2023 IEEE AFRICON

A Control Strategy for a Grid Connected PV and

Battery Energy Storage System
Maxwell Ochieng Ngala Christopher Maina Muriithi
Alternative Energy Department Department of Electrical Engineering
REREC Muranga University of Technology
Nairobi,Kenya Muranga, Kenya
[email protected] [email protected]

Abstract— Photovoltaic generation will continue to grow ESS systems differ based on operating principle and
with urbanization, electrification, digitalization, and de- internal chemistries. These include electrochemical, physical,
carbonization. However, PV generation is variable and electromechanical, electrostatic, and electromagnetic. Battery
intermittent, non-inertia and asynchronous with the demand, Energy Storage Systems (BESS) is the most mature ESS with
posing significant challenges in generation dispatch, strategic versatile high-energy and high-power applications.
spinning reserve and power system stability. Battery Energy
Storage Systems (BESS) are key in enabling the integration of Energy Storage has become critical in supporting the
higher quanta of solar PV into utility power grids. Grid decarbonization of utility power grids and distributed and
connected PV, BESS and PV-BESS have been modelled on decentralized energy systems. The transition to zero carbon
MATLAB/Simulink. The control strategy of the grid connected emissions in the electric power sector [6] and the
PV inverter operates PV at MPP and ensures grid side current advancements in the electric vehicle industry have driven
control to determine the amount of power delivered. These demand for ESS and led to more remarkable innovations to
objectives have been achieved using PWM on two successive improve reliability, security, efficiency, and lower costs.
control strategies. The VSI control determines the modulation
index for generating an output current that is both sinusoidal This paper has presented a control strategy for a 3-Φ grid
and in phase with the grid-side voltage. The Perturb & Observe connected PV with feed forward input power control and
based MPPT is used. Current-controlled H-bridge PWM single- BESS using the single-stage and dual-stage topologies
stage three-phase and bi-directional two stage three phase respectively. A model of 96.75kWp polycrystalline PV and a
inverters with LCL low pass filters are implemented on 360V/200Ah Battery Storage is done on Simulink.
MATLAB/Simulink. The critical components in the control
circuit are the PLL, P&O MPPT, feed-forward input power II. METHODOLOGY
control and a Proportional Integral (PI) based grid-side current
Three models are developed on MATLAB/Simulink:
controller. A sinusoidal grid current is successfully fed to the
2023 IEEE AFRICON | 979-8-3503-3621-4/23/$31.00 ©2023 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/AFRICON55910.2023.10293711

grid from the grid connected solar PV and grid connected BESS. 1. Grid Connected Solar PV Model
An FFT analysis performed on the grid side currents shows the 2. Grid Connected BESS Model
total harmonic distortion (THD) is below the limit specified in 3. Grid Connected Solar PV-BESS Model
IEEE-519.
A. System Description
Keywords—BESS, single-stage, control, PWM, MPPT
A 96.75 kWp Solar PV system that includes the solar PV
I. INTRODUCTION array, input side dc link capacitor 𝐶_𝑑𝑐 and resistance R_dc,
and an ac output LCL filter with grid connection. The PV
Global solar PV cumulative installed capacity rose by 22%
array, comprising 450 PV modules (18 in parallel and 25 in
from 2019 to 773.2 GW in 2020 despite the novel Covid-19
pandemic [1] with China (33%), USA (12%), Japan (9%), series) was modelled on MATLAB/Simulink. The voltage at
Germany (7%) India (5%) leading. the DC bus bar is maintained higher than the peak ac voltage
output due to the lack of the boost converter in this topology.
Utility power grids have become more weather dependent A Lithium-ion BESS of 360V nominal voltage, 300Ah,
with the increased penetration of vREs. Solar radiation, for 50% initial SOC and 1 second response time was coupled to
example, is dependent on random and stochastic properties the grid through a bi-directional voltage source inverter and
and conditions like cloud cover, cloud micro-physics, solar buck-boost DC-DC converter. The battery was controlled to
geometry, water vapor, winds, and aerosols (mineral, dust, operate in two modes – charging and discharging-based on the
and soot). The consequence of this is intermittent radiation reference current.
and generation output [2] in a typical day from solar PV,
leading to challenges[3] in generation dispatch, strategic The PV array and the bi-directional DC-DC battery
spinning reserve and power system stability. converter were connected to the voltage source inverter with
the bi-directional converter being used to interface the BESS
To facilitate the integration of higher quanta of solar to the DC bus bar of the inverter. The bi-directional allows for
photovoltaic (PV) into utility power grids, there is a need to battery charge and discharge.
smoothen the instantaneous fluctuations in power output.
Some of the proposed intermittency mitigations measures B. Inverter Control
include wider geographic diversity in siting of solar PV power In grid connected PV systems, the main functions of the
plants leading to overall smoothing of output, transmission inverter are grid synchronisation (magnitude and frequency)
system expansion to facilitate greater interconnections [4] and and control and optimisation of the power flows during
usage of energy storage systems (ESS) [5]. operation.

978-8-3503-3621-4/23/$31.00 ©2023 IEEE

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 2023 IEEE AFRICON
The control strategy of the grid connected PV inverter axis and quadrature axis components, which was then
was defined as MPPT control and inverter control. It was separately tuned to control active and reactive power flow into
designed to achieve the following objectives: the grid.
i. Operate PV at MPP. Extract maximum power from
the array by tracking the MPP.
ii. Grid side current control to determine the amount of
power delivered. This involves DC-AC conversion
with output current having low harmonic content
and in phase with the grid voltage to perform power
transfer at UPF.
These objectives have been achieved by using PWM on
two successive control loops. A current controlled H-bridge Fig.1: PV Inverter Controls for d axis component reference current
PWM inverter with an LCL low pass filter is designed. The
VSI control determines the modulation index for generating
an output current that is both sinusoidal and in phase with the
grid-side voltage. The Perturb & Observe based MPPT is used
to track the array maximum power point. The inverter is
controlled using SRF theory to obtain reference grid currents.
In the single stage topology, the PV voltage equals the inverter
DC bus bar voltage. Imbalance between the active power input
and output leads to fluctuations in this voltage.
The control strategy of the grid connected BESS was Fig.2: Decoupled regulation of p and q power components through inverter
control
designed to achieve the following:
The grid voltage-oriented reference frame employed for
i. Operate the battery in charging and discharging
transformations used the phase angle provided by
modes
instantaneous voltage measurements.
ii. Grid side current control to determine the amount of
As shown in Fig. 2, and to ensure the feed forward control,
power delivered.
the voltage references are:
Current-controlled H-bridge PWM single-stage three- 𝑑𝑖
phase and two stage three phase inverters with LCL low pass 𝑉𝑑∗ = 𝑉𝑑 + 𝑅𝑔 𝐼𝑑 + 𝐿𝑔 𝑑 − 𝜔𝐿𝐼𝑞 (3)
𝑑𝑡
filters were implemented on MATLAB/Simulink. The critical 𝑑𝑖𝑞
components in the control circuit are the PLL, P&O MPPT, 𝑉𝑞∗ = 𝑉𝑞 + 𝑅𝑔 𝐼𝑞 + 𝐿𝑔 + 𝜔𝐿𝐼𝑑 (4)
𝑑𝑡
feed-forward input power control and a Proportional Integral
(PI) based grid-side current controller. 𝑉𝑑∗ and 𝑉𝑞∗ were the direct and quadrature axes
components of the inverter reference voltage, in that order, 𝜔
A sinusoidal grid current was successfully fed to the grid is the grid angular frequency and 𝐿𝑔 and 𝑅𝑔 are the
from the battery storage system and PV. An FFT analysis
inductance and resistance between the inverter and grid
performed on the grid side currents based on IEEE-519
respectively.
standards.
The PLL helped in monitoring frequency and amplitude of
Aligning the reference frame along the grid voltage grid voltage. It generated output in phase with the sensed input
produced zero q axis grid voltage. Therefore, the active and while the LPF cancels out the high frequency noise in that
reactive power were manipulated by controlling the grid signal to eliminate interference.
components of the direct and quadrature axes as seen in the For the bi-directional DC-DC converter, in the grid to
following equations: battery mode, the reference current is negative while in the
3
𝑃𝑔 = 𝑉𝑔𝑑 𝑖𝑑 (1) battery to grid mode, the reference current is positive. The
2
sensed battery current was compared to the reference current
3
𝑄𝑔 = 𝑉𝑔𝑑 𝑖𝑞 (2) and the error was fed into a PI controller. The output from the
2
The direct and quadrature axes components of the VSI PI controller was compared with the triangular waveform to
reference voltage were VD and VQ in that order. The grid obtain gating pulses for the bi-directional converter.
angular frequency is 𝜔t. The BESS was controlled through grid voltage-oriented
The reference d axis current was determined from the reference frame. The d axis and q axis components controlled
outer dc-bus bar voltage controller whose objective was to the real and reactive powers respectively.
keep the voltage at the point corresponding to the tracked
maximum power point where the dc voltage control is
achieved by comparing 𝑉_𝑝𝑣 with 𝑉_𝑑𝑐_𝑅𝑒𝑓 which is the
maximum power point voltage.
The reactive current reference was kept at zero for UPF
operation of the grid connected inverter. To keep the currents
at the determined reference points while ensuring
synchronization with the grid, a grid side voltage-oriented Fig.3: BESS Inverter Control for d axis reference current component
control was used. The PLL obtained, from the sensed grid side
voltage, the phase angle in reference frame transformations.
The 3-phase inverter currents were transformed into the direct

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 2023 IEEE AFRICON
Fig. 3 shows the grid connected BESS inverter control for
the direct axis component reference current. The dc bus
voltage control is achieved in the case of the grid connected
BESS by comparing the sensed dc bus voltage with the target
dc bus voltage.
The reactive current was maintained at zero in this study
because the BESS operates at UPF. In principle, the reactive
current reference can be obtained from a reactive power
controller. Fig.5: Grid Voltage & Grid Current

C. Perturb & Observe MPPT Algorithm The higher the irradiance, the higher the PV output
The MPPT continuously tunes the PV to reach the MPP current. The current is nearly proportional to the irradiance at
regardless of changes in irradiance, ambient temperature, or fixed temperature. It was also observed that irradiance and
load. The P&O method has been selected as the MPPT temperature variations lead to little change in the MPP and the
strategy in the simulation because of its less complexity and dc bus voltage.
shorter computational time. The effect of changes in temperature, at constant
D. PV Input Power Control irradiance, on PV voltage, current and power show that change
in temperature affects the voltage more than current.
A control strategy for input (dc) power involving a feed-
forward component is used for the PV inverter. The V_dcRef The instantaneous active power is positive, meaning a
is the output from the P&O MPPT controller. sinusoidal current flows into the grid. Fast Fourier Transform
analysis is conducted on the grid current and the THD found
to be 2.94%. This is less than the 5% limit in the IEEE-519
standard.
B. Grid Connected BESS – Discharging Mode
A sinusoidal output current, in phase with the voltage, is
obtained, hence active power is injected into the grid from the
grid connected BESS inverter.
The output active power and reactive power show that the
instantaneous active power is positive, meaning a sinusoidal
Fig.4: PV Input power feed forward current flows into the grid. Wave forms of the DC link
voltage, BESS voltage and battery state of charge in the BESS
This PV power feed forward improves the system’s
discharging mode were similarly obtained. When operated
dynamics. The feedforward term, 𝑊𝐴𝐷 is:
under this mode, the SOC and Battery voltage decrease. The
𝑊𝐴𝐷 =
2 ×𝑃𝑃𝑉
(5) dc link voltage is maintained at the reference 800V as a
3×𝑉𝐷 balanced, sinusoidal and unity power factor current flows into
the grid.
The dc PI controller improves the response of the system
to abrupt changes in dc input power. The harmonic spectrum of inverter output (grid-side)
current was obtained. The THD was found to be 2.45% for the
The PI current controller with grid voltage feed forward is grid side current, which is below the 5% limit as defined in
typically implemented as shown below for current controlled IEEE-519.
PV inverters.
C. Grid Connected BESS – Charging Mode
𝐺_𝑃1 (𝑠) = 𝐾_𝑝 + 𝐾_1/𝑠 (6) A sinusoidal output current, out of phase with the grid
The grid voltage FF improves the system’s dynamic voltage, is obtained, hence active power flows from the grid
response, but its introduction causes instability because of the to the BESS.
delay brought by the voltage feedback filter. The output active power and reactive power were similarly
III. RESULTS & DISCUSSION obtained. The instantaneous active power is negative,
indicating power flow from the grid to charge the BESS.
The grid connected solar PV (96.75kWp), grid connected
BESS (360V/200Ah) and the grid connected PV-BESS were The waveforms of the DC link voltage, BESS voltage and
modelled and simulated on MATLAB/Simulink. The inverter battery state of charge in the BESS charging mode were
switching frequency ( 𝑓_𝑠𝑤) is 10 kHz and the control compared. When operated under this mode, the SOC and
strategies were implemented on Simulink. Battery voltage increase. The dc link voltage is maintained at
the reference 800V as current flows in the reverse direction
The insolation was varied from an initial 1000W/m2 and from the grid to charge the battery.
25◦C and the impact noted. The results are as shown in the
graphs below. The harmonic spectrum of inverter output (grid-side)
current was obtained . The THD is 2.41% for the grid side
A. Grid Connected Solar PV current, which is below the 5% limit as defined in IEEE-519.
A sinusoidal output current, in phase with the voltage, is
obtained, hence active power is injected into the grid from the
grid connected PV inverter.

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 2023 IEEE AFRICON
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