IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 54, NO.

5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2018 5143

An Improved Feedforward Control Method

Considering PLL Dynamics to Improve Weak Grid
Stability of Grid-Connected Inverters
Xueguang Zhang , Member, IEEE, Danni Xia, Zhichao Fu , Gaolin Wang , Member, IEEE,
and Dianguo Xu , Fellow, IEEE

Abstract—Phase-locked loop (PLL) is commonly used for three- loop (PLL) may be one of the main reasons that affects the
phase grid-connected inverters to obtain the information of grid stability of the gird-inverter system.
synchronization, and PLL dynamics are the key factors for stable The PLL is usually used as an efficient approach to detect
operation of the inverters. Under weak grid conditions, the cou-
pling between PLL and grid impedance can result in harmonic grid phase angle, and the coupling effect between the PLL and
resonance, or even instability in the system. In this paper, the effect grid due to the existence of the grid impedance may produce
of PLL dynamics and grid impedance on the stability of three- destabilization in the grid. Negative impact of PLL on the sta-
phase grid-connected inverters is studied with the d–q impedance bility of the grid-connected inverters is owing to the negative
model. Besides, the variable transfer relationship is used to analyze incremental resistors in the range of PLL bandwidth, which
the influence of PLL perturbations on output current under weak
grid conditions. To suppress low-order harmonics of the network could lead the inverter system to unstable conditions [2], [3].
current caused by PLL perturbations under weak grid conditions, Besides, there exists frequency coupling between the positive-
a novel feedforward control method is proposed to compensate and negative-sequence impedance because of the PLL, and the
PLL perturbations and revise the output impedance, where the coupling is critical to the stability of the inverter [7]–[9].
operation of the inverter and PLL dynamics have been taken into The impedance-based analytical method has been widely
account in the design process. By analyzing the impedance char-
acteristic of the system, it can be demonstrated that the proposed used to evaluate the stability of the inverter system recently
method can enhance the stability of grid-connected inverters under [10]–[16]. The authors in [10] and [11] employed the harmonic
weak grid conditions and reduce the impact of PLL perturbations linearization method to model the impedance of the inverter
on grid-connecting current. The experimental results indicate that in the stationary αβ-frame, which reveals the negative impact
the low-order harmonics of the network current can be suppressed of the PLL. The impedance model is expressed by a diago-
effectively, which verifies the analysis.
nal transfer matrix and constructed for the positive sequence
Index Terms—Grid-connected inverters, impedance model, component and the negative sequence component separately.
Phase-locked loop (PLL) dynamics, system stability, weak grid. Besides, other works [2], [12]–[15] develop the impedance of
three-phase grid-connected inverters in the rotating d–q frame.
I. INTRODUCTION Thus, the PLL dynamics can be illustrated by linearizing the
transformation between the two frames. The d–q impedances
ITH the development of distributed power generation
W systems based on renewable sources, three-phase grid-
connected inverters are widely used to connect the systems to
can effectively address the stability of the three-phase ac system
considering PLL impact by means of a generalized Nyquist cri-
terion (GNC). Wang et al. [16] constructed a uniform impedance
the public grid [1]. The interaction between the control system model of grid-connected voltage-source inverters to reveal the
of grid-connected inverters and the grid may cause stability PLL effect, which is explicitly presented using complex transfer
problems, especially under weak grid conditions. Some recent functions and complex space vectors. It is proved that high PLL
literature works [2]–[9] have pointed out that the phase-locked bandwidth may lead to harmonic resonance, or even instability
in the system.
Manuscript received October 14, 2017; revised December 29, 2017; accepted To avoid the grid synchronization instability caused by PLL
February 2, 2018. Date of publication March 8, 2018; date of current version dynamics, several attempts have been reported in [4] and
September 17, 2018. Paper 2017-IPCC-1123.R1, approved for publication in [17]–[25]. Reducing the bandwidth of PLL to enhance the
the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS by the Industrial Power
Converter Committee of the IEEE Industry Applications Society. This work was stability of grid-connected inverters is discussed in [4]. It is
supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant shown that gains of PLL, particularly at low short-circuit ra-
51577040 and Grant 51720105008. (Corresponding author: Xueguang Zhang.) tios (SCRs), greatly affect the operation of the inverters. PLL
The authors are with the School of Electrical Engineering and Au-
tomation, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, Heilongjiang 150001, gain-scheduling adaptive control of the inverter based on online
China (e-mail:, [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; grid impedance measurements is proposed in [17], and adapta-
[email protected]; [email protected]). tion rules for PLL bandwidth gains are derived to improve the
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. stability of the inverter-grid system. Reshaping impedance of
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIA.2018.2811718 inverters or impedance-phased compensation for PLL has been
0093-9994 © 2018 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.

Authorized licensed use limited to: INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY DELHI. Downloaded on January 15,2022 at 12:18:15 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 5144 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 54, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2018

proven to offer an excellent means of strengthening the stability

in a weak grid [18]–[20]. An active damper is used to reshape the
grid impedance profile seen from the point of common coupling
(PCC) for stabilizing power-electronics-based ac system [21]. A
modified PLL based on the band-pass filter (BPF) is proposed to
revise the output admittance for attenuating the harmonic effect
[22]. Du et al. [23] configured self-admittance and accompany
admittance to represent the inverter including PLL effect and
proposed an asymmetric current control method to alleviate the
PLL effect, which improves the stability of a three-phase grid-
inverter system. Darari and Mohamed [24] proposed a robust
vector control method with an ac-bus voltage controller, which
considers the PLL dynamics. The proposed method can elimi-
nate the negative impact of the PLL on the converter stability.
Direct power control (DPC) scheme with a virtual synchronous
reference frame is applied for the grid-connected voltage source
inverter and the PLL can be removed from the control system. Fig. 1. Block diagram of three-phase grid-connected inverter.
The proposed approach can eliminate the low-frequency oscil-
latory behaviors during the frequency variations and improve
system stability [25].
The solutions mentioned above aim at increasing the sta-
bility margin or reshaping the output impedance for stability
enhancement, even removing the PLL from the control system.
Such control methods may have some limitations, including
a slower transient response of the inverter and complicated
parameters design. This paper builds the output impedance
model of a three-phase grid-connected inverter including current
loop, PLL, and digital control delays. Based on the established
impedance of inverter, the detailed transfer relationship between
system voltage and internal current is depicted. Considering
that the system voltage perturbation affects the performance
of current loop through PLL, an improved feedforward control Fig. 2. Small-signal circuit model of inverter in system d–q frame.
scheme, aiming to mitigate the negative impact of PLL and re-
vise the output impedance, is proposed to enhance the stability of Uca , Ucb , and Ucc denote the PCC voltages acquired by the
grid-connected inverters in a weak grid. PLL. ea , eb , and ec are the grid voltages, and iga , igb , and igc
The rest of this paper is organized as follows: The impedance represent the grid-side currents. The output angle of the PLL is
modeling of three-phase grid-connected inverters is given in θPLL . Hdel represents the time delay term.
Section II as a foundation of the following analysis. Then, the ef- The grid voltage oriented vector control method is used in
fect of grid impedance and bandwidth of PLL on the stability of the three-phase grid-connected inverter, and the current loop
grid-connected inverters is studied in Section III. An improved uses a proportional-integral (PI) controller. The expression of
feedforward control strategy is proposed and the effectiveness the current loop is
of this strategy on improving the stability of grid-inverter sys- 
usvd = −(kpi + ksi i )(id ref − id ) + ωL · iq + ud
tem is analyzed in Section IV. Experimental results are given . (1)
to verify the proposed method in Section V. Finally, Section VI usvq = −(kpi + ksi i )(iq ref − iq ) − ωL · id + uq
concludes.
Here, kpi and kii are the PI parameters. id and iq are active and
reactive currents, respectively, while id ref and iq ref are corre-
II. OUTPUT IMPEDANCE MODELING OF A THREE-PHASE
sponding current references. ud and uq are the PCC voltages in
GRID-CONNECTED INVERTER
the d–q frame, and usvd and usvq represent the output voltages
A. System Description in d and q current loops.
Fig. 1 shows the block diagram of a three-phase grid-
connected inverter with control system. Udc is the dc B. Impedance Modeling With PLL
voltage, and idc represents the dc current. S1 –S6 are the six The impedance-based analysis method is adopted in this paper
self-commutated devices of an antiparallel diode. Inverter-side to derive the impedance model of the three-phase grid-connected
currents are denoted as ia , ib , and ic . L, the parasitic resistance inverter in the rotating d–q frame. The small-signal circuit model
of which is represented by R, is the filter inductance on the of the inverter is shown in Fig. 2.
inverter-side. Cf is the filter capacitor, and Lg and Rg represent Take the model of d channel in Fig. 2 for instance. Dds is the
the grid-side inductance and resistance, respectively. Besides, steady-state value of duty ratio, and Udc is the steady value of

Authorized licensed use limited to: INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY DELHI. Downloaded on January 15,2022 at 12:18:15 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 ZHANG et al.: IMPROVED FEEDFORWARD CONTROL METHOD CONSIDERING PLL DYNAMICS TO IMPROVE WEAK GRID STABILITY 5145

Fig. 4. Block diagram of SRF PLL.

Fig. 3. System and controller d–q frames.
Signal s indicates that the variable is in the system d–q frame
dc voltage. Δdsd is the small-signal perturbation of duty ratio as well as signal c indicates that the variable is in the controller
in d channel. Similarly, ΔisdL is the small-signal perturbation d–q frame. In the d–q frame, the block diagram of SRF-PLL is
of current in d channel, and Δusd and Δusdc are the small- shown in Fig. 4.
signal perturbations of grid voltage and dc voltage, respectively. Based on the block diagram of SRF PLL, the steady-state
In this paper, the converter operates in the inverter mode and relationship of variables between the system d–q frame, and
the dc side energy is supplied by a programmable dc power system d–q frame is as follows:
supply, where dc voltage perturbation can be neglected and the
dc voltage is assumed to be constant. As for the stability of U  s , Ic = Is , D
c =U c = D
 s. (7)
dc-link voltage, it is not the emphasis at present and it will be
Equation (7) shows that the angle between the system d–q
analyzed in the future work. As depicted in Fig. 2, the output
frame and the controller d–q frame is 0. Use matrix T Δ θ , and
impedance depends on both grid voltage and duty ratio of the  c can be depicted as
then V
inverter. Assume Δdsd = 0, Δdsq = 0 if only considering the
 
grid voltage. Hence, cos 0 sin 0
    s  c =
U  s.
U (8)
Δusd ωL + R −ωL ΔidL − sin 0 cos 0
= . (2)
Δuqs
ωL ωL + R ΔisqL If small-signal perturbations are added to (8), then it can be
Then, easily obtained
   c     s 
ωL + R −ωL Ud + Δucd cos Δθ̃ sin Δθ̃ Ud + Δusd
Z out = . (3) = · . (9)
ωL ωL + R Uqc + Δucq − sin Δθ̃ cos Δθ̃ Uqs + Δusq
Assume Δusd = 0, Δusq = 0 when the duty ratio of inverter
Δθ̃ in (9) is very small; hence,
operates independently. Therefore, the expression of the transfer
function matrix from duty ratio to grid current is    
Δucd Δusd + Uqs Δθ̃
  ≈ . (10)
−Udc Ls + R ωL Δucq Δusq − Uds Δθ̃
H id = . (4)
(Ls + R)2 + (ωL)2 −ωL Ls + R
Then, based on Fig. 4, the output of the PLL is
PLL is widely used for grid-connected inverters to obtain the
1
grid synchronization information, and its dynamic characteris- Δθ̃ = Δucq • HPI • (11)
tics have an effect on the stability of the system. PLL is taken s
into account in the impedance model of the inverter to analyze k
where HPI = kppll + isp l l . Substitute (11) into (10), and elimi-
the impact of PLL on the system, and evaluate the stability of nate Δθ̃. Then,
the grid-inverter system. 
Fig. 3 shows the system and controller d–q frames. The system 1
1 + Uds • HPI • Δucq = Δusq . (12)
d–q frame coincides with the controller d–q system in a steady s
state. If there are perturbations in the grid voltage, an angle
Δ θ̃ •s
exists between the two frames due to the PLL dynamics, which Replace Δucq in (12) with HP I , and Δθ̃ can be rewritten as
will have an impact on the system stability. The transfer function follows:
matrix from system d–q frames to controller d–q frames can be HPI
expressed by T Δ θ Δθ̃ = • Δusq . (13)
  s + Uds • HPI
cos Δθ sin Δθ
T Δθ = . (5) HPLL is defined as
− sin Δθ cos Δθ
HPI
Then, HPLL = . (14)
s + Uds • HPI
⎧
 c = T Δθ −
⎨ u →us Then,
→ic = T Δ θ −
− →is . (6)
⎩ 
dc = T Δ θ ds Δθ̃ = HPLL • Δusq . (15)

Authorized licensed use limited to: INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY DELHI. Downloaded on January 15,2022 at 12:18:15 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 5146 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 54, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2018

Fig. 5. Block diagram of the grid-connected inverter output impedance model.

Based on (10) and (15), the result is obtained as

      Fig. 6. Bode diagrams of the d–d channel output impedances of the inverter.
Δucd 1 Uqs HPLL Δusd (red curve denotes the model result and blue curve denotes the simulation
≈ • . (16) measurement result).
Δucq 0 1 − Uds HPLL Δusq

H vPLL models the matrix of the small-signal perturbation where

from system voltage to controller voltage in the d–q frame 
H 1 = (−H ci + H dec )H iPLL + H dPLL + H vPLL
 s
 .
1 U q H PLL H 2 = H id H del (H ci − H dei )
H vPLL = . (17)
0 1 − Uds HPLL
The grid impedance Z g consists of the grid impedance Lg
Similarly, other equations can be derived as and the filter capacitor Lg . In order to access the stability of
  the system using the impedance-based method, the generalized
d
0 −Dqs HPLL Nyquist Criterion is applied to the impedance ratio as
H PLL = (18)
0 Dds HPLL L(s) = Z g • Z −1
out il PLL . (24)
 
0 iq ref H PLL The system is stable if (24) satisfies the generalized Nyquist
H iPLL = (19) criterion, and vice versa.
0 −id ref HPLL
The frequency scanning method is applied to validate the
where H dPLL models the matrix of the small-signal perturbation accuracy of the model. Fig. 6 shows the simulation result of fre-
from system voltage to duty ratio in the controller d–q frame, quency scanning, which describes the theoretical and measured
and H iPLL represents the matrix of the small-signal perturbation results of d–q channel output impedances of the inverter. The
from system voltage to the current in the controller d–q frame. conclusion can be drawn that the measured result matches the
Considering the current loop, PLL, and the filter, the impedance theoretical result within the error range and it is proved that the
model of three-phase grid-connected inverter is shown in Fig. 5. model is accurate.
H del is a transfer matrix representing time delay, where
Tdel = Ts . H dec represents the decoupling term, and H ci is III. STABILITY ANALYSIS OF GRID-INVERTER SYSTEM
the current controller matrix CONSIDERING GRID IMPEDANCE AND PLL BANDWIDTH
 1 − 0.5T d e l s  A. Influence of Grid Impedance on System Stability
1 + 0.5T d e l s 0
H del = (20) The interaction between grid impedance and the controller
1 − 0.5T d e l s
0 1 + 0.5T d e l s system of grid-connected inverters has a passive impact on
 ωL  the system stability. According to the three-phase inverter out-
0 Ud c
H dec = (21) put impedance model established above, this section uses the
ωL
Ud c 0 impedance-based analytical approach to analyze the system sta-
  bility with different grid impedances.
kpi + ksi i 0 The system parameters are shown in Table I, where Lg =
H ci = . (22)
0 kpi + ksi i 4 mH when the SCR is 12.8, and Lg = 16 mH when the SCR is
3.2. Fig. 7 shows the Nyquist plots when the PLL bandwidth is
The system closed-loop output impedance is 100 Hz and the SCR is 12.8. Fig. 7(a) depicts the overall Nyquist
diagrams, but in order to depict the surrounding correlation
Z out il PLL = (Z −1 −1
out + H id H del H 1 ) (I + H 2 ) (23) between Nyquist plots and the critical point (−1, j0) clearly, the

Authorized licensed use limited to: INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY DELHI. Downloaded on January 15,2022 at 12:18:15 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 ZHANG et al.: IMPROVED FEEDFORWARD CONTROL METHOD CONSIDERING PLL DYNAMICS TO IMPROVE WEAK GRID STABILITY 5147

TABLE I
EXPERIMENTAL PARAMETERS

Symbol Quantity Value

V dc DC voltage 400 V
Ug Grid voltage 200 V
fb Fundamental frequency 50 Hz
fsw Switching frequency 5 kHz
L Inverter inductor 6 mH
Cf Filter capacitor 10 μf
Lg Grid inductor 4 mH
16 mH
k pi Current loop 0.15
0.067 Fig. 9. Nyquist plots of the impedance ratio of the grid-inverter system with
k ppll PLL 0.02(fPLL = 13 Hz) different PLL bandwidths when SCR = 3.2. (a) fPLL = 13 Hz and (b) fPLL =
0.12(fPLL = 100 Hz) 100 Hz.

Fig. 10. Bode diagram of the q–q channel output impedance of the inverter
Fig. 7. Nyquist plots of the impedance ratio of the grid-inverter system with
(blue line denotes fPLL = 13 Hz and red line denotes fPLL = 100 Hz).
SCR = 12.8 and fPLL = 100 Hz. (a) Full view. (b) Zoom in (−1, j0).

B. Effect of PLL Bandwidth on System Stability

Under weak grid conditions, increasing the PLL bandwidth
has an effect on the coupling between the PLL and the grid
impedance, which is harmful to system stability. Using Nyquist
plots, this section will analyze the effect of different PLL
bandwidths on the system stability when the SCR is 3.2. Two
different PLLs with bandwidths of 13 and 100 Hz are set to
show the influence. Fig. 9(a) shows the Nyquist plots when the
PLL bandwidth is 13 Hz, where the system’s characteristic loci
encircles the critical point (−1, j0), which means the system is
stable, while in Fig. 9(b) when the PLL bandwidth is 100 Hz, the
Fig. 8. Nyquist plots of the impedance ratio of the grid-inverter system with
SCR = 3.2 and fPLL = 100 Hz.
critical point (−1, j0) is not encircled by the system’s character-
istic loci and the system is unstable. In Fig. 10, it shows that a
higher PLL bandwidth yields a wider frequency range of nega-
subsequent Nyquist plots in this paper will use zoom-in partial tive resistance behavior. As it can be observed in Figs. 9 and 10,
drawing. the increase of the PLL bandwidth under weak grid conditions
In Fig. 7, none of the system’s characteristic loci encircles the results in the aggravation of coupling between the PLL and the
critical point (−1, j0), indicating that the system is stable. Fig. 8 grid impedance, which reduces the system stability. Moreover,
shows the Nyquist plots when the grid impedance is increased it may destabilize the system.
to 16 mH, where the system’s characteristic loci encircles the As shown by the above analysis, the grid impedance and the
critical point, indicating that the system is unstable. PLL bandwidth can lead to the instability of the grid-inverter
Comparing Figs. 7 and 8, the increasing of grid impedance system, and the frequency of the harmonics can be influenced
leads to the growing interaction between the grid and the con- by grid impedance and the PLL bandwidth. Besides, the current
troller system of inverters, which results in the reduction of loop bandwidth may cause high-frequency harmonics [26] and
system stability. change the harmonic frequencies.

Authorized licensed use limited to: INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY DELHI. Downloaded on January 15,2022 at 12:18:15 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 5148 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 54, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2018

Fig. 11. Control block diagram of the grid-connected inverter with PLL.

Fig. 13. Block diagram of the grid-connected inverter output impedance

model with the proposed method.

Therefore, according to the relationship between the system

voltage and the controller voltage, the practical feedforward
item can be obtained by substituting the controller voltage for
the system voltage in Fig. 12
−1 HPI
Fig. 12. Control block diagram of the grid-connected inverter with the pro- fb = Y out • H filter • H Idq •
HR (26)
posed method. s
where
 
IV. IMPROVED METHOD FOR ENHANCING THE STABILITY OF 0 iq ref
GRID-CONNECTED INVERTERS CONSIDERING PLL H Idq = .
0 −id ref
According to the analysis in Section III, both grid impedance
and the PLL bandwidth have an effect on the system stability. Equation (28) indicates that the feedforward voltage is only
In order to improve weak grids stability of grid-connected in- uq in practical due to the characteristics of the practical feed-
verters, a novel feedforward control method for grid-connected forward term. The equation of practical current loop controller
inverters considering PLL dynamic under weak grid conditions with the proposed method is as follows:
is proposed in this paper. The proposed method can depress the 
usvd = −(kpi + ksi i )(id ref − id ) + ωL · iq + ud
output errors of the PLL so that the grid-connected inverter can
operate stably with high PLL bandwidth. There is no change in usvq = −(kpi + kii
s )(iq ref − iq ) − ωL · id + uq + Kfb
R
· uq
the structure and parameters of the PLL; therefore, adding the (27)
proposed method to the control system does not change the PLL
where
bandwidth.
R (iq ref − id ref ) • HPI • (Ls + R) • hfilter
Kfb = .
A. Implementation of the Novel Control Method Considering s
PLL
B. Stability Analysis of the Proposed Method
Control diagram of current loop with PLL is shown in Fig. 11,
Based on the proposed method, the impedance model of three-
1
where Y out is the filter admittance term Y out = L s+R • [10 01].
phase grid-connected inverters can be revised, and the block dia-
The system voltage affects the control current through PLL gram of the grid-connected inverter output impedance modeling
dynamics, which damages the system stability. In order to reduce is shown in Fig. 13.
PLL perturbations from system voltage to the current controller System parameters are shown in Table I, where the SCR is
output, this paper proposes a novel control method based on volt- 3.2 and the PLL bandwidth is 100 Hz. Nyquist diagrams with
age feedforward to enhance system stability for grid-connected the proposed method are depicted in Fig. 14.
inverters. The control diagram is shown in Fig. 12. A similar analysis can be obtained that the system with the
H fb in Fig. 12 is the feedforward item used to reduce the proposed method in Fig. 14(b) is stable, while without that it is
PLL perturbations unstable. Therefore, it is obvious that the method can reduce the
H fb = H iPLL • Y −1
out • H filter (25) coupling between the PLL and the grid impedance, and improve
the stability of grid-connected inverters.
where H filter represents the filter matrix: Fig. 15 shows the inverter q–q channel impedance with the
H filter = [h f i0l t e r h f i0l t e r ] where hfilter is the feedforward filter. proposed method when the SCR is 3.2 and the PLL bandwidth
The feedforward voltage in theoretical analysis is the system is 100 Hz. Comparing with the plots in Fig. 15, the frequency
voltage, but in fact, the controller voltage is used practically. range of negative resistance in the q–q channel with the proposed

Authorized licensed use limited to: INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY DELHI. Downloaded on January 15,2022 at 12:18:15 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 ZHANG et al.: IMPROVED FEEDFORWARD CONTROL METHOD CONSIDERING PLL DYNAMICS TO IMPROVE WEAK GRID STABILITY 5149

Fig. 14. Nyquist plots of the impedance ratio of the grid-inverter system under
different cases when fPLL = 100 Hz and SCR = 3.2: (a) without the proposed
method and (b) with the proposed method.
Fig. 16. Picture of the laboratory setup: (a) main circuit and (b) control system.

Fig. 17. Experimental waveforms of the three-phase grid-connected inverter

Fig. 15. Bode diagram of the q–q channel output impedance of the inverter when L g = 4 mH and fPLL = 100 Hz (200 V/div, 10 A/div, 20 ms/div).
with fPLL = 100 Hz (blue line denotes the q–q channel impedance without the
proposed method and red line denotes the q–q channel impedance with the
proposed method).

method decreases obviously, and the system stability improves

effectively. Therefore, the analytic result verifies that the pro-
posed method is efficient.

V. EXPERIMENTAL VERIFICATION
In order to verify the validity of the proposed method, a Fig. 18. Experimental waveforms of the three-phase grid-connected inverter
three-phase grid-connected inverter is constructed with some when L g = 16 mH and fPLL = 100 Hz (200 V/div, 10 A/div, 20 ms/div).
specific parameters in the experiment. The inverter module is
FFI400R12IP4 of Infineon, and the proposed method is imple-
mented in a TMS320F2812 DSP from. For convenience, dif-
ferent inductors are connected in series between inverters and
the public grid to simulate different grid impedance conditions.
Experimental parameters are shown in Table I, and the hardware
used in the experiment is shown in Fig. 16.
Figs. 17 and 18 depict the experimental waveforms with the
PLL bandwidth of 100 Hz under different grid impedances.
Fig. 17 shows the waveforms of the grid-connected inverter
currents and the voltage at the PCC when grid inductor is 4 mH,
which indicates that the system is stable when grid impedance is Fig. 19. Harmonic spectra of the measured grid-connected current under dif-
low. Fig. 18 demonstrates the waveforms of the grid-connected ferent conditions: (a) L g = 4 mH and fPLL = 100 Hz; (b) L g = 4 mH and
fPLL = 100 Hz.
inverter currents and the voltage at the PCC when grid inductor
is 16 mH. The waveforms of the voltage and the current are
distorted. Waveforms in Figs. 17 and 18 show that the increase of Fig. 19(a) shows the harmonic spectra of the inverter current
grid impedance brings the aggravation of coupling between the as the grid inductor is 4 mH and the PLL bandwidth is 100 Hz,
PLL and the grid impedance, which destabilizes the system. The where the total harmonic distortion (THD) of the inverter current
measured results agree well with the impedance-based analysis is 3.57% and it is no resonant peak, which indicates that the
in Fig. 9. system is stable. Fig. 19(b) shows the harmonic spectra of the

Authorized licensed use limited to: INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY DELHI. Downloaded on January 15,2022 at 12:18:15 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 5150 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 54, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2018

resonances are effectively damped by the proposed method,

which matched with the impedance-based analysis in Fig. 14.
Fig. 22(a) shows the harmonic spectra of the inverter current
when the grid inductor is 16 mH and the PLL bandwidth is
13 Hz, where the THD if the inverter current is 4.7% and it is
no resonant peak, indicating that the system is stable. Fig. 22(b)
shows the harmonic spectra of the inverter current with the
proposed method, which clearly indicates that the harmonic
resonances are restrained and the THD of the inverter current is
Fig. 20. Experimental waveforms of the three-phase grid-connected inverter decreased to 3.24%.
when L g = 16 mH and fPLL = 13 Hz (200 V/div, 10 A/div, 20 ms/div).

VI. CONCLUSION
An output impedance model of the three-phase grid-
connected inverter with PLL is constructed in this paper.
Through systematic impedance-based analysis, it has been
shown that the increase of the grid impedance and the PLL
bandwidth will lead to stable margin decline and harmonic res-
onance. Considering that the system voltage perturbation affects
the performance of current loop through PLL, an improved feed-
forward control scheme is proposed to mitigate perturbations
Fig. 21. Experimental waveforms of the three-phase grid-connected inverter
with the proposed method when L g = 16 mH and fPLL = 100 Hz (200 V/div,
of PLL and enhance the weak grid stability of grid-connected
10 A/div, 20 ms/div). inverters. The theoretical analysis confirms that the proposed
method can reduce PLL perturbations and enhance the sys-
tem stability. Experimental results obtained have shown antici-
pated performances, hence verifying the proposed method in this
paper.

REFERENCES
[1] F. Blaabjerg, R. Teodorescu, M. Liserre, and A. Timbus, “Overview of
control and grid synchronization for distributed power generation sys-
tems,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 53, no. 5, pp. 1398–1409, Oct.
2006.
[2] B. Wen, D. Boroyevich, R. Burgos, P. Mattavelli, and Z. Shen, “Analysis
of D-Q small-signal impedance of grid-connected inverters,” IEEE Trans.
Power Electron., vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 675–687, Jan. 2016.
Fig. 22. Harmonic spectra of the measured grid-connected current under [3] D. Dong, B. Wen, D. Boroyevich, P. Mattavelli, and Y. S. Xue, “ Analysis of
different conditions: (a) fPLL = 13 Hz without the proposed method and phase-locked loop low-frequency stability in three-phase grid-connected
(b) fPLL = 100 Hz with the proposed method. power converters considering impedance interactions,” IEEE Trans. Ind.
Electron., vol. 62, no. 1, pp. 310–321, Jan. 2015.
[4] J. Z. Zhou, H. Ding, S. Fan, Y. Zhang and A. M. Gole, “Impact of short-
inverter current as the grid inductor is 16 mH and the PLL circuit ratio and phase-locked-loop parameters on the small-signal behav-
bandwidth is 100 Hz, and it is clear that the THD of the inverter ior of a VSC-HVDC converter,” IEEE Trans. Power Del., vol. 29, no. 5,
pp. 2287–2296, Oct. 2014.
currents is 16.5% and the harmonic resonances arise at 35 and [5] J. Hu, Y. Huang, D. Wang, H. Yuan, and X. Yuan, “Modeling of grid con-
135 Hz, which implies that the system is unstable. nected DFIG-based wind turbines for DC-link voltage stability analysis,”
Fig. 20 shows the waveforms of the grid-connected inverter IEEE Trans. Sustain. Energy, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 1325–1336, Oct. 2015.
[6] Y. Song and F. Blaabjerg, “Analysis of middle frequency resonance in
currents and the voltage at the PCC when the grid inductance DFIG system considering phase locked loop,” IEEE Trans. Power Elec-
is 16 mH and the PLL bandwidth is 13 Hz. A comparison tron., vol. 33, no. 1, pp. 343–356, Jan. 2018.
between Figs. 18 and 20 shows that higher PLL bandwidth [7] M. K. Bakhshizadeh et al., “Couplings in phase domain impedance mod-
eling of grid-connected converters,” IEEE Trans. Power Electron. vol. 31,
leads to the aggravation of the coupling between the PLL and no. 10, pp. 6792–6796, Oct. 2016.
the grid impedance and creates instability in the grid-inverter [8] A. Rygg, M. Molinas, C. Zhang, and X. Cai, “A modified sequence-domain
system. This shows that the system stability can be improved by impedance definition and its equivalence to the dq-domain impedance
definition for the stability analysis of ac power electronic systems,” IEEE
reducing the PLL bandwidth under weak grid conditions, but it J. Emerg. Sel. Topic Power Electron., vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 1383–1396, Oct.
is needed to redesign the PLL bandwidth. 2016.
Fig. 21 shows the experimental waveforms with the proposed [9] I. Vieto, X. Du, H. Nian, and J. Sun, “Frequency-domain coupling in
two-level VSC small-signal dynamics,” in Proc. 18th Workshop Control
method when the grid inductor is 16 mH and the PLL bandwidth Modeling Power Electron., Stanford, CA, 2017, pp. 1–8.
is 100 Hz. A comparison between Figs. 18 and 21 shows that [10] J. Sun, “Small-signal methods for ac distributed power systems–A review,”
the proposed method can depress the coupling between the PLL IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 24, no. 11, pp. 2545–2554, Nov. 2009.
[11] M. Cespedes and J. Sun, “Impedance modeling and analysis of grid-
and the grid impedance without redesigning the PLL bandwidth connected voltage-source converters,” IEEE Trans. Power Electron.,
so that the PLL output errors can be reduced and the harmonic vol. 29, no. 3, pp. 1254–1261, Mar. 2014.

Authorized licensed use limited to: INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY DELHI. Downloaded on January 15,2022 at 12:18:15 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 ZHANG et al.: IMPROVED FEEDFORWARD CONTROL METHOD CONSIDERING PLL DYNAMICS TO IMPROVE WEAK GRID STABILITY 5151

[12] L. Harnefors, “Modeling of three-phase dynamic systems using com- Danni Xia received the B.S. degree in electrical
plex transfer functions and transfer matrices,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology,
vol. 54, no. 4, pp. 2239–2248, Aug. 2007. Shandong, China, in 2017, where she is currently
[13] L. Harnefors, M. Bongiorno, and S. Lundberg, “Input-admittance calcu- working toward the M.S. degree in power electronics
lation and shaping for controlled voltage-source converters,” IEEE Trans. and electrical drives.
Ind. Electron., vol. 54, no. 6, pp. 3323–3334, Dec. 2007. Her research interests include stability analysis
[14] B. Wen, D. Dong, D. Boroyevich, R. Burgos, P. Mattavelli, and Z. Shen, and control strategy of three-phase grid-connected
“Impedance-based analysis of grid-synchronization stability for three- inverters.
phase paralleled converters,” IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 31, no. 1,
pp. 26–38, Jan. 2016.
[15] X. Wang, F. Blaabjerg, and W. Wu, “Modeling and analysis of harmonic
stability in ac power-electronics-based power system,” IEEE Trans. Power
Electron., vol. 29, no. 12, pp. 6421–6432, Dec. 2014.
[16] X. Wang, L. Harnefors, and F. Blaabjerg, “Unified impedance model of
grid-connected voltage-source inverters,” IEEE Trans. Power Electron., Zhichao Fu was born in Shandong Province, China,
vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 1775–1787, Feb. 2018. in 1992. He received the B.S. degree in electri-
[17] M. Cespedes and J. Sun, “Adaptive control of grid-connected inverters cal engineering from Southwest Jiaotong University,
based on online grid impedance measurements,” IEEE Trans. Sustainable Chengdu, China, in 2016. He is currently working
Energy., vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 516–523, Apr. 2014. toward the M.S. degree at Harbin Institute of Tech-
[18] X. Chen, Y. Zhang, S. Wang, J. Chen, and C. Gong, “Impedance-phased nology, Harbin, China.
dynamic control method for grid-connected inverters in a weak grid,” His research interests include grid-connected
IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 32, no. 1, pp. 274–283, Nov 2017. inverter systems modeling and stability analysis.
[19] D. Yang, X. Ruan, and H. Wu, “Impedance shaping of the grid-connected
inverter with LCL filter to improve its adaptability to the weak grid condi-
tion,” IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 29, no. 11, pp. 5795–5805, Nov.
2014.
[20] X. Wang, Y. W. Li, F. Blaabjerg, and P. C. Loh, “Virtual-impedance-based
control for voltage- and current-source converters,” IEEE Trans. Power
Electron., vol. 30, no. 12, pp. 7019–7037, Dec. 2015.
[21] X. Wang, F. Blaabjerg, M. Liserre, Z. Chen, Y. W. Li, and J. He, “An Gaolin Wang (M’13) received the B.S., M.S., and
active damper for stabilizing power-electronics-based ac systems,” IEEE Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Harbin
Trans. Power Electron., vol. 29, no. 7, pp. 3318–3329, Jul. 2014. Institute of Technology, Harbin, China, in 2002, 2004,
[22] X. Wu, X. Li, X. Yuan, and Y. Geng, “Grid harmonics suppression scheme and 2008, respectively.
for LCL-type grid-connected inverters based on output admittance revi- In 2009, he joined the Department of Electri-
sion,” IEEE Trans. Sustain. Energy, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 411–421, Apr. 2015. cal Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology as
[23] X. Du, G. Wang, Y. Shi, Y. Yang, X. Xiao, H. Tai and Y. Ji, “Using a Lecturer, where he has been a Professor of elec-
asymmetric current controller to improve the stability of grid-inverter trical engineering since 2014. From 2009 to 2012,
system due to PLL effect,” in Proc. 18th Workshop Control Modeling he was a Postdoctoral Fellow with Shanghai STEP
Power Electron., Stanford, CA, 2017, pp. 1–7. Electric Corporation. He has authored more than 50
[24] M. Darari, Y. I. Mohamed, “Robust vector control of a very weak-grid- technical papers published in various journals and
connected voltage-source converter considering the phase-locked loop conference proceedings. He holds ten Chinese patents. His research interests
dynamics,” IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 32, no. 2, pp. 977–994, include ac motor drives, position sensorless control, and digital control of power
Feb. 2017. converters.
[25] P. Cheng and H. Nian, “Direct power control of voltage source inverter
in a virtual synchronous reference frame during frequency variation and
network unbalance,” IET Power Electron., vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 502–511, Mar.
2016.
[26] Y. Song and F. Blaabjerg, “Analysis of the behavior of undamped and
unstable high-frequency resonance in a DFIG system,” IEEE Trans. Power Dianguo Xu (M’97–SM’12–F’17) was born in Hei-
Electron., vol. 32, no. 12, pp. 9105–9116, Dec. 2017. longjiang Province, China, in 1960. He received
the B.S. degree in control engineering from Harbin
Shipbuilding Engineering Institute, Harbin, China,
Xueguang Zhang (M’13) was born in Heilongjiang in 1981, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electri-
Province, China, in 1981. He received the B.S., M.S., cal engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology,
and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Harbin, China, in 1984 and 1990, respectively.
Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China, in Since 1994, he has been a Professor with the
2003, 2005, and 2010, respectively. Department of Electrical Engineering, Harbin Insti-
Since 2015, he has been an Associate Professor tute of Technology. His research interests include
with the Department of Electrical and Engineering, robotics, lighting electronics, power quality mitiga-
Harbin Institute of Technology. His research interests tion, consumer electronics, power electronics, and motor drives.
include distributed generation and renewable energy Dr. Xu is a Member of the China Electrotechnical Society and China Power
conversion systems. Supply Society.

Authorized licensed use limited to: INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY DELHI. Downloaded on January 15,2022 at 12:18:15 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.