Supercapacitor energy storage system for fault ride through in grid-connected PV array

Abstract

A fault ride through, power management and control strategy for grid integrated photovoltaic (PV) system with supercapacitor energy storage system (SCESS) is presented in this paper. During normal operation the SCESS will be used to minimize the short term fluctuation as it has high power density and during fault at the grid side it will be used to store the generated power from the PV array for later use and for fault ride through. To capture the maximum available solar power, Incremental Conductance (IC) method is used for maximum power point tracking (MPPT). An independent P-Q control is implemented to transfer the generated power to the grid using a Voltage source inverter (VSI). The SCESS is connected to the system using a bi-directional buck boost converter. The system model has been developed that consists of PV module, buck converter for MPPT, buck-boost converter to connect the SCESS to the DC link. Three independent controllers are implemented for each power electronics block. The effectiveness of the proposed controller is examined on Real Time Digital Simulator (RTDS) and the results verify the superiority of the proposed approach.