Performance enhancement of grid-connected PV systems using adaptive reference PI controller

Solar photovoltaic (PV) energy has met great attention in the electrical power generation field for its many advantages. The connection of the PV systems to the electrical network is performed through DC-DC converter and DC-AC inverter. This paper aims at enhancing the integration of the PV systems into the electrical network through controlling both the converter and the inverter. An adaptive reference PI (ARPI) controller for the inverter is introduced to enhance the system performance through supporting low voltage ride through (LVRT) capability, and smoothing the PV generated power fluctuations during variable environmental conditions. While the converter is used to achieve the maximum power point tracking (MPPT) of the PV system-based perturb and observe (P&O) algorithm at different environmental conditions. A comparison between the system performance using the proposed ARPI and an optimal PI controller optimized by harmony search (HS) is introduced to test the effectiveness of the proposed strategy. (C) 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).