Analysis of Solar Irradiation Impact on Grid-tied Photovoltaic Systems' Power Quality Characteristics

The usage of photovoltaic systems in the production of electrical energy has increased, either as a way to provide electricity in places where there is no grid connection (stand-alone systems) or by feeding electricity into the grid (grid-tied systems). As the price of energy produced from fossil fuels rises, solar energy emerges as a feasible alternative source in a liberated energy market. However, it continues to have issues that must be fixed for it to be universally acknowledged as a viable replacement for fossil fuels. It is necessary to solve the underlying issue of the quality of the power generated by photovoltaic technology. In this study, power quality experiments were run with a grid-tied PV system to ascertain how solar irradiation variation impacts power quality quantities, results for low and average irradiance situations are measured and analyzed. The investigation showed that low solar irradiation significantly increases current total harmonic distortion, which frequently pushes power factor outside of acceptable limit and injects reactive power into the grid.