Effective utilization of unified power quality conditioner for interconnecting PV modules with grid using power angle control method

This paper proposes the effective utilization of unified power quality conditioner (UPQC) for interconnecting the PV modules to the grid using power angle control (PAC) method. A shunt active power filter (APF) is used to evacuate the power from the photovoltaic module in addition to compensating the current harmonics, load unbalance and reactive power. To accomplish this the series APF in the UPQC is used for supplying a part or whole reactive power required by the load in addition to compensating the sag, swell, supply voltage unbalance and distortions. This is made possible by controlling the phase angle and magnitude of series injected voltage called power angle control method. The reactive power and voltage compensation technique introduces a phase shift between the load terminal voltage and source voltage. The transient due to sudden phase shift is minimized using step by step introduction of series compensation voltage. The proposed method effectively utilizes the shunt APF and series APF in the UPQC for interconnecting the PV module to the grid. The simulation results from MATLAB/SIMULINK are discussed to validate the developed method. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.