Summary
In this paper, a novel photovoltaic‐tied unified power quality conditioner (PV‐tied UPQC) scheme is proposed for elimination of major current‐ and voltage‐related power quality issues present in the distribution system. Photovoltaic‐tied UPQC topology is completely new in its category of photovoltaic grid integration. Although advanced UPQC schemes have been discussed in literatures, but concepts related to PV‐tied UPQC are few in number to discuss elaborately about elimination of power quality issues. In this paper, a new PV‐tied UPQC topology with an improved LCL filter at shunt inverter part is proposed, which provides better compensation to current quality issues. This paper also proposes a novel model reference tracker control law to improve power quality and elimination of current harmonics, voltage sag/swells, and unbalance. It has feature to regulate tracking error between model reference signal and actual measured signal. Therefore, proposed model reference approach provides robustness and flexibility for various operating conditions. In addition, integral plus sliding mode controller has been used for better control of dc‐link voltage to deal with severe change in power system conditions. Performance and efficiency of present topology with novel controller is analyzed along with conventional controllers through laboratory developed prototype, controlled by DS1103 dsp processor.