Design of a smart inverter system for Photovoltaic systems application

The rising interest in the use of solar energy to mitigate climate change, reduction in the cost of PV system and other favourable factors have increased the penetration of the Photovoltaic (PV) systems in the market as compared to other renewable energy sources, as a result, increasing the worldwide energy supply. The main component in a distributed generation (DG) is a DC- AC inverter connected in a grid-tied mode which serves as a direct interface between the grid and the Renewable Energy System (RES). This paper thus presents a three phase grid-tied inverter with pulse-width-modulation (PWM) control and low pass filter connection between the inverter and the utility grid to reduce the harmonics present due to the intermittent nature of the renewable energy sources. The type of inverter designed is a Voltage Source Inverter (VSI). The VSI is capable of supplying energy to the utility grid with a well-regulated DC link to stabilize the voltage at the inverter input. The design, modelling and simulation of the smart inverter system were performed using MATLAB/SIMULINK software.