Mitigation of harmonics in a grid connected photovoltaic inverter

Abstract

Photovoltaic energy generation is one of the potential sources of renewable green energy because it is dirt free, unlimited source and requires less maintenance. Implementation of solar PV has been increasingly preferred for both commercial and residential purposes. The power quality issues are very common during the developing and integrating stages of solar PV. Inverters are considered as the main medium which enables the integration of solar PV into the grid. Due to the widespread use of inverters, harmonics are introduced into the system. These harmonics result in the degradation of power quality at the output. This research work is concerned with power quality when grid-connected systems are used. This paper proposes a new passive filter topology for a unipolar pulse width modulated single-phase inverter interfaced with the PV source and the grid. As a source for the system, a 25W photovoltaic panel is chosen. The panel is integrated with the proposed inverter and filter design. A hardware prototype was developed and suitable results were obtained and verified.