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Power quality disturbances commonly observed in power systems have been studied for decades, resulting in numerous algorithms for detecting the events that affect the voltage and/or current waveforms. However, a considerable amount of disturbances is not visually observable in the raw waveforms, especially switching operations. These events must be detected through an alternative feature, such as abrupt variations in the root-mean-square (rms) voltage profile. This study examines the methods commonly used for detecting power quality disturbances in the waveform or rms voltage profile domains and identifies their limitations. Afterwards, a novel step change detector is proposed based on a modified median filter and rms voltage gradient values to overcome the deficiencies of the existing methods. The effectiveness of the proposed method is assessed by applying it to both simulated and field data. This assessment shows that the method detects all switching events with no false positives for the datasets under analysis.

Z -source inverters (ZSIs) are single-stage power converters with both voltage buck and boost capabilities provided by the unique impedance network and the ability to operate during shoot-through states. This study proposes a novel non-linear adaptive backstepping method for dc-side controllers in a multi-loop control scheme of the ZSI in grid-tied photovoltaic (PV) systems. Despite the variability of the capacitor and inductor values in the ZSI impedance network, the proposed controller guarantees robust and stable operation under varying levels of PV irradiance and temperature. The shoot-through duty ratio of the ZSI is obtained directly from the output of an MPPT algorithm and the measured PV and inductor currents. This strategy overcomes the disadvantages of the conventional approach such as the non-minimum phase at the dc side of the ZSI. It also eliminates the need to linearise the voltage/current characteristics of the PV arrays and ZSI model. The ac-side controllers consist of an outer proportional-integral voltage controller and an inner deadbeat current controller to achieve unity power factor and stable capacitor voltage in spite of grid voltage fluctuations. The efficacy of the proposed adaptive backstepping controller and the multi-loop control scheme is validated by offline and hardware-in-the-loop real-time simulations.

This work deals with the steady-state operation of wind energy conversion systems (WECSs) used simultaneously as active filters (AFs) and power generators. This application is motivated by the increasing number of non-linear loads (NLLs) on the power grid and by the possibility to offer an economical alternative to the installation of dedicated filters that sink the harmonic currents injected by such loads. The main contributions of this paper are as follows: (i) three different control systems that allow the simultaneous use of the WECS as AF and power generator are presented; (ii) compensation of triplen harmonics is addressed; (iii) additional power losses due to AF operation, leading to the derating of the WECS, are quantified; (iv) results based on numerical simulations are provided.