Control of PV generation systems using the synchronous power controller

The high penetration of distributed generation, as PV or wind power, has forced the Transmission System Operators (TSOs) to set restrictive requirements for the operation of such systems. As it can be extracted from the forthcoming grid codes drafts, the future distributed generation systems will be requested to have the equivalent performance of a synchronous generator, which is seen from the TSOs as the only solution if a massive integration of renewable in the electrical network should be achieved. In this paper a method for controlling PV grid connected power converters as a synchronous generator, namely Synchronous Power Controller (SPC), is presented. As a difference with previous works this method permits to take advantage of emulating the synchronous behavior meanwhile it is able to get rid of its drawbacks. The main concept of the SPC, as well as some simulation and experimental results will be shown in this paper considering a PV power plant as a study case.