Experimental study of the nonlinear distortion caused by domestic power plants

An experimental study is presented in this work, where the distortion effect of a 4 kW photovoltaic domestic power plant, located in Hungary, has been examined. The power plant is connected to a low voltage grid by using a standard grid synchronized inverter. Based on the measured voltage and current signals we examined the frequency domain behavior of the power plant, and the effect of the power plant on the power quality, mainly the total harmonic distortion. The measurement database shows that the synchronous power injection of the photovoltaic domestic power plant has serious effect on the voltage distortion of the low voltage grid, and this effect highly depends on the actual generated power. on the experimental results, suggestions on how to operate the photovoltaic domestic power plant are formulated that enable its energy-efficient operation with minimal distortion effect.