Passivity Enhancement of Grid-Tied Converters by Series LC-Filtered Active Damper

The series LC-filtered active damper can be used for stabilizing a grid converter tied to the non-ideal grid. Its operation principle is to mimic a damping resistance at the resonance frequencies appearing in the grid. However, the selection of the damping resistance has not been fully analyzed in the literature. Its effect with parasitic capacitance present in the grid has also usually been ignored, even though it may bring new challenges to the active damper. To address these issues, passivity is applied to study the grid converter stability before the understanding gained is used for formulating a damping resistance selection method. The method formulated can further be improved by admittance shaping so that system stability can always be ensured even when considering grid parasitic capacitance and control imperfection. Experimental results obtained have verified the expectations, and hence the suitability of the presented methods for the series LC-filtered active damper.