Power Quality Improvement at the Distribution Side by the Use of Grid Interfaced Inverter
K. Vidhyalakshmi1, S. Md. Zubair2, S. Ramprasath3
1K.Vidhyalakshmi, Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, N.S.N. College of Engineering and Technology, Karur, India.
2S.Mohamed Zubair, Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, N.S.N. College of Engineering and Technology, Karur, India.
3S.Ram prasath, Department of Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering, Muthayammal Engineering College, Namakkal, India.
Manuscript received on November 25, 2013.  | Revised Manuscript received on December 15, 2013.  | Manuscript published on December 30, 2013.  | PP: 103-109 | Volume-3, Issue-2, December 2013.  | Retrieval Number:  B2377123213/2013©BEIESP

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© The Authors. Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering and Sciences Publication (BEIESP). This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

Abstract: Renewable energy resources (RES) are being increasingly connected in distribution systems utilizing power electronic converters. This paper presents a novel control strategy for achieving maximum benefits from these gridinterfacing inverters when installed in 3-phase 4-wire distribution systems. The inverter is controlled to perform as a multi-function device by incorporating active power filter functionality. The inverter can thus be utilized as: 1) power converter to inject power generated from RES to the grid, and 2) shunt APF to compensate current unbalance, load current harmonics, load reactive power demand and load neutral current. All of these functions may be accomplished either individually or simultaneously. With such a control, the combination of gridinterfacing inverter and the 3-phase 4-wire linear/non-linear unbalanced load at point of common coupling appears as balanced linear load to the grid. This new control concept is demonstrated with extensive MATLAB, Simulink simulation studies and validated through digital signal processor-based laboratory experimental results.
Keywords:  Active power filter(APF), Distributed generation (DG), Distribution system, Grid interconnection, power quality (PQ).