Experimental Validation of Grid-Connected Photovoltaic Model for Steady-State Analysis

This paper presents the harmonic domain (HD) model of a 20 kW PV grid-connected system. The system consists of PV array, DC-DC boost converter, voltage-sourced inverter, and LCL filter. As this paper focuses on steady-state, the PV array is modeled as Thevenin's equivalent according to prespecified operating point. The obtained steady-state results are compared with PSCAD/EMTDC detailed model for the same system. Moreover, field measurements of a real 20 kW PV system are used as a reference for the results obtained by the HD model and by PSCAD/EMTDC. The waveforms of the voltages and currents are captured by the use of power quality analyzers located at the system's most relevant points. A comparison of the results shows great similarity between the HD-based PV system and the measurements. The results confirm the ability of HD to represent switching systems accurately without the need for large computational resources.