Central and micro inverters for solar photovoltaic integration in AC grid

This paper presents detailed modeling of central inverter and micro inverter for solar photovoltaic (PV) integration in AC grid. Data of a 100 kW solar PV plant installed in IIT Kharagpur is used to validate these models and their performance on sunny, cloudy and partially shaded days are compared. Models of 5 kW grid tie central inverter and 250 W micro inverter are developed with polycrystalline solar PV in MATLAB/Simulink. Solar irradiance and PV module temperature data are taken from SCADA system from that actual solar PV plant as inputs to the simulation models. Comparative results are captured in terms of inverter AC power output under different operating conditions and the solar PV system with micro inverters have illustrated better performance compared to central inverter in all types of operating conditions.