Enhancing PV inverter reliability with battery system control strategy

The increasing integration of Photovoltaic (PV) and Battery Energy Storage Systems (PV-BESS) adds more power control flexibility of the PV systems. This offers an opportunity to improve the PV inverter reliability, where the loading of the PV inverter can be modified through the operation of the battery system (e.g., charge/discharge). In that case, the control strategy of battery systems will affect the PV inverter loading and thereby also the reliability. This paper investigates the potential solution to enhance the PV inverter reliability through the control of battery system, where three self-consumption control strategies are considered. The impact of the battery system control strategies on the PV inverter reliability is analyzed with the mission profile of a 6-kW PV-BESS installed in Germany. The evaluation results indicate that limiting the maximum charging power of the battery system has high potential to enhance the PV inverter reliability, where the damage of power devices in the inverter can be reduced by approximately 50%.