Predictive Current Control of Three Level Neutral Point Clamped Grid Connected Inverter in Photovoltaic Generation Systems

This paper presents predictive current control technique for three-level NPC inverter connected to a photovoltaic panel through a DC/DC inverter, the application of MPCC strategy to 3L-NPC inverter based on the cost function is defined to minimize the error between the reference currents and predicted values, and balance the DC-link capacitor voltage, the optimal switching state that minimizes the cost function is selected and applied to the inverter. For the optimum use of the PV module, a maximum power point tracking (MPPT) controller is used which enables the maximum power extraction under varying irradiation and temperature conditions. Finally, the simulation results show that the suggested control achieves high performance and high degree of robustness while balancing the DC-link capacitor voltages.