Research Information System
Second International Conference on Emerging Electrical Energy, Electronics and Computing Technologies 2020 (ICE4CT 2020), Melaka, Malaysia, 21 - 22 December 2020
This paper aims to select the optimum inverter size for large-scale PV power plants
grid-connected based on the optimum combination between PV array and inverter, among
several possible combinations. Inverters used in this proposed methodology have high-efficiency
conversion in the range of 98.5% which is largely used in real large-scale PV power plants to
increase the financial benefits by injecting maximum energy into the grid. To investigate the PV
array-inverter sizing ratio, many PV power plants rated power are considered. The proposed
method is based on the modelling of several parts of the PV power plant taking into account
many design variables and constraints. The objective function is the levelized cost of energy
(LCOE) and the optimization is performed by a multi-verse algorithm. The optimization method
results in an optimum inverter size that depends on the PV plant rated capacity by providing an
optimum number of inverters required in the installation site. The optimum sizing ratio (Rs)
between PV array and inverter were found equal to 0.928, 0.904, and 0.871 for 1 MW, 1.5 MW,
and more than 2 MW, respectively, whereas the total power losses reached 8% of the total energy
generation during the PV power plant operational lifetime.