A Comparison of Electric Power Smoothing Control Methods for Distributed Generation Systems

SUMMARY Renewable forms of energy such as solar energy have attracted attention as alternative sources of fossil fuel. The output power of photovoltaic generation systems changes steeply. Changes in output power have an effect on the electric power quality of the power system. For that reason, a system which can smooth fluctuations of output power is required. In this paper, the moving average, modified moving average, single exponential smoothing, and double exponential smoothing methods are applied to electric power smoothing control schemes for distributed generation systems with photovoltaic generation. The reduction rate of power fluctuations and the maximum stored energy of electric double layer capacitors are adopted as system evaluation measures. To confirm the effectiveness of the power smoothing control methods, a distributed generation power system with photovoltaic generation systems is simulated with the power electronics circuit simulation software PSIM. The methods are then compared by evaluating the reduction in the capacity of electric double layer capacitors without loss in the power smoothing effect.