Multi Master Inverter Scheduling for Solar Photovoltaic Systems

As the world now is shifting towards the renewable energy sources for power generation, the distributed energy generation unit’s standards like reliability, lifetime and efficiency should be as good as the conventional energy generation system’s standard. Out of the many renewable energy sources available, solar energy harvesting technology is the major source of the renewable energy in the world. In the solar photovoltaic power generation systems, DC power generated by the solar PV panels needs a solar inverter for connecting it to an ac utility grid. But, the efficiency and lifetime of the solar power inverter is low due to the losses and damage caused by the higher operating hours of the solar inverters. This project aims to improve the efficiency and to prolong the lifetime of a solar inverter, by proposing the multi master inverter scheduling concept. The main objective of this project is to develop an optimisation algorithm for reducing the operational hour of the inverter units and also to improve the efficiency of the inverter during power conversion by providing a proper load sharing algorithm for inverters. The inverter’s efficiency varies according to the load and this variation helps in determining the number of inverter units to be connected to the system for obtaining the maximum efficient power converting condition.