b'12 Partner News Autumn 2021AcademicDesign of a 1 MW Grid-tied Photovoltaic System: A project from a University of Sheffield UndergraduateFigure 1Nowadays, researchers are increasing the PV system efficiency and decreasing its total cost, encouraging electrical companies to install large-scale PV systems. Moreover, it mitigates the excessive usage of fossil fuels. From this perspective, we are in the Electronic and Electrical engineering Department; the University of Sheffield proposes a third-year undergraduate project to design the entire system of a 1MW grid-tied PV system, as shown in figure 1. The project is individual, and with the difficult time we had last year due to COVID-19, the continuous lockdown was one of the obstacles to cover all the project requirements. Nonetheless, the student did excellent work and accepted the challenge. The project includes the following tasks distributed between two semesters, design of the PV array capable of delivering theFigure 2required power (1 MW), design of dc-dcFor example, the PV system is designed forThe system is assembled, and now it is converter with MPPT, and controlled three- 750 V and 1334 A at a nominal condition.in the phase of design justification and phase inverter stage connected to passiveThe solar irradiance and temperatureverification. Finally, the design assessment filter and transformer then connected toeffect on the output power taken intoand results are recorded. the grid. The whole grid-tied PV system wasconsideration. designed and simulated using MATLAB/ The assessment for this project as SIMULINK.The boost converter was able to step upper the department criteria includes the voltage to 1500 V with a completeproject Initialisation Report (marked by The methodology that the student followsdesign for the output capacitor. Thethe supervisor), interim progress report to accomplish his design project is depictedMPPT-controller provides the required(primary and secondary marker), second in figure 2. Each of the system componentsperformance and maintains the maximummarker Viva, public engagement video, was designed and tested individually. Thepower. A dq controller is used for thesupervisor assessment, and an IEEE Article required functionality of each componentinverter stage to maintain a constant(primary and secondary marker).was obtained just as needed.voltage across the inverter terminals.'