INTRODUCTION
Energy crisis and environmental impacts in the world may increase the suitability
of renewable energy source such as photovoltaic (PV), wind, hydro, nuclear,
etc. Among these different renewable energy resources, PV is top priority in
micro grid applications due to its easy access (Yang et
al., 2010). Microgrid is the smallest electricity generation, energy
storage, distribution of energy to many consumers and all the grids are connected
to the main power grid. Microgrid would achieve specific goals such as reliability,
efficiency, cost reduction and reduced carbon emission (Dasgupta
et al., 2011; Mehrizi-Sani and Iravani, 2010).
The CSI may suitable for microgrid applications since the DC link in CSI use
inductors to regulate the current ripple effectively (Porasad
and Hossein, 2008; Wang et al., 2011). Several
types of converters with various control schemes proposed in the literature
for micro grid applications (Porasad and Hossein, 2008;
Farahani, 2008; Ramezani, 2010;
Haron et al., 2012; Bashi
et al., 2008).
This study proposed CSI consists of double tuned resonant circuit connected
between the source and main inverter bridge to regulate the current ripple at
the DC side and the main inverter bridge is to produce an AC output. CSI can
be operated in boost mode with the help of double tuned circuit by shorting
the devices of same leg. Proposed CSI overcomes the drawbacks of conventional
CSI as it requires additional circuit for boosting the input voltage and it
can also reduce the harmonics existed in the system. The proposed inverter eliminates
the necessity of bulky transformer to boost the voltage and also increase the
efficiency, stability, simplicity of the system (Alajmi
et al., 2013; Kim et al., 2010).
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Current source inverter topology: A conventional current source inverter
needs step-up transformer for boosting the voltage and MPPT to track the maximum
power for certain microgrid PV applications and hence it decreases the efficiency
and increases cost of the overall system (Kjaer et al.,
2005; Petrone et al., 2011; Wu
et al., 2011). In order to mitigate the above drawbacks of conventional
inverter, the proposed inverter utilizes the double-tuned filter circuit at
the DC-side to boost the voltage (Fig. 1).
The double-tuned resonant filter consists of equal values of inductance and capacitance which has the ability to smoothen the DC-line current where C1, C2 are the resonant filter capacitances and L1, L2 are resonant filter inductances is shown in Fig. 2. In a single phase current source inverter, even order harmonic are generated in the DC-link current. Large DC-link inductor (Ls) is required in the DC side for mitigating these harmonics in the DC side and its effect on AC side. Large inductance in conventional current source inverter increases weight, cost and size also decreases the efficiency. This circuit connected series with the inductor to reduce the lower order harmonics.
|
| Fig. 1: |
Circuit diagram of CSI with double tuned resonant circuit |
|
| Fig. 2: |
Double-tuned resonant filter |
Double-tuned resonant filter: The design of double-tuned filter consists
of two equal values of inductors and two equal values of capacitors as shown
in Fig. 2 are mainly employed for harmonic suppression and
it also have the capability to smooth the DC line current where C1, C2 are the
resonant filter capacitances and L1, L2 are resonant filter inductances. The
parameters used in the filter are given in Eq. 1-3
(Alajmi et al., 2013). In order to suppress
the harmonics generated in the DC side and its impact on the AC side, filters
are used. Here it needs a large inductance on the dc side since it increases
the size, cost of the system and decreases the efficiency, so a tuned circuit
is proposed. The double-tuned filter is connected in series with inductor Ls
to reduce the lower order harmonics and also 2nd and 4th order harmonics generated
in the line current of DC. Therefore, the proposed filter reduces the overall
weight and cost of the system and increases the efficiency. A double-tuned filter
is connected in series with inductor Ls to reduce the lower order
harmonics. After filter design installations, the harmonics are greatly reduced
to low values that are shown in the results.
Control techniques: A PWM control technique proposed in the study is
used to generate the switching control pattern in a single phase CSI as shown
in Fig. 3. The gate control signals are generated by comparing
the carrier signal with higher frequency to a reference signal of lower frequency.
Here, two high frequency carrier signals are compared with a single reference
signal to supply adequate short circuit current after every switching cycle
in order to boost-up the voltage (Alajmi et al.,
2013). Two carrier signals are shifted by 180° where one signal is used
for switching the lower switches and another for upper switches. During every
switching period, at least one of the lower and upper switches in either arm
is turned on in order to obtain a continuous DC current.
Controller design: In this study, in order to maintain a constant inverter
output voltage various controllers such as PI controller as well as Fuzzy Logic
Controller (FLC) are used (Ghasemi et al., 2009;
Dursun, 2008). The performance of the designed controllers
are analysed for various loading conditions (Fig. 4).
PI controller is widely used in many applications since it is easy to implement and quite robust. It is needed to minimize the steady-state error to acquire a good response. The controller kp and ki values are tuned to get the desired output. The PI controller transfer function is given as:
where Kp and Ki represents proportional constant and
integral constant.
The error value obtained while comparing the measured value and desired value is given as input to the controller and the output received from this controller is further given to the system to obtain the desired value. PI controller starts the controlling process by tuning the values of kp and ki. In this study, the PI controller is tuned for Kp and Ki values of 10 and 0.2 respectively (Fig. 5).
Fuzzy logic controller system consists of membership functions for input and
output, rule-based controller, linguistic variable.
|
| Fig. 3: |
Gate control signals for switches in CSI |
|
| Fig. 4: |
Block diagram of CSI with controller |
|
| Fig. 5: |
Schematic diagram of PI controller |
By implementing the FLC the output voltage can be controlled and the inputs
to the fuzzy logic are error in voltage and change in voltage error and controller
output is given to the system as the gate control signals to get the desired
value (Alajmi et al., 2011). In MATLAB/Fuzzy
toolbar, the FLC is simulated with two inputs and one outputs.
The fuzzy logic needs three consecutive steps which are:
| Table 1: |
Rule table |
 |
Fuzzification is the first step involved in fuzzy logic to convert the crisp variables into fuzzy variable using the membership functions (Fig. 6). Membership functions are graphical representation of input and output data that are named by linguistic variable. In this study, seven-triangular membership functions are used namely negative small-NS, Negative Medium, NM, Negative Big-NB, Positive Small-PS, Positive Medium-PM Positive Big-PB, Zero Error-ZE. The second step involved in the fuzzy logic controller is the Inference in which rules are designed to interact with input and output values. It uses IF-THEN rule with a condition or conclusion to determine the system output response (Table 1). Last step of the controller is defuzzification. Since the controller output is a fuzzy value, this last stage of controller changes the fuzzy data into crisp data by using the output membership functions. Bisector method is carried out in the defuzzification process.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The current source inverter design is simulated using the MATLAB/Simulink tool. The Fig. 7 shows simulation of the CSI with PI controller and FLC to control the output voltage. At a carrier frequency of 10 KHZ, the output voltage and the THD are observed and compared.
| Table 2: |
Simulation parameters |
 |
The Fig. 7 shows the overall diagram of the CSI using the
two controllers and the THD for outputs obtained are compared for the controllers
used. The simulation parameter for the above figure has been mentioned in Table
2.
The Fig. 8 and 9 shows the simulation schematic
of both PI controller and FLC, respectively. The variation of THD in different
method has been tabulated in Table 3. It is observed that
the THD has been reduced to much satisfactory value in FLC than compared to
PI controller. Also, the output voltage remains constant even if there is any
change in the source voltage and load.
The simulation results are obtained circuit using FLC and proportional integral controller is listed in Table 3. For a given DC voltage of 50 V a boosted output AC voltage of 230 V is obtained by mitigating the harmonics in both DC and AC side with Proportional integral controller and FLC and it reduces the size, cost of the system. It is observed that a lower THD is obtained by grid connected CSI with fuzzy logic controller when compared to PI controller.
The PV array output voltage is shown in Fig. 8. From the figure it is clear that the voltage remains same for conventional and proposed CSI with PI controller and FLC (Fig. 10).
Figure 11(a-c) represents the output
voltage obtained across the R-load without grid connected by using conventional
PI controller, proposed PI controller and fuzzy controller, respectively.
|
| Fig. 7: |
Overall model of CSI |
|
| Fig. 8: |
Grid connected Simulink model of CSI proportional integral
controller |
| Table 3: |
Analysis of THD with fuzzy logic controller and PI controller |
 |
Figure 12(a-c) represents the waveform
of load current obtained without grid connected by using conventional PI controller
proposed PI controller and FLC, respectively.
Figure 13(a-b) represents the waveform
of output voltage obtained across the R-load for the proposed PI controller
and the FLC, respectively when the grid is connected.
Figure 14(a-b) represents waveforms of
the load current for the proposed PI controller and the FLC, respectively when
the grid is connected.
Figure 15(a-c) represents FFT analysis
of the output voltage for the proposed PI controller and the FLC, respectively
when the grid is connected.
|
| Fig. 9: |
Grid connected simulink model of CSI fuzzy logic controller |
|
| Fig. 10: |
PV output voltage |
|
| Fig. 11(a-c): |
Output voltage of proposed integral controller (a) Conventional
(b) Proposed and (c) FLC |
|
| Fig. 12(a-c): |
Output current of proportional integral controller (a) Conventional
(b) Proposed and (c) FLC |
|
| Fig. 13(a-b): |
Output voltage of (a) Proportional integral controller and
(b) FLC |
|
| Fig. 14(a-b): |
Output voltage of (a) Proportional integral controller and
(b) FLC |
|
| Fig. 15(a-b): |
FFT Analysis of grid connected CSI with (a) PI Controller
and (b) Fuzzy logic controller |
In the FFT analysis shown above it is clear that the THD of double tuned CSI
using fuzzy controller is reduced compared to PI controller.
CONCLUSION
A double-tuned CSI with PV array is simulated with PI controller and fuzzy controller in a closed loop manner in MATLAB/Simulink. The results obtained from the simulation of the current source inverter with proportional integral controller and FLC shows that the performance of fuzzy controller is best over the conventional and PI controller based converters. The double tuned CSI using fuzzy logic controller output voltage has very less total harmonic distortion. This configuration is best suitable for microgrid applications due to its reduced THD. The proposed system provides a faster response and better efficiency comparable with conventional current source inverter.
