A grid-connected system based on a real time PV emulator: Design and experimental set-up

This paper presents a grid-connected PV system where the PV source is replaced by a real time emulator. The PV emulator is based on a DC/DC converter controlled by the pole placement technique according to PV current-voltage characteristics. These characteristics are obtained by an analytical model whose parameters are identified on the basis of an actual PV installation. In the proposed plant the power conditioning system is given by a boost converter whose control is based on a fuzzified PI regulator. The DC bus is connected to the grid by a three phase voltage oriented controlled (VOC) active rectifier. The use of the emulator allows to accurately investigate the whole PV system behavior, in every potential working condition, without the use of a real outdoor installation, thus reducing the time and the cost of the experiments. The design and the experimental set-up of the proposed PV system is described in details. Finally experimental test results are given.