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DC Current Injection Into the Network from PV Grid Inverters

Conference Paper · June 2006

DOI: 10.1109/WCPEC.2006.279668 · Source: IEEE Xplore

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 DC CURRENT INJECTION INTO THE NETWORK FROM PV GRID INVERTERS

1 1 2 2 1
V. Salas , E. Olías , M. Alonso , F. Chenlo and A. Barrado
Electronic Technology Department, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid1, Leganés (Madrid), SPAIN
2
Photovoltaic Solar Energy CIEMAT , Madrid, SPAIN

ABSTRACT

The present paper is focused on the study of the DC

current injection for low voltage small grid-connected PV
systems, which is one power quality requirements by the
utility companies. For this aim, the existing status of guide-
lines and regulations in six selected countries where the Figure 1 Grid photovoltaic elements
development in the grid PV sector has evolved rapidly
over the last decade, (Japan, Germany, USA, Australia, The DC voltage at PV generator is converted to a sinu-
Spain and United Kingdom) has been viewed, according soidal AC current waveform at the output of the switch
to the dc current injection into the grid. Furthermore, a converter, inverter, in order that may be connected and
grid-connected system installed in Spain has been used to synchronized to the utility network. According to state of
perform measures about their possible DC current injec- the art, inverters can be divided into three groups, in
tion into the grid. Thus, twelve single-phase inverters (ac- agreement with transformer options: 50 Hz LF transform-
cording to the transformer options: 50 Hz LF transformers, ers, HF transformers and transformerless. A review of the
HF transformers or transformer-less) from the European state of the art inverter has been also carried out. Thus,
market have been tested. Many groups of measurements three hundred and seventy nine have been viewed, from
were made, under different conditions. The results show which the 76 % are 10 kW below and 24 % up of 10 kW.
that in all cases there is any DC current injection, even if a
LF transformer inverter is used. Table 1 According to the dc current injection into the grid,
existing status of guidelines and regulations in six selected
INTRODUCTION countries, in alphabetic order: Australia, Germany, Japan,
Spain, United Kingdom and United States
Currently the management of energy sources repre- Country Standard Max DC Max DC cur-
sents a fundamental problem for the development and current rent permitted
prosperity of any community. As a result, there exist two permitted without trans-
major problems: the energy sources and the ambient with trans- former
pollution from the residues from conventional sources. former
Taking this into consideration, it is necessary to opti- Australia AS 4777.2 5 mA 5 mA
mize energy resources as with using alternative energy Germany DIN VDE - 1000 mA
sources. The main characteristics of such sources include 126
their renewability and small contamination contribution. Japan Technical 1 % inverter 1 % inverter
Photovoltaic solar energy is in this category and its use Guideline for rated power rated power
also has increased notably in industry over the past few the Grid
years. Interconnec-
Common distributed generators, PV generators par- tion
ticularly, are increasingly being connected to utility grids to Spain RD - -
contribute electrical power to the utility grid to meet power 1663/2000
demands and to meet electric consumers demands for United ER G83/1 - 5 mA
alternate sources of power. Kingdom
USA IEEE 929- 0.5 % rated 0.5 % rated
GRID PHOTOVOLTAIC ELEMENTS: PHOTO- 2000 power in- power inverter
VOLTAIC INVERTER verter

Figure 1 shows the main structure of the photovoltaic

system, which consists of the photovoltaic generator,
inverter, ac-filter and utility grid. The integration of PV
systems to electricity networks is covered in the standard
[1].

1-4244-0016-3/06/$20.00 ©2006 IEEE 2371

 By the other hand, one of the most important technical Thus, from a Laptop 0.04 A DC (7.7% of rms current) was
issues of the grid connection of generation plants is the measured as well as 0.03 A DC (11.2 % of rms current)
power quality. For any grid-connected system, voltage and from a Desktop PC. Also, the reference [9] reports 0.34 A
frequency regulation, harmonic distortion in the operating DC (0.53 % of rms current) from a fluorescent lighting
load range, power factor, protection and operation criteria load. However, up now measurements of DC current injec-
in the event of a grid failure consideration are important. tion from PV grid inverter have not been made. Theoreti-
However, in this paper special attention has been shown cally, two of the three types of inverter inverters, HF trans-
in the DC current injection. Because, a dc current fed from former and transformerless inverters, are candidates to
the customer's side into the grid can disturb the regular DC current injection.
operation of the upstream distribution transformer. It can
shift the transformers operating point and might cause EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
saturation. This would result in high primary current peaks,
which might trip the input fuse and thus cause a power A photovoltaic grid-connected system installed in the
outage to that specific section of the grid. It would further- CIEMAT (Madrid 40º 23’ N, Spain) has been used to per-
more cause increased harmonics. form measures. This installation was connected to an
However, the grid-interface criteria vary with the utility acquisition data system. This system received values from
companies and have yet to be standardised internation- meteorological variables and electric signals on the input
ally. Then, according to the dc current injection into the and output of the inverter. Such values have been meas-
grid, existing status of guidelines and regulations in six ured by means of the Yokogawa PZ4000 modular power
selected countries, in alphabetic order, Australia [2], Ger- analyzer.
many [3], Japan [4], Spain [5], United Kingdom [6] and
United States [7], where the development in the grid PV To carry out this study, twelve 50 Hz single-phase in-
sector has evolved rapidly over the last decade, have verters have been selected and tested, around 3 kW, from
been viewed, Table 1. European market. In the Table 2 is shown their most im-
portant characteristics.
Three groups of measurements were made: firstly,
Table 2 Inverters tested in the experimentation measurements for all inverters, under different dc operat-
Inverter type Company Nominal Nominal ing voltage, using function in harmonic mode of power
Power Current analyzer, were made. Then, only the cero harmonic was
(W) (A) taken. Secondly, in the transformerless and HF inverters a
LF transformer toroidal LF transformer, in accordance with IEC 61558
A 2500 10 [10], was put into outside between the inverter and the grid
B 4600 22 connection, observing the possible influence of the trans-
C 5000 33 former into the dc current. And thirdly, measurements,
using function in the normal mode of power analyzer, Idc
D 2200 10
simple average, were taken and compared with the meas-
HF transformer
urements using the function in harmonic mode.
F 2500 10.9
In the Figures 2 to 6 are shown some results more
G 3000 14.9 representatives obtained in this study for every type of
H 3000 13 inverter.
I 2600 12
Transformerless 23/08/05

J 3300 14.3
0.1
K 2300 14.3
L 2300 10.9 0.08

M 2500 13 0.06
DC current in AC side (A)

0.04
0.02
SOURCES OF DC INJECTION
0
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600
-0.02
There are numerous potential sources of direct current,
namely: power supplies computer, network faults, geo- -0.04
magnetic phenomena, cycloconverters, lighting cir- -0.06
cuits/dimmers, embedded generators, AC and DC -0.08
drives…and PV grid inverters.
-0.1
Measurements have been performanced of some AC Power (W)
sources. For examples, measurements were taken from
Figure 2 DC current in AC side (A) gathered from a PV LF
computer power supplies, [8], monitoring the DC levels.
transformer inverter (type A), taken in harmonic mode

2372
 From the Figures 2, 3 and 4 can be observed that And finally, the measures using function in the normal
there are some differentiates appreciable for the DC cur- measurement mode, Idc simple average, were similar to
rent measured among inverters for the three groups. Thus, harmonic measurement mode.
the maximum value is greater in transformerless inverters
than HF transformer and LF transformer inverters, respec- 9/2/2005

tively. Thus, there is DC current non zero when a LF trans-

former inverter is used. To probe if that DC current came
0.1
from inverter or was existing in the network the only DC HF transformer Inverter + LF transformer
current network was measured. Values non zero were 0.08 HF transformer Inverter
met.

DC current in AC side (A)

0.06
27/07/05
0.04
0.06
0.02

0.05 0
DC current in AC side (A)

-0.02 0 500 1000 1500 2000

0.04
-0.04
0.03
-0.06
AC Power (W)
0.02
Figure 5 DC current in AC side (A) gathered from a PV HF
0.01 transformer inverter adding an LF toroidal transformer, meas-
ured in harmonic mode
0
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500
AC Power (W) 8/2/2005

Figure 3 DC current in AC side (A) gathered from a PV HF 0.2

transformer inverter (type E), taken in harmonic mode Transformerless Inverter + LF transformer
0.15 Transformerless Inverter + LF transformer
In a second group of measures taken, when a LF
DC current in AC side (A)

toroidal transformer was inserted between inverter and 0.1

network in a HF transformer and transformerless inverter
(previously measured without transformer), is shown in 0.05
Figures 5 and 6 that the DC current decreases with re-
spect to the same measures without transformer. There- 0
fore, the results, then, are similar than LF transformer 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400
-0.05
inverter.
8/2/2005
-0.1
0.2
-0.15
AC Power (W)
0.15
Figure 6 DC current in AC side (A) gathered from a PV
DC current in AC side (A)

0.1 transformerless inverter adding an LF toroidal transformer,

measured in harmonic mode
0.05

0
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400
-0.05

-0.1

-0.15
AC Power (W)
Figure 4 DC current in AC side (A) gathered from a PV
transformerless inverter (type E), taken in harmonic mode

2373
 CONCLUSIONS [9] The BSRIA Power Quality Guide, Application Guide
AG2/2000, Pearson,C.C, Uthayanan, V.
Based on the results presented the following conclu-
sions may be stated. From said legislation it has been [10] IEC 61558-1: 1997, “Safety of power transformers,
possible to determine that discrepancies exist among the power supplies, reactors and similar products - Part 1:
standards which are applied in the different countries. For General requirements and tests”.
example, in three of the countries analyzed (the United
States, Japan and Australia), limitations with respect to the
injection of the DC are imposed for inverters with a trans-
former.
With respect to measures taken from different invert-
ers have been observed that there are some differentiates
appreciable for the DC current measured among inverters
for the three groups.
Also, there is DC current non zero when a LF trans-
former inverter is tested. It might probe that there is a
current existing in the network that varies with respect the
time.
Finally, when a LF toroidal transformer was inserted
between inverter and network in DC/AC converters without
LF transformer (previously measured without transformer),
is shown that the DC current decreases with respect to the
same measures without transformer. Although there is DC
current non zero. It might probe that there is a DC current
injection to the network.

REFERENCES

[1] IEC 61727: 1996 Photovoltaic (Pv) Systems. Charac-

teristics of the utility interface.

[2] AS 4777.2, Grid connection of energy systems via

inverters Part 2: Inverter requirements. Australia. 2002

[3] DIN VDE 0126-1-1 Automatic disconnection device

between a generator and the public low-voltage grid,
1999.

[4] JISC 8980:1997 Power conditioner for small photo-

voltaic power generating system.

[5] Royal Decree 1663/2000, dated September 29th, on

the connection of photovoltaic installations to the low volt-
age network.

[6] ER G83/1”Recommendations for the connection of

small-scale embedded generators (up to 16 a per phase)
in parallel with public low-voltage distribution networks”.
Engineering Recommendation, United Kingdom, Septem-
ber 2003.

[7] IEEE 929-2000, IEEE Recommended Practice for

Utility Interface of Photovoltaic (PV) Systems, 3 April,
2000.

[8] Industry Consultation on Grid Connection of Small PV

systems, ETSU S/P2/00332/REP, Halcrow Gilbert, 2000

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