Grid interfaced solar photovoltaic power generating system with power quality improvement at AC mains

This paper presents a novel concept of utilizing solar photovoltaic (SPV) generating systems to improve the power factor to unity or to regulate a voltage at point of common coupling (PCC) of a three phase system. A three-phase VSC (voltage source converter) of this system eliminates harmonics currents, balances loads and compensates reactive power for power factor correction (PFC) or zero voltage regulation (ZVR) at AC mains. The VSC consists of a DC bus capacitor at its DC bus which is fed by SPV energy. DC voltage PI controller regulates the DC bus voltage at the time of load variation. The grid interfaced solar PV power generating system is tested for PFC and ZVR mode of operation along with harmonics currents elimination and load balancing of linear and nonlinear loads.