Comparison of the effect of filter designs on the total harmonic distortion in three-phase stand-alone photovoltaic systems

The world has turned their attention to renewable energy with the increasing demand of power supply and the limited source of fossil fuel. In Malaysia, solar PV energy is growing steadily as the sunlight is easily available throughout the year. As more solar PV system being installed, stand-alone operation is being looked into to bring solar PV to rural areas. However, in stand-alone operations there is no voltage support from the grid which will lead to harmonic problems. Passive filter is one of the methods used to mitigate the harmonic issues in a stand-alone system. This paper focuses on the design of passive filters and the effects of the filter on the total harmonic mitigation in a 8kW three-phase stand-alone PV system are compared. The design of the proposed filters is validated by simulation results in PSCAD software. The simulation results show that the double tuned filter design is able to meet the THD and individual harmonic limit standards better as compared to the single tuned filter and LC filter design.