Fuzzy-Based Current-Controlled Voltage Source Inverter for Improved Power Quality in Photovoltaic and Fuel Cell Integrated Sustainable Hybrid Microgrids

Due to the complementary operational features, photovoltaic (PV) and fuel cell (FC) systems are increasingly being integrated into hybrid microgrids. PV systems provide clean energy during the day, while FCs provide continuous power supply throughout the day and night; thus, FCs can address PV’s incapacity during the night. However, voltage instability, frequency deviation, and enhanced harmonic distortion can result from the intrinsic intermittency of solar energy, switching errors in power electronic equipment, and varying load demands. Thus, a fuzzy logic-based current-controlled voltage source inverter (CC-VSI) is proposed in this paper to overcome these issues and enhance power quality in PV-FC hybrid microgrids. As per IEEE 1547 regulations, the fuzzy controller dynamically modifies the inverter current to maintain steady voltage and frequency profiles. MATLAB/Simulink (R2022a) is used to model and simulate the system, and its performance is evaluated under various reactive load scenarios. To test the efficacy of the proposed control technique, various power quality metrics, viz., voltage profiles (sag and swell), frequency profile, and total harmonic distortions, are plotted when subjected to large reactive load variations. The simulation results that are obtained with the proposed fuzzy-based current control technique are compared with the conventional artificial neural networks-based controller to verify the effectiveness. From the comparison study, it is found that the proposed technique shows superior power quality performance over the conventional technique. This encourages the development of renewable energy-based sustainable hybrid microgrids worldwide.