It is well known that in a photovoltaic (PV) plant, the modules are connected to switch-mode power converters to enhance the power output in every environmental condition. This task is performed by the maximum power point tracker (MPPT), which provides a current or voltage reference to the converter. Traditional perturb and observe or incremental conductance algorithms are not efficient in rapidly changing conditions, whereas a model-based (MB) MPPT offers a better dynamic performance. Because it is relatively easy to obtain an accurate model of a single PV panel, thus predicting the maximum power point voltage for given environmental conditions, MB MPPTs seemed to be attractive for employing in module integrated converters. Conventional MB MPPT algorithms, however, usually require an expensive pyranometer to properly operate. In this paper, starting from a new set of equations modeling a PV module, a novel MB MPPT technique, which does not require the direct measurement of the solar radiation, is proposed and experimentally validated

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Monitoring voltage harmonics represents one of the most important tasks in power quality assessment. In particular, the employed instrument transformer plays a key role in the achieved accuracy. Its harmonic measurement performance is typically evaluated by measuring its frequency response function. However, nonlinearities may have a non-negligible impact on measurement uncertainty: for example, this occurs as far as inductive voltage transformers are considered. This paper proposes a simple technique allowing the compensation of the most significant nonlinear effect, which is the harmonic distortion produced by the large fundamental primary voltage. The method is firstly derived and introduced by means of numerical simulations, and then implemented through a proper experimental setup. Results highlight remarkable accuracy improvements when realistic voltage waveforms are measured.

The most recent IEC standards about voltage transformers warn about nonlinearity, which may have significantly impact on the harmonic measurement performance. However, there is a lack of scientific literature about this topic: usually their characterization consists of frequency response measurements, which are clearly not able to capture the nonlinear behavior.In this paper, an innovative approach based on simplified frequency domain polynomial models developed by the authors is proposed. The method is applied to two different medium voltage inductive transformers. Models are identified and validated with a large set of realistic primary waveforms injected by a proper setup. Experimental results confirm the remarkable accuracy of the proposed models especially for low-order harmonics, which are the most affected by nonlinearity.

Phasor measurement units (PMUs) are expected to be the basis of modern power networks monitoring systems. They are conceived to allow measuring the phasor, frequency, and rate of change of frequency (ROCOF) of electrical signals in a synchronized way and with unprecedented accuracy. PMUs are intended to apply to three-phase systems and to track signal parameters evolution during network dynamics. For these reasons, the design of the algorithms and, in particular, of the filters that allow rejecting the disturbances while preserving the passband signal content is a paramount concern. In this paper, a novel space vector approach is proposed. It exploits the three-phase nature of the monitored signals together with proper lowpass and differentiation filters. Analytical formulas for performance prediction under almost all the test conditions prescribed by the synchrophasor standard C37.118.1 for PMUs, are introduced. The given expressions are extremely accurate, thus allowing to derive the filter design criteria for phasor, frequency, and ROCOF computation, so that the requirements in terms of estimation errors can be easily translated into filter specifications. The implications of the proposed approach in practical PMU design are illustrated by means of two simple design examples matching P and M compliance classes, respectively, for all the test cases of the standard. The reported performance proves the validity of the proposal