Stability Analysis and Active Damping for LLCL-filter-Based Grid-Connected Inverters

A higher-order passive power filter (LLCL-filter) for the grid-connected inverter is becoming attractive for the industrial applications due to the possibility to reduce the cost of the copper and the magnetic material. To avoid the well-known resonance problems of the LLCL-filter, it is requested to use either passive or active damping methods. This paper analyzes the stability of the LLCL-filter based grid-connected inverter and identifies a critical resonant frequency for the LLCL-filter when sampling and transport delays are considered. In a high resonant frequency region the active damping is not required but in a low resonant frequency region the active damping is necessary. The basic LLCL resonance damping properties of different feedback states based on a notch filter concept are also studied. Then an active damping method which is using the capacitor current feedback for LLCL-filter is introduced. Based on this active damping method, a design procedure for the controller is given. Last, both simulation and experimental results are provided to validate the theoretical analysis of this paper.