Journal of Fundamentals of Renewable Energy and Applications
Open Access

Abstract

Power Line Communication System for Grid Distributed Renewable Energy

Vinh Nguyen, Petit P, Aillerie M, Charles JP and Le QT

The multi-sources nature of renewable energy production can be taken into account thanks to involving the solutions of distributed architecture based on individual DC-DC converters, connected to a direct current (DC) bus. Associated to this architecture, to assume simply the communication between the modules, one solution is the use of the DC bus power bus to support the communication between optimizers and a central controller using a power-line communication approach (PLC). The current work consists, at first, in the analysis of the pertinent information necessary to exchange between DC-DC converters and a central controller and, at second, by the development of a new hardware solution for the PLC from the conception of the communication system to the realization of a prototype. The various possible devices connected on the bus or networks are considered as programmable logic controllers, various sensors, microcontrollers and grid inverters. At minima, the information to exchange between the various devices may include the maximum power point of photovoltaic modules (MPP) and the temperature of the individual sources. At first, the ASCII Modbus protocol was chosen in the present work to assume the PLC communication on the DC bus. The interfacing circuitry between the DC bus and PLC controller is achieved by TRSV04 transceiver and power coupling circuit.