Integration of photovoltaic systems in a low voltage electrical grid

Abstract

This paper proposes the connection of photovoltaic panels to the grid by using an active power filter (APF) to reduce harmonics in the electrical system and inject the excess of electricity into the electrical grid. A boost converter was used to raise the voltage to the level imposed by the APF. The APF control was performed by the indirect method and for the extraction of the maximum power from the photovoltaic panels the Perturb and Observe control algorithm was used. The design and simulation of the performed system was done within Matlab/Simulink environment. The simulation was performed considering two hypotheses: injection of a higher and lower power than the one absorbed by the nonlinear load connected to the system. This paper considers the possibility of using a unified system which offers the possibility of both injecting electricity from renewable sources into the network and improving the quality of electricity.