Experimental Study of an Inverter Control for Reactive Power Compensation in a Grid-Connected Solar Photovoltaic System Using Sliding Mode Control

Manuel Flota-Bañuelos, María Espinosa-Trujillo (), José Cruz-Chan and Tariq Kamal ()
Additional contact information
Manuel Flota-Bañuelos: Renewable Energy Department, University of Yucatan, Merida 97000, Yucatan, Mexico
María Espinosa-Trujillo: Industrial Division, Metropolitan Technological University, Merida 97279, Yucatan, Mexico
José Cruz-Chan: Industrial Division, Metropolitan Technological University, Merida 97279, Yucatan, Mexico
Tariq Kamal: School of Technology and Innovations, Electrical Engineering, University of Vaasa, 65200 Vaasa, Finland

Energies, 2023, vol. 16, issue 2, 1-26

Abstract: In photovoltaic (PV) systems, inverters have an essential role in providing an energy supply to meet the demand with power quality. Inverters inject energy into the grid considering that a renewable source is available; however, during intermittent periods or in the absence of power generation, the inverter remains inactive, which decreases the performance of the PV system. One way to increase the operation of inverters is to operate them as Volt-Amps Reactive (VAR) compensators to generate reactive power in the absence of renewable sources. The paper presents the development of a control scheme that allows the PV system’s inverter to improve the power factor in the electrical system with or without PV power generation. The proposed control is based on using a sliding mode controller (SMC) current control loop and PI-based voltage control loop. The control scheme is developed in MATLAB/SIMULINK, and for real evaluation, a PV prototype is implemented. The control strategy efficiency is confirmed by the obtained results. The control scheme increases the practical utility of PV systems. Additionally, it improves the power factor in all cases during the injection of active power to the grid operating under intermittent conditions and/or in the absence of power generation.

Keywords: sliding mode control; inverter; solar PV; power factor; reactive power compensation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/2/853/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/2/853/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:16:y:2023:i:2:p:853-:d:1032668

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().