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Energy Procedia 90 (2016) 250 – 259

5th International Conference on Advances in Energy Research, ICAER 2015, 15-17 December
2015, Mumbai, India

Modeling and Control of Quasi Z-Source Cascaded H-Bridge

Multilevel Inverter for Grid Connected Photovoltaic Systems
D.Umarania, Dr.R.Seyezhaib,*
a
Assistant Professor,Department of EEE,SSN College of Engineering,Kalavakkam -603110,India
a
Associate Professor,Department of EEE,SSN College of Engineering,Kalavakkam -603110,India

Abstract

This paper presents the modeling and controlling the power of Quasi Z-Source cascaded H-bridge multilevel inverter for grid
connected photovoltaic systems. The Quasi Z-Source inverter is an inverter that provides buck / boost output along with DC-AC
conversion in a single stage. This topology has numerous advantages which makes it reliable and suitable for PV applications.
Due to the impedance network and the cascaded H-bridge structure, it provides high gain, reduced total harmonic distortion
(THD) and high reliability in PV systems. In this paper, a five level cascaded H-Bridge Quasi Z-source inverter has been
considered for which the impedance network has been designed. Phase Shifted Inverted Sine carrier pulse width modulation has
been implemented along with shoot- through control for controlling the switches of the inverter. The closed loop power control
scheme has been implemented in two stages. In the PV input side, each string voltage is controlled by adjusting the shoot-through
states of the inverter using Independent Maximum Power Point Tracking Control. DC link voltage of each bridge has been
balanced by using DC link voltage control. Both of these controlling actions result in the control of grid injected power. A 2kVA
PV inverter has been designed and built using MATLAB/SIMULINK and the hardware has been completed for the open loop
control. The simulation and open loop hardware results are discussed.

©
© 2016
2016TheTheAuthors. Published
Authors. by Elsevier
Published Ltd. Ltd.
by Elsevier This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of ICAER 2015.
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of ICAER 2015
Keywords: Quasi Z-Source inverter; Photovoltaic system; Pulse Width Modulation; DC link voltage; Maximum Power Point tracking

1. Introduction

In recent years, photovoltaic (PV) power fed utility grid is gaining more attention as the power requirement
of the world is alarmingly rising. Generally, module inverters, string inverters and central inverters are employed for
grid tied PV generation systems. But the disadvantage of these inverters are they produce output voltage lesser than
the input DC rail voltage, restricts the simultaneous conduction of switches belonging to same leg and suffers from
poor spectral quality[1].In order to improve the quality of the output voltage, cascaded H-Bridge multilevel inverter

1876-6102 © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of ICAER 2015
doi:10.1016/j.egypro.2016.11.192
 D. Umarani and R. Seyezhai / Energy Procedia 90 (2016) 250 – 259 251

(CHB-MLI) is preferred for PV systems. Because, they can use separate PV sources for each bridge and it also
produces an output which closely resembles the sinusoidal wave. But in MLI, a DC-DC converter is required at each
stage to boost up the input voltage which increases the cost and complexity of the circuit [2]. Therefore, this paper
proposes a five-level Quasi Z-Source multilevel inverter (QZMLI) for grid connected PV applications. The
advantage of this inverter is it provides step up/step down operation and DC-AC inversion in a single power stage
by employing a unique impedance network [3] at each level leading to the conduction of devices in the same leg [4].
By incorporating the advantages of cascaded H-bridge MLI to the quasi impedance network, the Quasi Z-Source
multilevel inverter (QZMLI) evolves [5] which will be a promising topology for PV in near future.

As the solar power fluctuates stochastically, it will be difficult to control the output voltage and power that
is fed to the grid; therefore an independent MPPT can be employed in QZMLI. By employing total power injection
control, maximum power point tracking and independent DC link voltage control, the power generated by the PV
arrays can be fully controlled to feed the utility grid [6]. This paper illustrates a total power control scheme using PI
controller for controlling the power of the PV based single phase grid tied QZMLI. The maximum power point
tracking (MPPT) using Perturb and Observe (P & O) method is implemented for each PV source [7]. MPPT with
maximum constant boost control varies the shoot-through states and DC link voltage controls the PWM. Phase
shifted inverted sine carrier has been used as it improves power quality of the grid voltage with reduced voltage
stress across the device and reduced THD [8]. The simulation of the circuit configuration with the controller has
been carried out using MATLAB/Simulink. Hardware for the single-phase QZSMLI under open loop configuration
is built and the results are validated.

Section 2 illustrates the design and the circuit operation of QZMLI. Section 3 deals with maximum constant boost
inverted sine PWM technique for the proposed topology. Section 4 describes the total power control using DC link
voltage control and Independent MPPT control of the grid fed PV based QZMLI. Section 5 provides the analysis of
various performance parameters of the proposed topology. Section 6 showcases the open loop hardware prototype
with its results. Section 7 concludes the proposed work followed by references.

Nomenclature

D Shoot-through duty ratio

Tsh Switching cycle
To Non shoot through period over a switching cycle
Δi Inductor current ripple
VPN Inverter bridge voltage

2. Quasi Z-Source Multilevel Inverter

Fig.1 shows the circuit configuration of five-level cascaded H-Bridge Quasi Z-Source Inverter with Quasi
Impedance Network to each DC link of the PV module [9]. The impedance network consists of two inductors L1, L2
and two Capacitors C1 and C2 at each stage of the inverter bridge. This unique LC network connected to the inverter
bridge modifies the operation of the circuit, allowing the shoot-through states and will effectively protect the circuit
from damage when the short circuit occurs. By effectively utilizing the shoot-though state, the QZS network boosts
the dc-link voltage. The major advantages of QZSI compared to other Z-inverters are [4]
• It draws a continuous constant dc current from the source.
• The voltage on capacitor C2 is greatly reduced.
• The continuous and constant dc current drawn from the source make this topology well suited for PV
power conditioning systems.
2.1 Circuit Operation of QZSI
The operation states of the QZSI are shoot-through state and non-shoot through state. The equivalent circuits of the
252 D. Umarani and R. Seyezhai / Energy Procedia 90 (2016) 250 – 259

shoot-through state and non-shoot through state are shown in Fig.2. (a) and (b). During the shoot-through state the
power transmission will be zero as the DC link voltage is Zero. At the non-shoot through state, the power is
transmitted form DC side to AC side. According to the operating states, the basic relationships are given below:

1− D
VC1 = VPV (1)
1 − 2D
D
VC 2 = VPV (2)
1 − 2D
1
Vdc = VPV = B.VPV (3)
1 − 2D
V PV M .Vdc
Vac = .M .B = (4)
2 2
1
B= (5)
1 − 2D
T
D = sh (6)
Ts

Fig.2.(a) Shoot through state

b

Fig.1 Five-level Cascaded QZSI Fig.2.(b) Non-Shoot through state

2.2 Design of Quasi Impedance Network

Based on the 2ɷ ripple analysis of the single phase QZSI, the impedance network has been designed. This analysis
has been carried out specifically because of the inherent second harmonic power flow in the single phase QZSI.
Passive methods used to mitigate 2ɷ component will lead to huge size of impedance network. 2ω power flow is
analysed and current ripple damping control is proposed in [9] to find the minimum QZS capacitance and
inductance.The 2ɷ Power Po-2ɷ is completely stored in capacitors and the
 D. Umarani and R. Seyezhai / Energy Procedia 90 (2016) 250 – 259 253

2Vo I o
QZS Capacitance is C= (7)
ωεV PN 2
To limit the switching frequency ripple, the

D(1 − D)TsVDC
QZS Inductance is L= (8)
(1 − 2 D).2.Δi
Using equations (7) and (8), the values of L and C of Quasi Impedance Network have been calculated as 3.5 mH and
760µF respectively. Based on the above design, the parameters for simulation are provided in Table 1.
3. Modulation Strategies for QZMLI
The operation of Quasi Z-source inverter requires proper switching of the devices. The carrier based pulse
width modulation (PWM) technique is preferred to implement the switching pattern. The PWM is generated by
comparing reference sine wave with phase shifted inverted sine carrier of desired switching frequency. Modification
is made in the conventional PWM technique to include the additional shoot-through state. There are three ways of
providing shoot-through states to the pulses of QZMLI. They are Simple Boost Control (SBC), Maximum Boost
Control (MBC) and Constant Boost Control (CBC). These strategies differ by the magnitude of the shoot through
line [10]. In this paper, constant boost technique is implemented compared to the other two techniques because of
constant shoot through duty ratio, reduced voltage stress and better boost factor [11].
3.1Phase Shifted Inverted Sine carrier PWM Strategy with Maximum constant boost control
In the proposed topology, Phase shifted inverted sine carrier PWM (ISPWM) has been used. The reference
wave is a conventional sine wave of 50 Hz frequency. The inverted sine carrier with frequency helps in maximizing
the output voltage for the given modulation index. Greater pulse area results in enhanced fundamental component.
The inverted sine carrier results in three times the fundamental component of conventional triangular PWM with
reduced THD [12].This PWM strategy requires no mode change and causes exactly same number of switching per
cycle with improved fundamental component.Fig.3(a) shows the ISPWM technique. Phase shifted ISPWM has been
used for the cascaded H-Bridge QZSI. It uses inverted sine carriers shifted by angle ɵ called phase shift angle. It has
the advantages of balanced switching action and the phase shift angle can be used to control the output voltage. The
pulse generation using Phase shifted inverted sine carrier along with maximum constant boost control has been
shown in Fig. 3(b). The five level output voltage form the proposed topology is shown in Fig.4.The peak value of
the output voltage is found to be 400 V without filter.
4

a
ISPWM Generation

-2

-4
0.02 0.021 0.022 0.023 0.024 0.025 0.026 0.027 0.028 0.029 0.03
Time(S)

1.5
PWM

0.5

0
0.02 0.021 0.022 0.023 0.024 0.025 0.026 0.027 0.028 0.029 0.03
Time(S)

Fig. 3(a) Inverted Sine Carrier PWM

254 D. Umarani and R. Seyezhai / Energy Procedia 90 (2016) 250 – 259

b 4

2
PS-ISPWM

-2

-4
0.02 0.022 0.024 0.026 0.028 0.03 0.032 0.034 0.036 0.038 0.04
Time(S)

1.5
PWM Pulses

0.5

0
0.02 0.022 0.024 0.026 0.028 0.03 0.032 0.034 0.036 0.038 0.04
Time(S)

Fig.3 (b) Pulse Pattern of Phase shifted ISPWM for QZMLI

600

400
Five-level output voltage(V)

200

-200

-400

-600
0.2 0.21 0.22 0.23 0.24 0.25 0.26 0.27 0.28 0.29 0.3
Time(S)

Fig.4 Five-level output voltage of the proposed topology

4. Control of PV based QZMLI for grid connected System

4.1 Total Power control of the proposed topology
In conventional methods, the real and reactive power of the inverter is controlled independently but this
paper illustrates a simplified total power control of the QZMLI. It combines DC link voltage control and
Independent MPPT control for each inverter bridge. The power injected to the grid is the PV string output power.
Let the power reference be Pn*.The peak value of the grid current is

2 Pn *
I grid = (7)
v pgrid
To ensure unity power factor operation, the phase locked loop (PLL) is used to measure the phase of the
grid voltage. The grid current is measured and fed back to the current loop. The output voltage    is given by the
current loop to produce the modulation index. With the modulation index and the shoot-through duty ratio from the
MPPT, the required gating signals are produced for the QZSI [13-14].The power control can be implemented by
using the power reference generated by the DC link voltage control. In DC link voltage control, the capacitor
voltages are measured and compared with the DC link voltage of the inverter bridge. The error is converted to
proportional current magnitude using proportional-integrator. Now the current reference is generated by measuring
the phase of the grid voltage using PLL. The current reference is compared with the grid current to lock the phases
of grid voltage and grid current. The shoot-through generated by independent MPPT using P& O method is added to
the PS-ISPWM. This modified PWM will control the power of the inverter. Fig.5 represents the total power control
of the proposed system.
4.2 Simulation of the DC link voltage control and Independent MPPT for proposed topology
The five-level cascaded QZSI based grid tie PV system has been built by MATLAB/Simulink and the
results are provided in this section. The simulation of the entire system is shown in Fig.6 (a) and (b).The simulation
parameters for QZSI have been listed in Table 1.The pulse pattern controlled by the DC link voltage control and
independent MPPT control has been shown already in Fig.5.
 D. Umarani and R. Seyezhai / Energy Procedia 90 (2016) 250 – 259 255

Table 1. Simulation parameters of QZSI

Design Parameter Value Unit

Switching frequency , fs 10k Hz
Shoot through duty ratio , D 0.25 -
Boost Factor B 1.66
Modulation Index , M 0.8 -
Input Voltage , VDC 105 V
DC link Voltage 145 V
Inductor Current ripple,
 40% -

Inductors L1,L2 3.5 mH

Capacitors C1, C2 1000 µF

Fig.5 Total Power control of the proposed topology

Fig.7 represents the peak values of the grid voltage and grid current. The peak value of grid voltage is
found as 336 V and grid current as 14 A from which the apparent power of the grid connected five-level QZSI has
been calculated as 2000VA. It can be clearly observed that the phase locking of grid voltage and grid current has
occurred.
5. Performance Parameters for QZMLI with ISPWM
As inverted sine carrier has better spectral quality with higher fundamental component compared to
conventional sinusoidal PWM with triangular carrier, it has been selected for the grid-tied PV based QZMLI. The
carrier wave is analysed to find the relationship among the parameters such as modulation index, shoot-through duty
ratio, and voltage stress across switching device, boost factor, voltage gain and switching loss. The shoot-through

duty ratio has been varied and the corresponding boost factor and has been plotted for phase shifted inverted


sine carrier pulse width modulation (PS-ISPWM). The graph is shown in Fig.8 (a) and (b) respectively. The
modulation index has been varied and the corresponding voltage gain, voltage stress and THD of the grid current
has been plotted for phase shifted inverted sine carrier pulse width modulation (PS-ISPWM).The graph is shown in
Fig.9 (a),(b) and (c) respectively. For varying switching frequency, the corresponding switching loss has been
calculated and plotted for both phase shifted inverted sine carrier pulse width modulation (PS-ISPWM) and phase
shifted sinusoidal pulse width modulation (PS-SPWM). The graph is shown in Fig.10.
256 D. Umarani and R. Seyezhai / Energy Procedia 90 (2016) 250 – 259

Fig.6 Total power controller for a single H-bridge QZSI

400

300

200

100
Peak Value(Vg,Ig)

-100

-200

-300

-400
0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25
Time(S)

Fig.7 Grid Voltage and Grid current of the proposed topology

 D. Umarani and R. Seyezhai / Energy Procedia 90 (2016) 250 – 259 257

a b


Fig.8 (a).D Vs B; (b) D Vs


a b

Fig.9 (a).M Vs G; (b) M Vs Stress; (c) M Vs current THD Fig.10. Switching frequency Vs Switching Loss

The inductor current ripple and the capacitor voltage ripple are shown in Fig.11 (a) and (b) respectively.
a 30 b 200
Capac itor Voltage Ripple
ripple

180
20
Induc tor Current

160

140
10
120

0 100
0.2 0.21 0.22 0.23 0.24 0.25 0.26 0.27 0.28 0.29 0.3 0.2 0.21 0.22 0.23 0.24 0.25 0.26 0.27 0.28 0.29 0.3
Time(S) Time(S)

Fig.11. (a) Inductor current ripple; (b) Capacitor voltage ripple

258 D. Umarani and R. Seyezhai / Energy Procedia 90 (2016) 250 – 259


From Fig.8 (a) and (b), one can infer that the boost factor and ratio of increases with increase in shoot-


through duty ratio. From the waveforms of Fig.9. (a) and (b), the voltage gain and voltage stress reduces with
increase in modulation index. As the same way, the current THD increases with increase in modulation index which
is shown in Fig.9. (c). so, it is better to choose the optimum value of modulation index that provides reduced current
THD and improved boost factor. From Fig.10, one can conclude that the switching loss is reduced in the case of
Inverted sine carrier PWM technique compared with Triangular carrier PWM technique. So it provides better
efficiency with improved fundamental component. The voltage ripple across the capacitor of the QZS network is
found to be 28.57% and current ripple of the inductor is found as 33.33%. Thus, the inverted sine carrier proves to
be better for QZMLI.
6. Hardware prototype for open loop system of the proposed topology
The hardware prototype of the impedance network and the five-level cascaded H bridge quasi Z-source inverter are
shown in the Fig 12. The maximum constant boost implemented phase shifted PWM was generated using Xilinx-
MATLAB interface and the program was fused to NEXYS2-SPARTAN3E.The generated pulses are shown in
Fig.13 in which the shoot through states can be clearly seen in S1 and S3.

S1

S4

S2

S3

Fig.12 Hardware Prototype of the five-level QZSI Fig.13 PS-ISPWM pulse pattern for QZSI

Fig.14 Output Voltage obtained from the hardware prototype of five-level QZSI

The output voltage obtained from the developed hardware model of the five-level cascaded H bridge quasi Z-source
inverter is shown in the Fig.14.The output voltage is boosted to 33 V for an input voltage of ~9V at each stage of the
bridges using PV panels. The voltage has been boosted approximately to match the boost factor of 1.66 which
validates the simulation results.
 D. Umarani and R. Seyezhai / Energy Procedia 90 (2016) 250 – 259 259

7. Conclusion
In this paper, a five level Quasi Z-Source grid connected PV system exploiting cascaded multilevel inverter
is proposed. The design of the impedance network was carried out using 2ɷ ripple analysis which proves to provide
minimized LC network. The system is capable of injecting PV power into the grid with reduced total harmonic
distortion using a single power conversion stage. From the results, it is observed that by employing inverted sine PS-
PWM technique for the proposed MLI, enhanced fundamental component and improved spectral quality of the
output is obtained. The total power control which combines DC link voltage and independent MPPT control was
implemented. The grid voltage and grid current attained phase lock condition through the proposed control strategy.
The simulation results are validated with the experimental results in open loop condition. Hence, QZMLI is a
suitable candidature for grid connected photovoltaic applications.
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