Grid-Connected PV Inverter Test System for Solar Photovoltaic Power System Certification

Photovoltaic inverter, that is in charge of electric power conversion, is a critical component used in solar photovoltaic power systems. Many concerns are focused on the operation of photovoltaic inverter due to the worse designing may cause the terrible influences on safety, performance and grid interconnection characteristics of solar photovoltaic power systems. IEEE SCC21 provides a uniform standard, known as IEEE 1547 standard, for interconnection considerations of distributed resources with electric power systems. The standard focuses on the technical specifications and includes general principles, response to abnormal conditions, power quality, islanding, and test instructions and requirements for design, production, installation evaluation, commissioning, and periodic tests. This paper presents a interconnection test system for grid-connected photovoltaic inverter based on such standard. Some of the test items that described in IEEE 1547.1 standard are carried out by the proposed system to verify the overall performance. The system is now introduced into the equipment certification of solar photovoltaic power system in Taiwan; therefore, the description of photovoltaic inverter voluntary product certification system in Taiwan may also be presented in the study.