An Enhanced Grid Current Compensator for Grid-Connected Distributed Generation Under Nonlinear Loads and Grid Voltage Distortions

This paper introduces an advanced current control strategy for grid-connected operations of distributed generation (DG), which supports the DG to transfer a sinusoidal current into the utility grid despite the distorted grid voltage and nonlinear local load conditions. The proposed current controller is designed in the synchronous reference frame and composed of a proportional-integral (PI) controller and a repetitive controller (RC). An RC serves as a bank of resonant controllers, which can compensate a large number of harmonic components with a simple delay function. Hence, the control strategy can be greatly simplified. In addition, the proposed control method does not require the local load current measurement or harmonic analysis of the grid voltage. Therefore, the proposed control method can be easily adopted into the traditional DG control system without installation of extra hardware. Despite the reduced number of sensors, the grid current quality is significantly improved compared with the traditional methods with the PI controller. The operation principle of the proposed control method is analyzed in detail, and its effectiveness is validated through simulated and experimental results.