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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 29, NO. 3, JUNE 2014

Accurate Estimation of Single-Phase Grid Voltage

Parameters Under Distorted Conditions
Md. Shamim Reza, Student Member, IEEE, Mihai Ciobotaru, Member, IEEE, and
Vassilios G. Agelidis, Senior Member, IEEE

AbstractThis paper presents an accurate technique for the

estimation of single-phase grid voltage fundamental amplitude
and frequency. The technique consists of a quadrature signal
generator (QSG) and a discrete Fourier transform (DFT). The frequency information required by the QSG based on a second-order
generalized integrator (SOGI) is estimated using the spectral
leakage property of the DFT. The presented DFT operation does
not require real-time evaluation of trigonometric functions. The
frequency estimation is less affected by the presence of harmonics
when compared to similar techniques based on QSG-SOGI
such as the phase-locked loop and the frequency-locked loop.
Moreover, unlike these techniques, the DFT-based QSG-SOGI
(DFT-SOGI) technique does not create any interdependent loops,
thus increasing the overall stability and easing the tuning process.
The effectiveness of the proposed technique has been validated on
a real-time experimental setup.
Index TermsDiscrete Fourier transform (DFT), grid voltage
monitoring, parameter estimation, phase-locked loop (PLL),
quadrature signal generator (QSG), second-order generalized
integrator (SOGI), single-phase system.

I. INTRODUCTION

HE GRID voltage parameters, such as frequency, phase

angle, and amplitude are important information for many
areas of power system applications, such as the grid-connected
power converters [1], uninterrupted power supply [2], active
power filters [3], and power system control and protection [4]
to mention just a few. Usually, the estimation of the parameters from an undistorted periodic grid voltage waveform is
a relatively easy task. However, the grid voltage is distorted
by harmonics due to the use of nonlinear loads [3]. The grid
voltage is also nonperiodic in nature due to the change of the
load conditions and system configurations. The parameters estimation from a distorted nonperiodic grid voltage waveform
becomes a relatively challenging task. Thus, a suitable digital
signal processing (DSP) technique is required for accurate es-

Manuscript received January 02, 2013; revised July 09, 2013, September 12,
2013, and November 17, 2013; accepted December 12, 2013. Date of publication February 20, 2014; date of current version May 20, 2014. Paper no.
TPWRD-00009-2013.
The authors are with the Australian Energy Research Institute (AERI)
and School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications, The University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney NSW 2052, Australia (e-mail:
m.reza@student.unsw.edu.au;
mihai.ciobotaru@unsw.edu.au;
vassilios.
agelidis@unsw.edu.au).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRD.2014.2303482

timation of the grid voltage parameters under nonperiodic and

distorted conditions.
The discrete Fourier transform (DFT) [5] and the fast Fourier
transform (FFT) [6] are the commonly used window-based
techniques for spectral analysis of the grid voltage waveform.
The recursive DFT can also be used to reduce the computational burden of the DFT [7]. However, the Fourier transform
(FT)-based techniques assume that the grid voltage waveform
is periodic and repetitive outside the window which may
cause spectral leakage during the time-varying cases [6]. The
spectral leakage property of the DFT can be used to track the
time-varying parameters [8], [9]. The recursive DFT principle
can also be integrated with other techniques, such as the decomposition of single-phase voltage systems into orthogonal
components and the least square (LS) to track the time-varying
parameters [10]. However, the LS technique cannot deal with
a singular matrix [11] and the recursive DFT is affected by
accumulation errors [7]. Nevertheless, the recursive DFT can
be carefully coded to avoid the cumulative numerical precision
errors [4], [12]. Due to the improved frequency resolution and
no spectral leakage effect, the prony method (PM) can be used
to provide better results compared to the FFT [13]. However,
the PM is not suitable for real-time estimation due to its higher
computational burden required for the rooting of a high-order
polynomial.
The Kalman filter (KF) is a potential technique for instantaneous tracking of the single-phase grid voltage parameters [14].
Nevertheless, the KF is a computationally demanding technique
for real-time applications. The computationally efficient phaselocked loop (PLL) can be useful for instantaneous tracking of
the single-phase grid voltage fundamental parameters [15], [16].
However, the presence of harmonics introduces ripples into the
estimated parameters [17], [18]. The ripples can be rejected by
using in-loop filters which may reduce the bandwidth of the
PLL, thus leading to a slower dynamic response [19]. PLL systems also require quadrature voltage waveforms and there is
less information in single-phase systems than in three phase systems for generating the quadrature voltage waveforms. A singlephase quadrature signal generator (QSG) relying on a secondorder generalized integrator (SOGI) can be used to implement
the PLL (SOGI-PLL) [20], [21]. Another drawback of the PLL
is that the phase and frequency are estimated within a single
loop which causes large frequency transient during phase jumps
under grid faults [22]. The effect of this undesired frequency
swing is also reflected back on the phase estimation and, hence,
causes delay in the process of synchronization [22]. The frequency swing can be reduced by means of a frequency-locked

0885-8977 2014 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.

REZA et al.: ACCURATE ESTIMATION OF SINGLE-PHASE GRID VOLTAGE PARAMETERS UNDER DISTORTED CONDITIONS

loop (FLL) based on the QSG-SOGI (SOGI-FLL) [1], [23],

[24]. A network consisting of an FLL and multiple QSG-SOGI
(MSOGI) connected in parallel can be used to reject the harmonics effect [24]. However, the MSOGI technique is sensitive
to the presence of dc offset [25], [26].
The technical literature shows that the standard PLL,
SOGI-FLL and SOGI-PLL techniques require proper tuning
for tracking the grid voltage dynamics and for rejecting the
negative effects caused by harmonics. A narrow bandwidth has
to be chosen for the rejection of harmonics at the expense of a
slower dynamic response. Moreover, there are interdependent
loops and, hence, each loop influences the other one at the
same time. As a result, the tuning of the controller parameters
is more sensitive, thus reducing the stability margins. In order
to remove the previously mentioned shortcomings, a separate
frequency estimation technique can be used to obtain the tuning
frequency of the QSG-SOGI. For this purpose, a frequency
estimation technique relying on three consecutive samples
of the filtered grid voltage waveform can be used [27][31].
However, the three consecutive samples-based technique is
ill-conditioned when the instantaneous value of the middle
sample is zero [31]. Nevertheless, the ill-condition can be removed by holding the previously estimated frequency when the
instantaneous value of the middle sample is zero [31]. The three
consecutive samples-based technique also presents large overshoot/undershoot during transients. Moreover, the performance
of the three consecutive samples-based technique is affected
if the dc offset and harmonics are not properly rejected by
filtering. Therefore, a fixed-size window-based DFT technique
[32], which is used in [8] and [9], for tracking the frequency of
a three-phase system can be used to obtain the single-phase grid
voltage frequency which is used by the QSG-SOGI to track
the grid voltage fundamental amplitude [33]. The performance
of the fixed window DFT-based QSG-SOGI (DFT-SOGI)
technique is discussed in [33] by using simulation results in
MATLAB/Simulink. However, the real-time experimental
verification is not reported in [33].
The objective of this paper is to report an accurate estimation
technique (DFT-SOGI) and its implementation on a real-time
experimental setup. In the DFT-SOGI technique, the spectral
leakage property of the fixed window DFT is used to track the
time-varying single-phase grid voltage fundamental frequency
which is used as a tuning frequency for the QSG-SOGI. The size
of the DFT window is chosen based on nominal fundamental periods. The trigonometric functions required for DFT operation
can be estimated offline and, hence, can be stored for real-time
applications. The DFT operation is less sensitive to the presence
of harmonics, thus providing improved estimation of frequency
compared to the SOGI-FLL [1] and SOGI-PLL [21] techniques.
Moreover, unlike the SOGI-PLL and SOGI-FLL techniques,
the DFT-SOGI technique does not produce any interdependent
loops, thus offering an easy tuning process.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. In Section II,
the DFT-SOGI technique is briefly described. Simulation
results are presented in Section III. Section IV contains the
experimental performance comparison of the DFT-SOGI,
SOGI-FLL and SOGI-PLL techniques. Finally, the conclusions
of this paper are summarized in Section V.

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Fig. 1. DFT-SOGI technique for tracking the single-phase grid voltage fundamental frequency and amplitude.

II. DFT-SOGI TECHNIQUE

The single-phase grid voltage waveform
, distorted by
harmonics at the sampling instant, can be expressed by
(1)
where
and are the maximum order of harmonics and sampling period, respectively, and
,
and are the amplitude, instantaneous, and initial phase angle
of the frequency component
(
and
), respectively.
The DFT-SOGI technique, as shown in Fig. 1, is used to
estimate the single-phase grid voltage fundamental amplitude
and frequency, where
and
are the estimated
frequency, amplitude, phase angle, in-phase, and in-quadrature
components of the fundamental voltage waveform, respectively. As can be seen, the QSG-SOGI provides the orthogonal
components of the fundamental voltage waveform at the
tuning frequency estimated by the DFT. A moving average
filter (MAF) is used to remove the ripples from the estimated
amplitude. The window size of the MAF is updated using the
estimated frequency. The DFT-SOGI technique is designed for
monitoring the voltage of the distribution electricity network
where the fundamental frequency does not vary significantly
from its nominal value. According to the European standard
EN-50160 [34], under normal operating conditions, the mean
value of the fundamental frequency measured over 10 s shall
be within a range of 50 Hz 6 4% (i.e., 47 to 52 Hz) during
100% of the time, for systems with a synchronous connection to
an interconnected system. Therefore, the DFT-SOGI technique
is used to estimate the fundamental voltage amplitude and the
frequency range of 47 to 52 Hz.
A. Estimation of Grid Voltage Frequency
A fixed-size window with a fixed sampling frequency
is used in the DFT operation to track the time-varying
grid voltage fundamental frequency. The window size of the
DFT is chosen based on nominal fundamental frequency
.
During the time-varying cases, the fixed-size window of the
DFT causes spectral leakage and, hence, the actual spectrum
of one frequency spreads its energy to its neighbor frequencies
[6]. The time-varying grid voltage fundamental frequency can
be estimated adaptively using the spectral leakage information
[8], [9], [32], [33]. The short range of leakage is preferred to
estimate the grid voltage fundamental frequency, as it spreads
energy in a short range of neighboring frequencies [8], [9]. For
long-range leakage, large errors may be incurred due to the interference caused by neighboring harmonics [8], [9]. To avoid
long-range leakage, a Hanning window can be used to obtain a

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smooth truncation of the analyzed portion of the grid voltage

waveform. The DFT of the Hanning windowed grid voltage
waveform can be expressed by
(2)
where
; and are the constant integer number of voltage samples;
number of nominal fundamental voltage cycles; frequency resolution; frequency index and complex operator, respectively; and
is the Hanning window as given by

Fig. 2. Spectral leakage property of the fixed window DFT operation during
is the amplitude at the frequency .
the time-varying cases, where

(3)
From the DFT operation, as given by (2), the amplitudes corresponding to the nominal fundamental frequency
and two neighbor frequencies, such as
and
, are estimated. These three estimated amplitudes can be used to obtain the actual fundamental
frequency and are given by [8], [9], [32], and [33]

(4)
where

and
is the estimated amplitude at the frequency . The
mathematical derivation of
for the window size of samples
is reported in
[8] and [32]. The actual fundamental frequency is higher than
the nominal value
when the amplitude at the frequency
is higher than the amplitude at the frequency
and vice-versa, as shown in cases I and II of Fig. 2, respectively. In the DFT operation with a fixed-size window, the frequency deviation tracking range can be expressed by
[8]. The frequency tracking range can also be
increased by incorporating more neighboring spectral lines at
the expense of higher computational burden [8].
As the size of the window is fixed, the trigonometric functions
required for DFT operation can be estimated offline and can be
stored for real-time applications. Therefore, the DFT operation,
as given by (2), can also be expressed as
(5)
where

Fig. 3. Digital filter implementation of the fixed window DFT operation for
fundamental frequency estimation.

given by
, where
is the input of the DF. The implementation of the fixed-size window-based DFT operation for
tracking the grid voltage frequency is shown in Fig. 3, where
three DFT-based DFs are used to track the three spectral amplitudes, respectively. As can be noticed, the computational complexity of the presented frequency estimation technique mainly
depends on the implementation of three DFT-based DFs with
constant coefficients.
The presented DFT-based frequency tracking strategy requires a fixed-size memory buffer to store the samples of
the grid voltage waveform. The sliding window strategy is
followed to estimate the instantaneous fundamental frequency
and, hence, the memory buffer is updated at every new acquired sample and the oldest one is discarded. A large fixed-size
window improves the frequency resolution of the DFT at the
expense of higher computational burden and reduced frequency
tracking range. Moreover, the large size window causes a
narrower bandwidth of the DFT operation, as shown in Fig. 4
and, hence, it degrades the dynamic response. On the other
hand, a small-size window improves the dynamic response due
to the higher bandwidth of DFT operation and decreases the
computational burden, but it degrades the frequency resolution. For small-size window-based DFT operation, harmonics
interference may also occur due to the spectral line next to
the nominal fundamental frequency which might correspond
to some harmonics [8], [9]. The choice of window size of the
DFT also depends on the expected variation zone of the grid
voltage fundamental frequency. Thus, in order to estimate the
time-varying grid voltage fundamental frequency, a compromise is required when choosing the window size of the DFT.
B. Estimation of Grid Voltage Amplitude

and
. For constant values of
and
, as expressed by (5), can be considered
as the output of a digital filter (DF) with constant coefficients

In the DFT-SOGI technique, the fundamental voltage amplitude is estimated by an QSG-SOGI system whose tuning frequency is provided by the fixed window DFT operation as described earlier. The QSG-SOGI method is shown in Fig. 5(a),

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1141

Fig. 4. Magnitude responses of the different fixed-size window-based DFT operation at the nominal fundamental frequency (50 Hz).

Fig. 5. (a) Quadrature signal generator based on the second-order generalized

integrator. (b) Discrete implementation of the third-order integrator.

where the tuning frequency

sets the resonance frequency of the SOGI and the gain
determines the bandwidth
of the in-phase component and the static gain of the in-quadrature component [1], [21], [23], [24]. The transfer functions of
the SOGI, in-phase, and in-quadrature components of the QSGSOGI are given by (6)(8), respectively
(6)

Fig. 6. Bode plots of the (a) in-phase transfer function

of the QSG-SOGI, where
in-quadrature transfer function
rad/s.

and (b)

Fig. 7. Block diagram of the MAF.

(7)
(8)
The bode plots of (7) and (8) are shown in Figs. 6(a) and
(b), respectively, where the transfer functions (7) and (8) behave
like a band-pass filter (BPF) and a low-pass filter (LPF), respectively. It can be seen from Fig. 6 that a tradeoff is required between good dynamics and harmonics rejection capability when
choosing the value of , where
and represent the
damping factor of the QSG-SOGI [1], [21], [23], [24]. Therefore, the instantaneous estimation of the fundamental voltage
amplitude and phase angle by the QSG-SOGI can be expressed
by (9) and (10), respectively

The estimation of the fundamental voltage amplitude using

(9) may contain ripples due to the presence of harmonics and
dc offset. The MAF, as shown in Fig. 7, is used to remove the
ripples from the estimated amplitude, where
determines the window size
of the MAF and
. The
value of is made equal to the fundamental frequency to reject the ripples at the fundamental and harmonic frequencies.
The third-order integrator, as shown in Fig. 5(b), is also used
for discrete implementation of the MAF. The value of
can
be noninteger, that is,
, where is a positive
integer and
. Linear interpolation is used to obtain
the value of
and is given by [31]
(11)

(9)
(10)
The discrete implementation of the SOGI is presented in
Fig. 5(a), where the integrator blocks are replaced by the
third-order integrator shown in Fig. 5(b). The QSG-SOGI
based on third-order integrators provides more accurate results compared to the QSG-SOGI relying on Euler, Tustin, or
second-order integrators and, hence, the third-order integrators
are used for discrete implementation of the SOGI [21], [35],
[36].

III. SIMULATION RESULTS

To evaluate the performance of the fixed-size window-based
DFT operation, a step change of frequency is considered in the
grid voltage fundamental component. The effect of the different
fixed-size window in the DFT operation for frequency estimation is shown in Fig. 8, where 1-Hz step change of frequency
occurs at
1 s. As can be seen, the presented DFT operation provides faster response for the smaller size window and
vice-versa. However, DFT operation with a smaller size window

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Fig. 8. Frequency step (50 to 51 Hz) estimation using DFT operation with a
different fixed-size window.

Fig. 10. Effects of the inaccurate frequency tracking on the amplitude and
phase-angle estimation. (a) Frequency step from 50 to 52 Hz. (b) Fundamental
voltage amplitude error. (c) Phase-angle error.

Fig. 9. Steady-state error of the estimated frequency using DFT operation with
a different fixed-size window.

produces higher ripples for offnominal frequency (51 Hz) estimation, as depicted by the magnified plots in Fig. 8.
The IEEE standard C37.118.1 [37] specifies the fundamental
frequency range of 50 Hz 5 Hz (45 to 55 Hz) for an M class
phasor measurement unit (PMU) [38], [39]. The estimated
steady-state frequency error for the fundamental frequency
range of 45 to 55 Hz by using DFT operation with a different
fixed-size window is shown in Fig. 9. As can be noticed, the
window size that is equal to three nominal fundamental cycles
can be used to estimate the fundamental frequency range of
47 to 52 Hz, as specified by the standard EN-50160, with a
steady-state error of less than 0.01 Hz. Therefore, in this paper,
the DFT with a window size that is equal to three nominal fundamental cycles is used to estimate the fundamental frequency
range of 47 to 52 Hz.
In the presented DFT-SOGI technique, the QSG-SOGI provides errors in the amplitude and phase-angle estimation during
the inaccurate tuning frequency. Figs. 10 and 11 show the amplitude and phase-angle estimation errors due to the inaccurate
tuning frequency of the QSG-SOGI for 2-Hz and 3-Hz frequency steps, respectively, where
3, and
.
As can be seen, the DFT operation takes some time to estimate the frequency steps and, hence, the tuning frequency of the
QSG-SOGI is not equal to the input voltage frequency during
dynamics. It can also be observed that the estimated errors disappear when the tuning frequency of the QSG-SOGI estimated
by DFT operation is equal to the input voltage frequency. However, the MAF introduces an additional delay to remove the estimated amplitude errors, as can also be noticed from Figs. 10(b)
and 11(b), respectively.

Fig. 11. Effects of the inaccurate frequency tracking on the amplitude and
phase-angle estimation. (a) Frequency step from 50 to 47 Hz. (b) Fundamental
voltage amplitude error. (c) Phase-angle error.

IV. REAL-TIME EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

The performance of the DFT-SOGI technique is compared
with the SOGI-FLL and SOGI-PLL techniques on a real-time
experimental setup. Similar to the DFT-SOGI technique,
the frequency-adaptive MAF filter is also included in the
SOGI-FLL and SOGI-PLL techniques for rejecting amplitude
ripples. The real-time experimental setup is shown in Fig. 12,
which consists of hardware and software parts. The hardware
part contains a programmable ac power supply, voltage sensor,
dSPACE1103 (DS1103) control board, and a personal computer
(PC). The programmable ac power supply is used to generate
the real-time single-phase grid voltage waveform (
, where
subscript
indicates line to neutral) under different conditions, such as harmonics, frequency drifts, voltage sag, and
voltage flicker. The voltage sensor measures the voltage and
sends it to the 16-b analog-to-digital converter (ADC) of the
DS1103 control board. On the other hand, the software part
contains MATLAB/Simulink, DS1103 Real-Time Interface

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1143

Fig. 12. Laboratory setup for the real-time experiment.

TABLE I
PARAMETERS OF DFT-SOGI, SOGI-FLL, AND SOGI-PLL TECHNIQUES

(RTI) and Control Desk Interface. The DFT-SOGI, SOGI-FLL,

and SOGI-PLL techniques for single-phase systems are implemented in a single MATLAB/Simulink model which is
uploaded to the DS1103 control board using automatic code
generation. The Control Desk Interface running on the PC is
used to control the parameters in real time and to monitor the
estimated values.
The parameters, as specified in Table I, are tuned so that approximately an equal settling time is obtained for the presented
techniques. The nominal grid voltage and sampling frequencies
are chosen to be 50 Hz and 10 kHz, respectively. The amplitudes
of the grid voltage waveforms are considered on a per-unit basis.
The grid voltage fundamental component presented in all case
studies is distorted by 0.05 p.u. of the 3rd, 0.05 p.u. of the 5th,
0.05 p.u. of the 7th, and 0.05 p.u. of the 9th harmonic, leading
to a total harmonic distortion (THD) of 10%.
Case-1: Steady State With Harmonics: The steady-state
grid voltage waveform, as shown in Fig. 13(a), contains
10% THD. The estimations of the fundamental voltage
amplitude, frequency, and phase-angle error by using the
DFT-SOGI, SOGI-FLL, and SOGI-PLL techniques are depicted in Fig. 13(b)(d), respectively. As can be seen, the
amplitude and frequency estimations at steady state using the
DFT-SOGI technique are less affected by the harmonic content
compared to the SOGI-FLL and SOGI-PLL techniques. Since
the SOGI-FLL and SOGI-PLL techniques provide large ripples
in frequency estimation, the MAF cannot reject the amplitude
ripples effectively compared to the DFT-SOGI technique which
can be noticed in Fig. 13(b). On the other hand, the presented
techniques provide little phase-angle error due to the presence
of harmonics, as can be seen in Fig. 13(d).
Case-2: Frequency Sweep With Harmonics: In a real network
scenario, the grid frequency varies slowly due to the large inertia
of the rotating shaft of power generators [38], [39]. A 10-Hz/s
frequency sweep with a duration of 0.2 s is considered in the
grid voltage waveform containing 10% THD. The estimations
of the fundamental voltage amplitude, frequency sweep, and
phase-angle error by the investigated techniques are shown in
Fig. 14. As can be seen, the DFT-SOGI technique can track the
frequency sweep accurately while being less affected by harmonics compared to the SOGI-FLL and SOGI-PLL techniques.
On the other hand, all of the presented techniques provide small
amplitude error due to the inaccurate tuning frequency of the
QSG-SOGI during the frequency-sweep condition. The estimated phase-angle errors are also similar for the presented techniques, as can be noticed in Fig. 14(c).

Fig. 13. Case-1: Steady state with harmonics. (a) Grid voltage waveform.
(b) Fundamental voltage amplitude. (c) Fundamental frequency. (d) Phase-angle
error.

Fig. 14. Case-2: Frequency sweep with harmonics. (a) Fundamental voltage
amplitude. (b) Fundamental frequency. (c) Phase-angle error.

Case-3: Frequency Step With Harmonics: For this case,

a worst case scenario of grid frequency variation, such as a
step change, is considered for comparing the performance of
the DFT-SOGI, SOGI-FLL, and SOGI-PLL techniques. The
frequency step could also be observed in a stand-alone or a
small microgrid system. Fig. 15 illustrates the estimations of
fundamental voltage amplitude, 3-Hz frequency step, and
phase-angle error by using the presented techniques, where the

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 29, NO. 3, JUNE 2014

Fig. 15. Case-3: Frequency step with harmonics. (a) Fundamental voltage amplitude. (b) Fundamental frequency. (c) Phase-angle error.

grid voltage waveform contains 10% THD. It can be seen in

Fig. 15(b) that the DFT-SOGI technique takes an equal settling
time for tracking the frequency step and is less disturbed by
harmonics compared to the SOGI-FLL and SOGI-PLL techniques. Similar to simulation results presented in Fig. 11(b), the
DFT-SOGI technique provides 0.05-p.u. amplitude error during
the 3-Hz frequency step, as can be noticed in Fig. 15(a). On
the other hand, phase-angle estimation is affected due to the
frequency step for all of the presented techniques, as can be
observed in Fig. 15(c).
Case-4: Voltage Flicker With Harmonics: In this case,
voltage flicker is introduced in the grid voltage waveform
containing 10% THD, as shown in Fig. 16(a). The frequency
and the amplitude of the triangular voltage flicker are 2.5 Hz
and 0.05 p.u., respectively. The estimations of fundamental
amplitude, frequency, and phase-angle error are shown in
Fig. 16(b)(d), respectively. As can be seen, the presented
techniques can track the voltage flicker accurately. However,
the performance of the DFT-SOGI technique for amplitude and
frequency estimation is less affected by harmonics compared
to the SOGI-FLL and SOGI-PLL techniques. It can be seen
from Fig. 16(d) that the presented techniques provide similar
phase-angle estimation error during the voltage flicker and
harmonic conditions.
Case-5: Voltage Sag With Harmonics: A voltage sag of 50%
and 10% THD is shown in Fig. 17(a). The estimations of the
fundamental amplitude, frequency, and phase-angle error by
using the DFT-SOGI, SOGI-FLL, and SOGI-PLL techniques
are shown in Fig. 17(b)(d), respectively. As can be noticed,
the presented techniques can track the voltage sag accurately.
However, it can be noticed from Fig. 17(c) that the DFT-SOGI
technique presents less overshoot/undershoot in the frequency
estimation during voltage sag compared to the SOGI-FLL and
SOGI-PLL techniques. On the other hand, the performance
of the presented techniques for phase-angle estimation is also
affected by voltage sag, as can be observed in Fig. 17(d).
Case-6: DC Offset With Harmonics: In this case, 5% DC
offset is added with the grid voltage waveform containing 10%
THD and is shown in Fig. 18(a). The estimated fundamental

Fig. 16. Case-4: Voltage flicker with harmonics. (a) Grid voltage waveform.
(b) Fundamental voltage amplitude. (c) Fundamental frequency. (d) Phase-angle
error.

Fig. 17. Case-5: Voltage sag with harmonics. (a) Grid voltage waveform. (b)
Fundamental voltage amplitude. (c) Fundamental frequency. (d) Phase-angle
error.

voltage amplitude, frequency, and phase-angle error by using

the presented techniques are depicted in Fig. 18(b)(d), respectively. As can be seen, the performance of the DFT-SOGI technique for amplitude and frequency estimation is less sensitive
to the presence of the dc offset and harmonics compared to the
SOGI-FLL and SOGI-PLL techniques. However, it can be observed from Fig. 18(d) that the phase-angle estimation by using

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1145

techniques, the DFT-SOGI technique does not create any interdependent loops, thus increasing overall stability and easing
the tuning process.
REFERENCES

Fig. 18. Case-6: dc offset with harmonics. (a) Grid voltage waveform. (b) Fundamental voltage amplitude. (c) Fundamental frequency. (d) Phase-angle error.

the presented techniques is affected due to the presence of dc

offset and harmonics.
Computational Burden Comparison: It can be seen from the
experimental results presented in case studies 16 that the performance of the DFT-SOGI technique for frequency estimation
is less affected by the presence of harmonics compared to the
SOGI-FLL and SOGI-PLL techniques. In addition, the DFTSOGI technique avoids the use of interdependent loops. On
the other hand, all of these advantages of using the DFT-SOGI
technique come at the expense of being more computationally
demanding compared to the SOGI-FLL and SOGI-PLL techniques. Although the presented fixed-size window-based DFT
operation does not require the evaluation of trigonometric functions in real time, the use of three high-order DFT filters increases the computational burden of the DFT-SOGI technique
compared to the SOGI-FLL and SOGI-PLL techniques. Therefore, a compromise is made between high-accuracy frequency
estimation and digital resources consumption.
V. CONCLUSION
This paper presents a DFT-based QSG-SOGI technique to
estimate the fundamental voltage amplitude and frequency
from a distorted grid voltage waveform. The DFT operation
does not need to adjust the window size corresponding to
the actual frequency. The fixed-size window based on nominal fundamental periods enables offline computation of the
trigonometric functions required for DFT operation. The use of
three high-order DFT filters increases the computational burden
of the DFT-SOGI technique compared to the SOGI-FLL and
SOGI-PLL techniques. However, frequency estimation using
the DFT-SOGI technique is less sensitive to the presence of
harmonics and does not depend on the generation of the quadrature waveforms compared to the SOGI-FLL and SOGI-PLL
techniques. Moreover, unlike the SOGI-FLL and SOGI-PLL

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 29, NO. 3, JUNE 2014

Md. Shamim Reza (S11) was born in Magura,

Bangladesh. He received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in electrical and electronic engineering (EEE)
from Bangladesh University of Engineering and
Technology (BUET), Dhaka, Bangladesh, in 2006
and 2008, respectively, and is currently pursuing
the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering at The
University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney,
NSW, Australia.
His research interests include adaptive and digital
signal processing, monitoring of power quality, and
smart metering in smart-grid power systems.

Mihai Ciobotaru (S04M08) was born in Galati,

Romania. He received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in
electrical engineering from the University of Galati,
Galati, Romania, in 2002 and 2003, respectively, and
the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the
Institute of Energy Technology, Aalborg University,
Aalborg, Denmark, in 2009.
From 2003 to 2004, he was an Associate Lecturer
at the University of Galati. From 2007 to 2010, he
was an Associate Research Fellow at the Institute of
Energy Technology, Aalborg University. From 2010
to 2013, he was a Research Fellow at the School of Electrical Engineering and
Telecommunications, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, Australia. Currently, he is a Senior Research Associate with the UNSW, performing
his research activities under the Australian Energy Research Institute. His main
research activities and interests are in grid integration of PV systems, control
design of grid-connected power converters, power management of hybrid energy-storage systems, multilevel converters, and estimation of grid voltage parameters in single- and three-phase systems.

Vassilios G. Agelidis (S89M91SM00) was born

in Serres, Greece. He received the B.Eng. degree in
electrical engineering from the Democritus University of Thrace, Thrace, Greece, in 1988, the M.S. degree in applied science from Concordia University,
Montreal, QC, Canada, in 1992, and the Ph.D. degree
in electrical engineering from the Curtin University,
Perth, WA, Australia, in 1997.
From 1993 to 1999, he was with the School
of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Curtin
University. In 2000, he joined the University of
Glasgow, Glasgow, U.K., as a Research Manager for the Glasgow-Strathclyde Centre for Economic Renewable Power Delivery. In addition, he has
authored/co-authored several journal and conference papers as well as Power
Electronic Control in Electrical Systems in 2002. From 2005 to 2006, he was
the inaugural Chair of Power Engineering in the School of Electrical, Energy
and Process Engineering, Murdoch University, Perth. From 2006 to 2010,
he was the Energy Australia Chair of Power Engineering at the University
of Sydney, Sydney, Australia. Currently, he is the Director of the Australian
Energy Research Institute, The University of New South Wales, Sydney,
N.S.W., Australia.
Dr. Agelidis received the Advanced Research Fellowship from the United
Kingdoms Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council in 2004.
He was the Vice President of Operations within the IEEE Power Electronics
Society for 20062007. He was an Associate Editor of the IEEE POWER
ELECTRONICS LETTERS from 2003 to 2005, and served as the Power Electronics Society (PELS) Chapter Development Committee Chair from 2003
to 2005. He was an AdCom Member of IEEE PELS for 20072009 and
the Technical Chair of the 39th IEEE Annual Power Electronics Specialists
Conference, Rhodes, Greece.