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Analysis and Design of a Photovoltaic System

DC Connected to the Utility With a
Power Factor Corrector
Yu-Kang Lo, Member, IEEE, Huang-Jen Chiu, Senior Member, IEEE, Ting-Peng Lee,
Irwan Purnama, and Jian-Min Wang, Member, IEEE

AbstractThis paper presents a photovoltaic (PV) system parallel connected to an electric power grid with a power factor corrector (PFC) for supplying the dc loads. The operation principles
and design considerations for the presented PV system are analyzed and discussed. The balanced distribution of the power flows
between the utility and the PV panels is achieved automatically by
regulating the output dc voltage of the PFC. Experimental results
are shown to verify the feasibility of the proposed topology, which
can effectively transfer the tracked maximum power from the PV
system to the dc load, while the unity power factor is obtained at
the utility side.
Index TermsGrid connection, maximum power point tracking
(MPPT), power factor correction.

I. I NTRODUCTION

UE TO the increasingly detrimental greenhouse impacts

on the living conditions of human beings, the development of renewable energy has become a serious worldwide concern [1], [2]. Consequently, substantial efforts are being exerted
to cut down the emission of carbon dioxide. Likewise, various
solutions to the greenhouse effects are being considered. A variety of renewable energies, such as wind power, fuel cells, tidal
energy, geothermal energy, biomass energy, and solar cells,
have been widely utilized and advocated. Among these energy
resources, the photovoltaic (PV) system is considered one of the
most appropriate and primary renewable energies, owing to the
following features: 1) It has abundant sources; 2) it is clean and
pollution free; and 3) it does not have any ostensible pitfall such
as noise from wind shear while using wind turbines nor does it
emit any by-products such as carbon dioxide which is the byproduct of biomass energy. A conventional grid-connected PV
system is shown in Fig. 1(a) [3][5]. In this system, the load is
fed by the utility and a PV inverter that is parallel connected
at the ac side. The power capacity of the PV system is not
limited by load conditions because the excessive energy can
be fed back to the utility. This is the main advantage of this
topology. However, this system presents some drawbacks when
applied to dc loads. These can be summarized as follows.
1) Islanding protections are necessary [6].
Manuscript received December 31, 2008; revised August 6, 2009. First
published August 28, 2009; current version published October 9, 2009.
Y.-K. Lo, H.-J. Chiu, T.-P. Lee, and I. Purnama are with the Department of
Electronic Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei 10607, Taiwan (e-mail: hjchiu@mail.ntust.edu.tw).
J.-M. Wang is with the Department of Vehicle Engineering, National
Formosa University, Yunlin 632, Taiwan (e-mail: jmw@sunws.nfu.edu.tw).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIE.2009.2030216

Fig. 1. Topologies of (a) a conventional grid-connected PV system,

(b) a hybrid PV system, and (c) the proposed grid-connected PV system.

2) The control algorithm and topology are complicated.

3) For a dc load, the power needs to be transferred through
a two-stage (dc/ac and ac/dc) converter. Both the cost and
conversion efficiency of the grid-connected PV system
have to be carefully taken into account.
In order to diminish the influences of atmospheric conditions
and provide sufficient power to the dc load, the auxiliary power
sources such as the rechargeable batteries and the fuel cells [7]

0278-0046/$26.00 2009 IEEE

LO et al.: ANALYSIS AND DESIGN OF PV SYSTEM DC CONNECTED TO UTILITY WITH PFC

Fig. 2.

4355

Schematic diagram of the proposed parallel-connected PV system.

are required in most PV system applications, as shown in

Fig. 1(b) [8][10]. The main function of auxiliary power
sources is to supply energy to the dc load on rainy or cloudy
days. However, the battery bank has some disadvantages,
namely, limited life cycles, high costs, bulky size, possible
environmental pollution, and safety consideration. Based on the
aforementioned drawbacks, a multi-input converter has been
proposed with power factor correction and maximum power
point tracking (MPPT) [11], which used the utility source
to substitute auxiliary power sources to achieve power management between two different energy sources. Nevertheless,
the presented power management is too complicated, and its
cost has also increased due to the adoption of two full-bridge
converters and a transformer. To simplify the aforementioned
topology and reduce the cost for supplying dc load systems,
a new grid-connected PV system is proposed in this paper, as
shown in Fig. 1(c). The utility source is parallel connected with
the PV system through a power factor corrector (PFC) and an
MPPT tracker. The proposed PV system can be used in some
applications such as LED traffic lights, street lights, and other
dc loads which always consume higher constant power than the
PV system can offer under normal operation conditions. It features less power loss and lower circuit cost by means of parallel
connection at the dc side. In the following section, the operation principles and steady-state analysis of the proposed gridconnected PV system are discussed. Furthermore, the design
considerations and experimental results of a prototype system
that is capable of supplying a 1-kW load power are presented.
II. O PERATION P RINCIPLES AND
S TEADY-S TATE A NALYSIS
The schematic diagram of the proposed grid-connected PV
system is shown in Fig. 2. It is observed that an MPPT converter
and a PFC drawing power from solar panels and the utility,
respectively, are parallel connected at the dc side. The maximum power point tracker is a dc/dc power electronic converter

Fig. 3. Control flowchart of the proposed PV system.

inserted between the PV module and its load to achieve optimum power matching [12][15]. Commonly used nonisolated
dc/dc converter topologies [16][18] include the buck, boost,
and buckboost converters. The presented PV system in this
paper is parallel connected with the PFC. The output voltage
of the PFC is set higher than that of the solar cell. Therefore,
the boost converter is adopted as the MPPT in the proposed
system. In Fig. 2, Microchips PIC16F877 microcontroller is
programmed to achieve the MPPT function [19], [20].
Maximum power transfer and power factor correction can
be simultaneously achieved by using the proposed control

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Fig. 4. Discussed PV system.

Fig. 5. Proposed PV system parallel connected with a PFC fed by the utility.

algorithm. The output voltage and current of the solar panels

Vpv and Ipv are sensed to perform the MPPT function. Fig. 3
shows a control flowchart of the proposed PV system. The dc
output voltage Vo is sensed to determine the operation mode of
the PV system. When Vo is lower than its high threshold voltage
Vo,h , it is regulated by the PFC controller to keep at its nominal
value Vo,n . As long as the PV array outputs current, the MPPT
control function is enabled. When there is no current supplied
by the PV array at night, the MPPT function is disabled, and the
dc load is solely fed by the utility. On the other hand, Vo rises to
reach its high threshold voltage Vo,h when the maximum power
produced by the PV array is higher than the load power. The
MPPT function will be disabled, and the load power is solely
provided by the PV array. PI control is adopted by the PV
converter for regulating the dc output voltage Vo to retain at
the threshold voltage Vo,h . When the load power is changed to
be higher than the maximum power of the PV array, Vo will
drop to its nominal value Vo,n and be regulated by the PFC
controller again. Based on the atmospheric and load conditions,
the proposed grid-connected PV system has the following three
operation modes.
1) Mode I. At night, the solar panels output power will
be reduced due to the insufficient sun light. The output
current of solar panels is measured to determine whether
the MPPT function is disabled or not. During this mode,
the dc load is solely fed by the utility with a nearly unity
power factor at the ac side.
2) Mode II. In this mode, the dc load, which consumes
higher power than the PV system can offer, is fed simultaneously by the utility and PV system. The dc output

voltage Vo is regulated by the PFC controller to keep at

its nominal value Vo,n . The MPPT algorithms are used to
ensure that the maximum power from the PV system is
transferred to the dc load. The utility then supplies part of
the dc load power with a nearly unity power factor at the
ac side.
3) Mode III. In this mode, the maximum power produced
by the PV array is higher than the load power. The
MPPT function of the PV system is disabled, and the
load power is solely provided by the PV system. The dc
output voltage Vo is regulated by the PV converter with
PI control to retain at the threshold voltage Vo,h .
Fig. 4 shows some important circuit variables of the discussed grid-connected PV system. The steady-state voltage
gain of the MPPT boost converter under the continuous conduction mode is used to analyze the relations between the
transferred power and the duty cycle. By neglecting the circuit
parasitics and defining the PV arrays output resistance as Rth ,
the following can be obtained:
Rth =

Ri =

Vpv
Ipv
Vo (1 D)
Io
1D

(1)

= Ro (1 D)2 .

(2)

From (2), it is known that the input resistance of the boost

converter Ri can be tuned by varying the MPPT duty cycle.
According to the maximum power transfer theory, as long as
Ri is equal to the solar panels output resistance Rth , the solar

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TABLE II
S PECIFICATIONS OF THE PV PANEL AT 25 C

TABLE III
C IRCUIT PARAMETERS AND C OMPONENT VALUES

Fig. 6.

Typical IV and P V characteristics of a solar cell.

Fig. 7.

Sign of dP/dV at different positions on the P V curve.

Fig. 8.

ACC of the boost PFC.

TABLE I
S PECIFICATIONS OF THE P ROPOSED PV S YSTEM

panels can send out its maximum power to the load. That
is, at that duty cycle, the MPPT function of the PV array is
fulfilled.
Fig. 5 shows the presented PV system parallel connected
with a PFC fed by the utility. The equivalent output resistance

Fig. 9.

Measured waveforms at (a) Pmpp = 180 W and (b) Pmpp = 450 W.

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Fig. 10. Measured waveforms of (a) MPPT and (b) PFC converters in mode I
(Po = 100 W).

of the MPPT Rop is now expressed as

Rop =

Vo
Vpfc
=
.
Ip
Io Ipfc

(3)

Therefore, from (2), the equivalent input resistance of the

MPPT Rip is now
Rip = Rop (1 D)2 =

Vpfc (1 D)2
.
Io Ipfc

(4)

It can be observed in (4) that the dc-bus voltage can be

regulated by the PFC. By tuning the duty cycle of the MPPT, the
PV system can still produce its available maximum power when
Rth is equal to Rip . If this available maximum output power
is less than the consumed load power, which is related to the
operation modes I and II as stated earlier in this section, then the
load power is supplied simultaneously by both the PV system
and the PFC. According to the amount of the PV systems
maximum output power, which is proportional to the amplitude
of Ip , the dc-bus voltage may tend to increase or decrease.
The PFC then starts to extract the excessive power from or
supply the insufficient power to the load by regulating its output
voltage. When the sum of Ipfc and Ip is equal to the required dc
load current Io , a balanced power distribution can be reached.
On the other hand, should the maximum output power of the

Fig. 11. Measured waveforms of (a) MPPT and (b) PFC converters in mode I
(Po = 1000 W).

PV system be larger than required, which is related to operation

mode III, the dc-bus voltage will increase. Then, the PFC keeps
lowering its output power while trying to regulate its output dc
voltage. Once the PFC is operated at no load, the only way to
regulate the dc-bus voltage is to shut down the MPPT function
of the PV system. At this stage, the required load power is solely
provided by the PV system.
III. D ESIGN C ONSIDERATIONS
The PV array consists of many multimodule series- and
parallel-connected unit cells. Fig. 6 shows the IV and P V
characteristics of a solar cell. It is seen that the output power
of a solar cell is not proportional to the voltage. Moreover, it
is a function of temperature and irradiance intensity. In Fig. 6,
Voc and Isc are the open-circuit voltage and the short-circuit
current, respectively, of the solar cell. Vmpp and Impp are the
voltage and current at its maximum peak power (MPP) Pmpp .
The MPPT is achieved when the slope of the operating point on
the P V curve is zero.
Well-developed MPPT algorithms include the power
feedback method, the perturbation and observation (P&O)
method, the incremental conductance (I&C) method, the
three-point weight comparison P&O method, the fuzzy logic
control, and the neural network approach [21]. Even though
the P&O method is relatively simple, a perturbation will cause

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Fig. 13. Measured waveforms of (a) MPPT and (b) PFC converters in
mode II (Pmpp = 450 W).
Fig. 12. Measured waveforms of (a) MPPT and (b) PFC converters in
mode II (Pmpp = 180 W).

the sway at the maximum output power point [22, 23]. In order
to improve the defect in the P&O method, the I&C method
is used to achieve MPPT in the proposed system. The I&C
method is based on the zero-slope feature at the maximum
output power revealed on the solar cells P V curve. It is also
observed that positive slopes appear on the left of the MPP and
negative slopes on the right. Fig. 7 shows the change in the sign
of the slope on the P V curve [24], [25]. The partial derivative
of the cell power P with respect to the cell voltage V can be
expressed as
d(I V )
dI
dP
=
=V
+ I.
dV
dV
dV

(5)

When dP/dV = 0, (5) can be rearranged as follows:

dI
I
= .
dV
V

(6)

From (5) and (6), the MPP can be tracked by determining the
immediate conductance I/V and the I&C dI/dV .
The boost PFC converter is popularly used in achieving a
high input power factor due to the following advantages [26]:
1) It is easily controlled; 2) the electromagnetic interference
is reduced because the input current of a boost converter is
continuous; 3) the current spike will be suppressed by the input

inductor; and 4) it can be used in the high-power application.

The adopted controller IC, Unitrode UC3854 [27], is operated
under average current-mode control (ACC) [28], [29]. The
ACC features a fixed switching frequency and lower input
current harmonics. Fig. 8 shows the ACC used in a boost PFC
[30][34]. The main purpose of the ACC is the use of a twoloop compensation to achieve input current waveform shaping
and output voltage regulation.
IV. E XPERIMENTAL R ESULTS
A laboratory prototype for the proposed grid-connected PV
system was built to perform some experiments. The specifications of the proposed PV system are listed in Table I. Table II
gives the electrical characteristics of the PV panels.
In this paper, the PV array is composed of three parallel
strings of four 75-W PV panels in series. A solar simulator
Agilent E4360A with 1.2-kW rated power is also used in the
converter design stage. Table III shows the circuit parameters
and component values of the prototype system. Fig. 9(a) and
(b) shows the related waveforms of the presented PV system at
maximum powers of 180 and 450 W, respectively. It is obvious
that the MPPT performance under the I&C method can be
fulfilled.
At night, the load power is fed along by the utility through
the PFC. The MPPT function of the PV system is disabled.

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Fig. 14. Measured waveforms of (a) MPPT and (b) PFC converters in
mode III.

Figs. 10 and 11 show the related waveforms under the load

power of 100 and 1000 W, respectively, in mode I. Unity power
factor can be achieved at the utility side, and the measured
conversion efficiency is above 93%.
As the sun rises, the MPPT begins to produce the maximum
solar power. The load is simultaneously fed by the utility and
the MPPT. Figs. 12 and 13 show the related waveforms of the
proposed PV system with 1000-W load power. In Figs. 12(a)
and 13(a), the maximum output powers of the MPPT are
180 and 450 W, respectively. Figs. 12(b) and 13(b) show the
corresponding PFC waveforms. It can be observed that the
insufficient load power is provided by the utility while the PV
panel is operated at its maximum power point.
When the load level is reduced below the maximum power of
the PV panel, the system enters mode III. The MPPT function
of the PV system will be disabled, and the power point of the
PV panel will be shifted from MPP. The load power will be
solely provided by the PV panel. Fig. 14 shows the related
waveforms of the proposed PV system under the load power
of 110 W. The original maximum PV power is 480 W. Fig. 15
shows the measured transient waveforms during the transition
between different operation modes. It can be observed that there
is a small output voltage fluctuation during such mode changes.
During modes I and II, the dc output voltage Vo is regulated
by the PFC controller to keep at its nominal value Vo,n of
200 V. During mode III, Vo is regulated by the PV converter

Fig. 15. Measured transient waveforms for (a) mode I mode II,
(b) mode II mode III, and (c) mode III mode I.

with the PI control to retain at the threshold voltage Vo,h

of 210 V.
V. C ONCLUSION
In this paper, we have studied a PV system that is parallel
connected to an electric power grid with a PFC for supplying
the dc loads. Based on the atmospheric and load conditions, the
proposed grid-connected PV system has three operation modes.
The balanced distribution of the power flows between the utility
and the PV panels can be achieved automatically by regulating
the output dc voltage of the PFC. A laboratory prototype was
built and tested. The experimental results were shown to verify
the feasibility of the proposed topology.

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2621, Jul. 2008.

Yu-Kang Lo (M96) was born in Chia-Yi,

Taiwan, in 1969. He received the B.S. and Ph.D.
degrees in electrical engineering from National
Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, in 1991 and 1995,
respectively.
Since 1995, he has been with the faculty of the Department of Electronic Engineering, National Taiwan
University of Science and Technology, Taipei, where
he is currently a Professor and in charge of the Power
Electronics Laboratory and the Power Electronics
Technology Center. His research interests include the
design and analysis of a variety of switch-mode power converters and power
factor correctors.
Dr. Lo is a member of the IEEE Power Electronics and IEEE Industrial
Electronics Societies.

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Huang-Jen Chiu (M00SM09) was born in

I-Lan, Taiwan, in 1971. He received the B.E. and
Ph.D. degrees in electronic engineering from the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology,
Taipei, Taiwan, in 1996 and 2000, respectively.
From August 2000 to July 2002, he was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electronic
Engineering, I-Shou University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
From August 2002 to July 2006, he was with
the Department of Electrical Engineering, ChungYuan Christian University, Chung-Li, Taiwan. Since
August 2006, he has been with the Department of Electronic Engineering,
National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, where he is
currently a Professor. In 2009, he joined the Future Energy Electronic Center,
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, as a Visiting
Professor. His research interests include renewable energy conversion, highefficiency LED drivers, soft-switching techniques, electromagnetic compatibility issues, power factor corrector topologies, and electronic ballasts.
Dr. Chiu is a Senior Member of the IEEE Power Electronics Society. He was
the recipient of the Young Researcher Award in 2004 from the National Science
Council, Taiwan.

Ting-Peng Lee was born in Taipei, Taiwan, in 1982.

He received the M.S. degree from the Department of
Electronic Engineering, National Taiwan University
of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan, in 2007,
where he is currently working toward the Ph.D.
degree.
His research interests include design and development of photovoltaic (PV) systems, grid-connected
PV systems, DSP control applications, and electronic
circuit design.

Irwan Purnama was born in Bandung, Indonesia,

in 1978. He received the B.S. degree in physics
from Universitas Padjadjaran, Bandung, in 2002.
He is currently working toward the M.S. degree in
the Department of Electronic Engineering, National
Taiwan University of Science and Technology,
Taipei, Taiwan.
From December 2002 to July 2008, he was a Supervisor of an electrical laboratory in the Technical
Implementation Unit for Instrumentation Development (UPT BPI), Indonesian Institute of Sciences
(LIPI). From September 2007 to July 2008, he was a Teaching Assistant
in the Department of Physics, Universitas Padjadjaran. His research interests
are in instrumentation and measurement, renewable energy conversion, power
electronics, and control systems.

Jian-Min Wang (M09) was born in Kaohsiung,

Taiwan, in 1976. He received the M.S. and Ph.D.
degrees in electronic engineering from the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology,
Taipei, Taiwan, in 2001 and 2007, respectively.
Since February 2008, he has been an Assistant
Professor in the Department of Vehicle Engineering,
National Formosa University, Yunlin, Taiwan. His
research interests include the design and analysis
of photovoltaic inverters, arc welding machines, and
power converters.