Time-Varying Interharmonics in Different Types of Grid-Tied PV Inverter Systems

Widely existing circuit topologies and inverter control strategies for photovoltaic (PV) systems allow customer flexibility but also introduce different kinds of interharmonics into the grid. A complete understanding of interharmonics from PV systems, with reasons behind their origin, remains needed. In addition, the time-varying nature of interharmonics and the potential impacts on other equipment are yet to be understood. In this paper, laboratory and field measurements of seven different inverter types at multiple locations are presented. A comprehensive analysis is performed to understand the existence, persistence, and propagation of interharmonics in PV systems on the dc side as well as grid side for different power levels. The origins of the interharmonics are established with experimental evidence and through a comparative analysis. A rural low voltage six customer network, with two different impedance profiles caused by the installation of PV, is considered to show the potential impact on customer voltage. To address the time-varying nature of interharmonics, a sliding window ESPRIT method is preferred over fast fourier transform (FFT)-based methods.