Direct Model Predictive Control of Novel H-Bridge Multilevel Inverter Based Grid-Connected Photovoltaic System

Abstract

In this paper, a direct model predictive control (DMPC) for the novel H-Bridge multilevel inverter topology-based grid-connected photovoltaic system (GCPS) is presented. The DMPC has several advantages over the conventional control techniques, including optimality, ability to handle multiple control goals, and direct manipulation of semiconductor switches instead of the modulator. The main control goals in the GCPS are to extract the maximum energy from the photovoltaic (PV) system and inject the current into the grid with minimum total harmonic distortion (THD) or close to unity power factor. The DMPC performs well in terms of these control goals. The entire GCPS with the proposed controller is simulated in Simulink MATLAB and the results are compared with the existing GCPSs in the literature. The usage of less number of semiconductor switches while keeping the same number of output voltage levels made the proposed GCPS efficient, less costly, and simpler in design. Moreover, its voltage and current THD are comparable with the systems existing in the literature.