A Simplified Design Strategy for Multi-Resonant Current Control of a Grid-Connected Voltage Source Inverter with an LCL Filter

• Main Authors: Matthias Schiesser, Sébastien Wasterlain, Mario Marchesoni, Mauro Carpita
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2018-03-01
• Series: Energies
• Subjects: current harmonic mitigation; multi-resonant controller; distributed generation; power quality
• Online Access: http://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/11/3/609

A distorted grid voltage or nonlinear behavior in the current control loop can cause low frequency current harmonics in a grid-connected voltage source inverter (VSI). Many efforts have been made to mitigate such phenomena, including hardware and/or control structure improvements. A well-known suitable strategy to reduce current harmonics in a selective manner is to apply a Proportional Multi-Resonant (PMR) current controller. Inverter-grid stability is another common issue when dealing with grid-connected VSI. Stability is influenced by the inverter impedance, which depends on the controller parameters. This paper presents a simplified tuning strategy for the PMR controller, taking into consideration the inverter-grid stability issue. The obtained controller was implemented and tested in a 10 kW three-phase inverter with a passively damped LCL filter. A significant reduction of current harmonics emission from the inverter up to 650 Hz was achieved without any hardware modification. The limits of PMR controllers to mitigate current harmonics were studied, and the influence of the grid impedance was verified.