Optimal control design of a voltage controller for stand-alone and grid-connected PV converter

This paper presents an optimal control design for a generic stand-alone and grid connected PV system under various environmental conditions. Several control objectives are investigated to regulate output voltage in stand-alone mode and to extract maximum power from a PV solar system in grid-connected operation. In this study, the Perturb and Observe (P&O) algorithm is implemented for Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT). The dynamic models of PV connected to DC load and DC grid are described in detail. A Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) approach is used to optimally design a voltage controller in both operation modes. The simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed approach to manage the system performance under various weather conditions and possible changes in load demand.