
I ph Rsh V Rsh Vsa
Np
_ .. .. ..
. . . _
a b

Fig. 2. Electrically equivalent solar cell/array circuit. (a) Single cell circuit. (b) Solar array circuit (Ns-series, Np-
parallel).
 I.-S. Kim / Applied Energy 83 (2006) 1101–1115 1105

Table 1
Parameters for simulation and experiment
Solar array (simulator)
Ns 60
Np 1
Iph 2A
T 300 K
Vmp 38 V
Inverter
Cn 1000 lF
Ln 5 mH
RL 0.5 X
fs 10 kHz
Output voltage 25 Vpeak/60 Hz
Sliding mode controller gain
a 3

The voltage–current curve of the solar array shows a highly non-linear characteristic
around the maximum-power point.

3. System modeling

The dynamic model of a single-phase photovoltaic system can be obtained from the
configuration of Fig. 1: Vsa and iL are the solar-array voltage and inductor current, respec-
tively, and es(t) is the grid voltage and is given as follows:
es ðtÞ ¼ V EP sin xt ð3Þ
where x is the angular frequency given by 2pf, where f = grid frequency (60 Hz). The cir-
cuit parameters Cn and Ln correspond to their nominal values which are known exactly.
The switch status of the single-phase inverter can be represented by the input c, defined
as follows:

þ1 ! S 1 ; S 4 : on; S 2 ; S 3 : off
c¼ ð4Þ
1 ! S 1 ; S 4 : off; S 2 ; S 3 : on
When the switch input c = 1, the state equation can be written as
1
m_ sa ¼ ðiL þ isa Þ þ Df1
Cn
ð5Þ
1
i_L ¼ ðV sa  RL  iL  es ðtÞÞ þ Df2 .
Ln
where Df1 and Df2 represent the modeling uncertainties caused by the noise and measure-
ment errors, and are bounded by the known values g1 and g2, respectively.
When the switch input c = 1, the state equation is given as
1
m_ sa ¼ ðiL þ isa Þ þ Df1
Cn
ð6Þ
1
i_L ¼ ðV sa  RL  iL  es ðtÞÞ þ Df2 .
Ln
1106 I.-S. Kim / Applied Energy 83 (2006) 1101–1115

Combining (5) and (6), the state-space averaged model of the single-phase grid-connected
photovoltaic system shown in Fig. 1 can be derived as follows:
1
V_ sa ¼ ðiL  uðtÞ þ isa Þ þ Df1
Cn
ð7Þ
_iL ¼ 1 ðV sa  uðtÞ  RL  iL  es ðtÞÞ þ Df2
Ln
where u(t) is defined as the average value of c for the switching period.
The state equation given in (7) is a non-linear system and can be expressed in the gen-
eral form as x_ ¼ f ðx; tÞ þ gðxÞ  uðtÞ þ Dd, where the vectors x, f(x, t), g(x) and Dd are given
as follows:
  " isa # " i #  
L
msa Cn Cn Df1
x¼ ; f ðx; tÞ ¼ RL iL es ðtÞ ; gðxÞ ¼ msa ; Dd ¼ . ð8Þ
iL L Ln Df2
n

The linear controller, such as PI, requires exact information on the circuit parameters for
the desired performance when controlling the non-linear system. However, in a grid con-
nected photovoltaic inverter system, the electrolytic capacitor is used for the input capac-
itor and it is known that its actual capacitance value has a 50% tolerance from its nominal
value and deteriorates year-by-year [9]. The capacitance value determines the amount of
ripple in the solar-array voltage. The higher capacitance shows the lower voltage ripple.
The inductance also has a variation from its nominal value. All of these uncertainties make
it difficult to use the linear state-controller for the single-phase grid-connected photovol-
taic system. Linear controllers are known not to perform well under the presence of dis-
turbances and unknown parameter variations [6,7].

4. Background on the sliding mode control

Sliding mode control is a kind of non-linear control which is robust in the presence of
parameter uncertainties and disturbances. It is able to constrain the system status to follow
trajectories which lie on a suitable surface in the sliding surface. The equilibrium state is
constructed so that the system restricted to the manifold has a desired behavior. Consider
a non-linear system of the form,
x_ ¼ f ðx; tÞ þ gðxÞ  uðtÞ þ Dd ð9Þ
The main steps for sliding mode controller design can be summarized, by using an equiv-
alent control concept, as follows [6]:

 The first step is the selection of a switching surface r(x, t) = 0 (where x is the system’s
state vector) that provides the desired asymptotic behavior in steady state.
 Obtaining the equivalent control ueq by applying the invariance condition
rðx; tÞ ¼ 0 and rðx;
_ tÞ ¼ 0 with uðtÞ ¼ ueq ð10Þ
The existence of the equivalent control ueq assures the feasibility of a sliding motion
over the switching surface r(x, t) = 0. On the other hand, beside describing the average
dynamical behavior of the power stage over the switching surface, the equivalent con-
trol enables one to obtain the sliding domain, given by
 I.-S. Kim / Applied Energy 83 (2006) 1101–1115 1107

minfu ; uþ g < ueq < maxfu ; uþ g ð11Þ

 +
where u and u are the control values for r(x, t) < 0 and r(x, t) > 0, respectively. The
sliding domain is the state plane region where sliding motion is ensured.
 Finally, selecting a non-linear control input un to ensure that Lyapunov stability crite-
ria, i.e., rr_ < 0.

5. Design of the sliding mode controller

The design of the sliding mode controller starts from the design of the sliding surface.
Usually, the sliding surface is constructed by the linear combination of state variable
errors that are defined as the differences between the state variables and their references.
Therefore, in this case, the sliding surface can be designed with errors of the solar-array
voltage and inductor current in a single-phase grid-connected photovoltaic system. The
reference solar-array voltage is a DC voltage which is generated from the MPPT, but
the solar-array voltage is oscillating due to the sinusoidal inductor current, which results
in an undesirable sliding mode performance. For this reason, no attempt has been made to
apply the sliding mode control for a grid-connected photovoltaic system.
The main purpose of a grid-connected photovoltaic system is to transfer the maximum
solar-array power into the grid with a power factor of unity. Therefore, the sliding surface
should be designed to control the inductor current and solar-array power simultaneously.
This requirement can be achieved by selecting a sliding surface only using the errors of the
inductor current. If the reference inductor current is expressed as a function of the solar-
array power, then the sliding surface can control both the inductor current and the solar-
array power simultaneously. The mathematical expression for the peak reference current is
Eq. A.6 of the Appendix. The proposed time-varying sliding surface is defined by:
2  P ref
rðx; tÞ ¼ iL  I ref ¼ iL  sin xt ð12Þ
V EP
where Pref is the reference solar-array power, which is given by the MPPT controller and
VEP is the peak grid-voltage.
The next step is to design a control input which satisfies the sliding mode existence law.
The control input is chosen to have the structure:
uðtÞ ¼ ueq ðtÞ þ un ðtÞ ð13Þ
where ueq(t) is an equivalent control-input that determines the system’s behavior on the
sliding surface and un(t) is a non-linear switching input, which drives the state to the sliding
surface and maintains the state on the sliding surface in the presence of the parameter
variations and disturbances. The equivalent control-input is obtained from the invariance
condition and is given by the following condition
rðx; tÞ ¼ 0 and rðx;
_ tÞ ¼ 0 ) uðtÞ ¼ ueq ðtÞ. ð14Þ
Rewriting the above equation gives
or or
_ tÞ 
rðx; ðf ðt; xÞ þ gðxÞ  ueq ðtÞÞ þ ¼ 0. ð15Þ
ox ot
The necessary condition for the existence of a sliding motion of r(x, t) is represented by the
transversality condition and expressed as follows:
1108 I.-S. Kim / Applied Energy 83 (2006) 1101–1115

or
Lg r   gðxÞ 6¼ 0 ð16Þ
oxT
where Lgr denotes the directional derivative of the scalar function r with respect to the
vector field g(x). If the transversality condition is satisfied, then substituting (12) into
(15) gives a result as follows:
1 2P ref  x cos xt
_ tÞ ¼
rðx; ðV sa  ueq ðtÞ  RL  iL  es ðtÞÞ  ¼ 0. ð17Þ
Ln V EP
Therefore, the equivalent control-input is given as
RL iL þ es ðtÞ þ 2P ref Ln x cos xt=V EP
ueq ðtÞ ¼ . ð18Þ
V sa
The nonlinear switching input un(t) can be chosen as follows:
un ðtÞ ¼ a  sgnðrÞ. ð19Þ
If (18) and (19) are substituted into (13), the range of a ensuring rr_ < 0 can be determined
as follows:
2P ref
rr_ ¼ rði_L  x cos xtÞ
V EP
 
V sa es ðtÞ 2P ref
¼r ðueq ðtÞ þ un ðtÞÞ  þ Df2  x cos xt
Ln Ln V EP
 
V sa
¼r  a  sgn ðrÞ þ Df2 < 0. ð20Þ
Ln
From this result, the range of switching gain is given as
Ln Ln
a> jDf2 j ¼ g. ð21Þ
V sa V sa 2
From (18), (19) and (21), the control input u(t) = ueq(t) + un(t) is given as follows:
RL iL þ es ðtÞ þ 2P ref Ln x cos xt=V EP  g2 Ln  sgnðrÞ
uðtÞ ¼ . ð22Þ
V sa
Then, the control input is compared with the pulse-width modulation (PWM) ramp volt-
age and generates the appropriate switching pattern of the inverter.

6. MPPT controller design

The MPPT controller takes Vsa and isa as inputs to detect the power slope and generates
Pref to track the maximum-power point. Due to the oscillating solar-array voltage and cur-
rent, the average values are used for calculation of the solar-array power P sa avg . The aver-
age values are obtained using half-cycle data of the utility-grid frequency.
A simple maximum-power point updating algorithm is given as follows:

P ref > P sa avg ) P ref ¼ Hold previous value
ð23Þ
P ref 6 P sa avg ) P ref ¼ P ref þ D
where D means a shift step from the previous value. The value of Pref is reset periodically
to compensate for any environmental changes of the solar array. The main advantage of
 I.-S. Kim / Applied Energy 83 (2006) 1101–1115 1109

Isa

a
b

Pref2
B

Pref1

Vsa

Fig. 3. Operating point movement for the power reference change.

Current Grid
controller PWM voltage
S1,S4 Single-
Pref 2 I ref Sliding u (t ) iL
MPPT Mode γ phase es (t )
VEP inverter
Controller
S2,S3 with L
vsa _ avg
Average
es (t )
isa _ avg Calculation .
.
Isa vsa θ
sin(ω t ) PLL

Fig. 4. Overall controller configuration of the proposed system.

this controller is that it does not require the measurement of the voltage derivative which
can be a cause of divide-by-zero singularity problems.
The operating point movement of the solar array is shown in Fig. 3 when the reference
power has been changed from Pref1 to Pref2. For a reference power Pref1, there can be two
intersection points (A, a) between the solar-array characteristic curve and the reference
power. Point ‘A’ is stable and will be the desired operation point. On the other hand, point
‘a’ would be clearly unstable if the system operated permanently in this mode of operation.
When the reference power changed to Pref2, the operating point moved from point ‘A’ to
point ‘B’ in a similar manner.
Fig. 4 shows the proposed controller configuration. It consists of a MPPT controller, slid-
ing mode controller, and PWM generator. The MPPT controller tracks the maximum power
point using average values of the solar-array voltage and current. The sliding mode control-
ler controls the inductor current to follow the reference current by means of the sliding sur-
face. The PWM generator generates the switching pattern according to the control input.

7. Simulation and experiment results

Fig. 5 shows the simulation result of the proposed controller using the parameters
shown in Table 1. The peak grid voltage is 25 V and the frequency is 60 Hz. For a refer-
ence power of Pref = 50 W, the peak reference current is obtained as 4 A from Eq. (A.6). In
1110 I.-S. Kim / Applied Energy 83 (2006) 1101–1115

5A

0
iL iref
-5A
1

0
u ueq
-1
46V
44V
vsa
42V
1.6A
1.2A
0.8A
isa
0.06 0.07 0.08 0.09 [sec]

Fig. 5. Simulation waveform of the voltage, control input and current.

this figure, the inductor current tracks the reference current with switching ripple. The con-
trol input is composed of the equivalent input and the switching input. The switching input
shows a chattering value over the equivalent input. As can be seen in this figure, the solar-
array voltage and current oscillate at the frequency of 120 Hz which is twice the grid fre-
quency. The average solar-array voltage is 44.2 V and average solar-array current is 1.2 A.
Therefore, it can be seen that the solar-array power is exactly controlled to the given ref-
erence power of Pref = 50 W considering the power loss caused by the inductor resistance.
The solar array simulator (SAS) has been used to simulate the photovoltaic array fol-
lowing Eq. (2). It consists of the adjustable current source and series connected diode
string as can be seen in Fig. 6(a). This SAS can simulate the change in voltage–current
characteristics according to the temperature and illumination level variations by adjusting
the value of the current source and the number of series cells in a diode string. The DB is a
blocking diode to prevent a reverse flowing current. The measured voltage–current char-
acteristic for Iph = 2 A is shown in Fig. 6(b). This curve is plotted from the automated test

Rs DB Isa +
2.5 125
vsa current
..
2.0 100
Psa [w]
Isa [A]

RL 75
1.5
(0 ~ ∞)
Iph Set

power
1.0 50

_
0.5 25

0 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Automated
Automated Test Equipment
(a) (b) Vsa [V]

Fig. 6. Configuration of the solar array simulator.

 I.-S. Kim / Applied Energy 83 (2006) 1101–1115 1111

equipment (ATE) which is connected to the SAS by varying the resistance of the ATE. The
maximum power is 70 W and the maximum power point occurs at 38 V, as can be seen in
Fig. 6(b). As the maximum output voltage is limited only to 48 V, which is lower than the
grid voltage, the inverter output is connected to the grid voltage through a step-up trans-
former in the experiment.
To verify the performance of the proposed sliding mode controller in a grid connected
photovoltaic system, an experimental configuration has been set up, as shown in Fig. 7. A
digital signal processor (DSP), type TMS320C31, is used to implement the proposed con-
troller including the MPPT algorithm. The sensor board collects analog signals for the
control algorithm. The four-channel simultaneous sampling analog to digital (A/D) con-
verters are used for the analog-sensor-data acquisition. The field programmable gate array
(FPGA) is used for the PWM generation of each power switch. The PWM signals are
applied to the gate driver of each switch. The four-channel digital-to-analog (D/A) con-
verter is used to display the control variable via an oscilloscope. The control program is
compiled in a PC and downloaded to the DSP via an emulator. The software is executed
by interrupt routine that is called every 0.1 ms. Whenever the grid voltage crosses the zero-
cross point, the average solar-array voltage and average solar-array current are updated
using the half-cycle data.
The experimental waveforms of the proposed controller are shown in Figs. 8 and 9. The
grid voltage, control input, inductor current, solar-array voltage and current waveforms
are shown. The inductor current is exactly controlled to equal the reference current. It
can be seen that the inductor current is in phase with the utility voltage and the unity
power-factor transmission to the grid is achieved (see Fig. 9). The solar-array voltage
and current waveforms coincide exactly with the simulation result.
Fig. 10 shows the tracking performance comparison between the conventional
PI + predictive controller and the proposed sliding mode controller when the inductance

Vsa
DSP isa
A/D
TMS320C31 Sensor
40MHz Board es (t )
(4-Ch.)
iL
Emulator
S1
FPGA
S2
Gate
(PWM Driver S3
Gen.)
S4

Psa
D/A
Pref
PC (4-Ch.) u
σ

Fig. 7. Experimental system configuration.

1112 I.-S. Kim / Applied Energy 83 (2006) 1101–1115

Fig. 8. Experimental waveforms of the proposed system.

Fig. 9. Experimental waveforms of the current and voltage waveforms.

Ln changes from 2.5 to 5 mH. Due to the oscillating solar-array voltage, the PI + predic-
tive controller has an oscillating current error and this error is larger when the inductance
is changed from the nominal value. However, the sliding mode controller shows a tight
regulation of the inductor current regardless of changes in Ln. Therefore it can be con-
cluded that the robust tracking performance is achieved using the sliding mode controller
under the parameter-variation environment.
Using the average solar-array voltage and current, the MPPT tracking performance is
shown in Fig. 11. The MPPT updates Pref periodically by the algorithm Eq. (23). If P sa avg
 I.-S. Kim / Applied Energy 83 (2006) 1101–1115 1113

Fig. 10. Tracking performance for a change in Ln. (a) PI + predictive controller. (b) Sliding mode controller.

Fig. 11. MPPT tracking performance.

is equal to or larger than Pref, the value of Pref increases by a certain amount. Otherwise,
Pref is returned to the previous value. If Pref is exceeds the maximum solar-array power,
there can be a distortion in the inductor current waveform. The maximum Pref is found
at 64 W and the solar-array voltage oscillates from 37 to 42 V. This corresponds to the
1114 I.-S. Kim / Applied Energy 83 (2006) 1101–1115

maximum-power point in Fig. 6(b). It can be seen that the proposed algorithm tracks the
maximum power exactly in this figure.

8. Conclusions

A sliding mode controller for a single-phase grid-connected photovoltaic system has

been proposed. The system consists of a new MPPT controller and current controller.
The current reference is directly generated from the MPPT controller. The sliding mode
controller was used as a current controller for the tight regulation of the inductor current.
The proposed system can avoid current overshoot and so contribute to the optimal design
of power devices. The proposed system is simple and is predicted to have superior perfor-
mances under the parameter variation environments.

Appendix

The power transferred to the grid is given as the product of grid voltage and inductor
current and is expressed as follows:
V EP I pk
P E ¼ es ðtÞ  iL ¼ V EP I pk  sin2 xt ¼ ð1  cos 2xtÞ ðA:1Þ
2
where es ðtÞ ¼ V EP sin xt, iL ¼ I pk sin xt, x ¼ 2p T
. The average power of the grid is given as
follows:
Z T =2
1 V EP I pk V EP I pk
P E avg ¼ ð1  cos 2xtÞ dt ¼ . ðA:2Þ
T =2 0 2 2
Assuming loss-less power transmission from the solar array to the grid, the following rela-
tion always holds
V EP I pk
P sa avg ¼ PE avg ¼ . ðA:3Þ
2
Then, the peak inductor current value is given as follows:
2  P sa avg
I pk ¼ . ðA:4Þ
V EP
Therefore, the inductor current reference becomes
2  P sa avg
I ref ¼ sin xt. ðA:5Þ
V EP
The MPPT controls the P sa avg to follow the Pref by periodically updating the reference
voltage, and then the above equation holds:
2  P ref
I ref ¼ sin xt. ðA:6Þ
V EP

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