A field programmable gate array (FPGA)-based real-time transient simulator of photovoltaic (PV) generation unit is developed. Firstly

the difficulties of real-time transient simulation for distributed generation unit are described. Secondly

the real-time transient simulation method for power electronic devices and control system is researched and designed

and the interaction method of electrical and control system in different time-steps is proposed. Typical control element modules are designed by taking advantage of high parallelism

distributed memory characteristic and deep-pipelined structure of FPGA

based on which the PV array and its control system are modelled. Finally

a single-stage PV generation unit is simulated as an example under different time steps condition. Simulation results have verified the effectiveness of the simulator developed

its great accuracy and advantages proved by comparison between waveforms obtained by PSCAD and RTDS. This work is supported by National Key Technologies R&D Program (No. 2013BAA01B03).