Introducing New Control Methods to Apply in Flexible Photovoltaic ‎Systems at the 3-Phase 4-Wire Grids

Document Type : Research article

Authors

1 East Azarbaijan Electric Power Distribution Company, Tabriz, Iran

2 Department of Electrical Engineering, Shab.C., Islamic Azad University, Shabestar, Iran

Abstract
Integrating photovoltaic (PV) generation with active filtering (AF) in three-phase four-wire distribution networks enhances power quality while maximizing renewable energy utilization. This study presents two advanced control strategies—the corrected p-q theory and the enhanced vectorial control method—to optimize system performance under unbalanced and distorted grid conditions. The corrected p-q strategy ensures harmonic compensation, reactive power balance, and neutral current elimination, stabilizing DC-link voltage with THD levels below 3%. Meanwhile, the enhanced vectorial control approach provides superior harmonic suppression, reducing THD to 0.88% and neutral current RMS to 0.035, while maintaining DC-link voltage at a stable level, optimizing energy storage and power conversion. Both strategies are validated through PSCAD/EMTDC simulations, demonstrating their adaptability in dynamically adjusting PV power injection in response to irradiance and temperature variations. The MPPT algorithm effectively tracks optimal power points, ensuring efficient grid interaction and power stabilization. A comparative analysis confirms the enhanced vectorial control method’s advantages in harmonic reduction and reactive power compensation, making it preferable for stringent grid applications while reinforcing the role of PV systems as intelligent multi-functional energy units.
 

Graphical Abstract

Introducing New Control Methods to Apply in Flexible Photovoltaic ‎Systems at the 3-Phase 4-Wire Grids

Highlights

Presents a corrected p-q control strategy for PV systems in unbalanced, distorted 3- phase 4-wire grids.
Combines PV with active power filtering to function as a flexible photovoltaic (FPV) system.
Proposes enhanced vectorial control to mitigate harmonics, voltage unbalance, and reactive power.
Ensures dynamic adaptability to disturbances while maintaining optimal MPPT power extraction.
Integrates flexible distributed generation (FDG) models for multi-purpose grid stabilization. 

Keywords


Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. The ethical issues, including plagiarism, informed consent, misconduct, data fabrication and/or falsification, double publication and/or submission, redundancy, have been completely observed by the authors.

 

Credit Authorship Contribution Statement

Saeid Khani Formal analysis, Methodology, Software, Roles/Writing-original draft, Writingreview & editing. Leila Mohammadian  Conceptualization, Investigation, Methodology, Supervision, Writing-review & editing.

Bibliography

Saeid Khani was born in Tabriz, Iran, 1984. He received his B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Zanjan, Iran and M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Tabriz, Iran in 2007, 2011 and 2023 respectively. His research interests include power electronic converters and power electronic application in renewable energy systems, power quality enhancement and facts.

Leila Mohammadian was born in Tabriz, Iran, in 1984. She received her B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran, in 2007, 2011, and 2015, respectively. She has been with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Shab.C., Islamic Azad University, Shabestar, Iran, since 2011. She has been an Assistant Professor since 2015. She is the author of more than 60 journal and conference papers. Her current research interests include the analysis and control of power electronic converters and their applications, power quality enhancement and FACTS devices, application of control systems and theory in power engineering, and power system dynamics, renewable energy sources, and energy storage systems.

Citation

S. Khani, and L. Mohammadian, "Introducing New Control Methods to Apply in Flexible Photovoltaic Systems at the 3-Phase 4-Wire Grids," Journal of Green Energy Research and Innovation, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 27-44, 2025.

  • Receive Date 15 April 2025
  • Revise Date 25 May 2025
  • Accept Date 30 June 2025
  • Publish Date 01 December 2025