Stability Limitation and Analytical Evaluation of Voltage Droop Controllers for VSC MTDC

This paper presents a systematic analysis of DC voltage stability of a multi-terminal VSC-HVDC(MTDC)system,with the emphasis on a comparative study of the most ubiquitous droop control configurations.The paper introduces a general framework for the analysis of various droop control configurations employed in MTDC systems.This framework is then used to compare leading droop control configurations in terms of their impact on the relative stability,performance and robustness of the overall MTDC system.A generalized analytical MTDC model that contains detailed models of AC and DC system components is derived.Limitations imposed by DC power flow,DC inductor,cable modeling and AC network impedance on DC system stability are identified.Classical and multivariable frequency response analysis and eigenvalue analysis are applied to open-loop and closed-loop models to compare the stability and robustness of five leading droop controllers,with the focus on feedback signal selection and controller parameterization.This paper also proposes an active stabilizing controller,which takes the form of a modified constant power control,to enhance the controllability and robustness of the DC voltage control.

Robust Controller Synthesis and Analysis in Inverter-Dominant Droop-Controlled Islanded Microgrids

This work investigates the problem of controller design for the inverters in an islanded microgrid.Robust-synthesis controllers and local droop controllers are designed to regulate the output voltages of inverters and share power among them,respectively.The designed controllers alleviate the need for additional sensors to measure the states of the system by relying only on output feedback.It is shown that the designed-synthesis controller properly damps resonant oscillations,and its performance is robust to the control-loop time delay and parameter uncertainties.The stability of a droop-controlled islanded microgrid including multiple distributed generation(DG)units is analyzed by linearizing the nonlinear power flow model around the nominal operating point and applying theorems from linear algebra.It is indicated that the droop controller stabilizes the microgrid system with dominantly inductive tie-line impedances for all values of resistive-inductive loads,while for the case of resistive-capacitive loads the stability is conditioned on an upper bound on the load susceptances.The robust performance of the designed-synthesis controller is studied analytically,compared with the similar analysis in an control(benchmark)framework,and verified by simulations for a four DG benchmark microgrid.Furthermore,the robustness of the droop controllers is analyzed by Monte Carlo simulations in the presence of local voltage fluctuations and phase differences among neighboring DGs.

Power-Sharing Enhancement Using Harmonized Membership Fuzzy Logic Droop Control Based Micro-Grid

The contribution of Renewable Energy Resources(RER)in the process of power generation is significantly high in the recent days since it paves the way for overcoming the issues like serious energy crisis and natural contamination.This paper deals with the renewable energy based micro-grid as it is regarded as the apt solution for integrating the RER with the electrical frameworks.As thefixed droop coefficients in conventional droop control approaches have caused various limitations like low power-sharing and sudden drops of grid voltage in the Direct Current(DC)side,the Harmonized Membership Fuzzy Logic(MFL)droop control is employed in this present study.This proposed droop control for the hybrid PV-wind-battery system with MFL assists in achieving proper power-sharing and minimizing Total Harmonic Distortion(THD)in the emer-gency micro-grid.It eradicates the deviations in voltage and frequency with itsflexible and robust operation.The THD is reduced and attains the value of 3.1%compared to the traditional droop control.The simulation results of harmo-nized MFL droop control are analogized with the conventional approaches to vali-date the performance of the proposed method.In addition,the experimental results provided by the Field Programmable Gate Array(FPGA)based laboratory setup built using a solar photovoltaic(PV)and wind Permanent Magnet Synchro-nous Generator(PMSG)reaffirms the design.

Automatic SOC Equalization Strategy of Energy Storage Units with DC Microgrid Bus Voltage Support

In this paper,an improved sag control strategy based on automatic SOC equalization is proposed to solve the problems of slow SOC equalization and excessive bus voltage fluctuation amplitude and offset caused by load and PV power variations in a stand-alone DC microgrid.The strategy includes primary and secondary control.Among them,the primary control suppresses the DC microgrid voltage fluctuation through the I and II section control,and the secondary control aims to correct the P-U curve of the energy storage system and the PV system,thus reducing the steady-state bus voltage excursion.The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed control strategy effectively achieves SOC balancing and enhances the immunity of bus voltage.The proposed strategy improves the voltage fluctuation suppression ability by approximately 39.4%and 43.1%under the PV power and load power fluctuation conditions,respectively.Furthermore,the steady-state deviation of the bus voltage,△U_(dc) is only 0.01–0.1 V,ensuring stable operation of the DC microgrid in fluctuating power environments.

Research on the Impacts of the Inertia and Droop Control Gains from a Variable-Speed Wind Turbine Generator on the Frequency Response

System frequency must be kept very close to its nominal range to ensure the stability of an electric power grid.Excessive system frequency variations are able to result in load shedding,frequency instability,and even generator damage.With increasing wind power penetration,there is rising concern about the reduction in inertia response and primary frequency control in the electric power grid.Converter-based wind generation is capable of providing inertia response and primary frequency response;nevertheless,the primary frequency and inertia responses of wind generation are different from those of conventional synchronous fleets;it is not completely understood how the primary frequency and inertia responses affect the given system under various disturbances and available kinetic energy levels.Simulations are used to investigate the influences of inertia and droop control strategies on the dynamic frequency responses,particularly the index of the second frequency drop under various disturbance and wind conditions.A quantitative analysis provides insight into setting of inertia and droop control coefficients for various wind and disturbance conditions to facilitate adequate dynamic frequency responses during frequency events.

Asymmetrical Fault Current Calculation Method and Influencing Factors Analysis of Droop-Controlled Inverters

Since the fault dynamic of droop-controlled inverter is different from synchronous generators (SGs), protection devices may become invalid, and the fault overcurrent may damage power electronic devices and threaten the safety of the microgrid. Therefore, it is imperative to conduct a comprehensive fault analysis of the inverter to guide the design of protection schemes. However, due to the complexity of droop control strategy, existing literatures have simplified asymmetric fault analysis of droop-controlled inverters to varying degrees. Therefore, accurate fault analysis of a droop-controlled inverter is needed. In this paper, by analyzing the control system, an accurate fault model is established. Based on this, a calculation method for instantaneous asymmetrical fault current is proposed. In addition, the current components and current characteristics are analyzed. It was determined that fault currents are affected by control loops, fault types, fault distance and nonlinear limiters. In particular, the influences of limiters on the fault model, fault current calculation and fault current characteristics were analyzed. Through detailed analysis, it was found that dynamics of the control loop cannot be ignored, the fault type and fault distance determine fault current level, and part of the limiters will totally change the fault current trend. Finally, calculation and experimental results verify the correctness of the proposed method.

Communication-less Management Strategy for Electric Vehicle Charging in Droop-controlled Islanded Microgrids

Adopting high penetration levels of electric vehicles(EVs) necessitates the implementation of appropriate charging management systems to mitigate their negative impacts on power distribution networks. Currently, most of the proposed EV charging management techniques rely on the availability of high-bandwidth communication links. Such techniques are far from realization due to(1) the lack of utility-grade communication systems in many cases such as secondary(low-voltage) power distribution systems to which EVs are connected, rural areas, remote communities, and islands, and(2) existing fears and concerns about the data privacy of EV users and cyber-physical security. For these cases, appropriate local control schemes are needed to ensure the adequate management of EV charging without violating the grid operation requirements. Accordingly, this paper introduces a new communication-less management strategy for EV charging in droop-controlled islanded microgrids. The proposed strategy is autonomous, as it is based on the measurement of system frequency and local bus voltages. The proposed strategy implements a social charging fairness policy during periods when the microgrid distributed generators(DGs) are in short supply by allocating more system capacity to the EVs with less charging in the past. Furthermore, a novel communication-less EV load shedding scheme is incorporated into the management strategy to provide relief to the microgrid during events of severe undervoltage or underfrequency occurrences due to factors such as high loading or DG outages. Numerical simulations demonstrate the superiority of the proposed strategy over the state-of-the-art controllers in modulating the EV charging demand to counteract microgrid instability.

A Mode-switching Strategy of Droop Control for VSC-MTDC Systems Considering Maximum DC Voltage Regulation Capability

To achieve the goal of carbon neutrality,renewable energy integration through a voltage source converter based multi-terminal direct current(VSC-MTDC)system has been identified as a promising solution.To tackle the significant DC voltage over-limit problem in a VSC-MTDC system during disturbances,this paper proposes a mode-switching strategy of droop control considering maximum DC voltage regulation capability.The close relationship between node injection powers and node DC voltages in the MTDC system is elaborated,and the most effective regulation approach of local injection power for limiting DC voltage deviation is presented.The operating point trajectories of different droop control explains that the DC voltage deviation can be minimized by fully utilizing the capacity of converters.Therefore,the mode-switching strategy with the maximum DC voltage regulation capability is realized by the switching between the voltage droop control and the constant maximum power control.In addition,a mode recovery process and a smooth switching method are developed to make converters regain the capability of maintaining DC voltage and reduce power fluctuation during mode switching,respectively.Furthermore,three cases are investigated to verify the effectiveness of the proposed mode-switching strategy.Compared with simulation results of the conventional droop control and the DC voltage deviation-dependent droop control,better performance of transient and steady-state DC voltage deviation is achieved through the proposed strategy.

Fuzzy Droop Control for SOC Balance and Stability Analysis of DC Microgrid with Distributed Energy Storage Systems

The unbalanced state of charge(SOC)of distributed energy storage systems(DESSs)in autonomous DC microgrid causes energy storage units(ESUs)to terminate operation due to overcharge or overdischarge,which severely affects the power quality.In this paper,a fuzzy droop control for SOC balance and stability analysis of DC microgrid with DESSs is proposed to achieve SOC balance in ESUs while maintaining a stable DC bus voltage.First,the charge and discharge modes of ESUs are determined based on the power supply requirements of the DC microgrid.One-dimensional fuzzy logic is then applied to establish the relationship between SOC and the droop coefficient R,in the aforementioned two modes.In addition,when integrated with voltage-current double closed-loop control,SOC balance in different ESUs is realized.To improve the balance speed and precision,an exponential acceleration factor is added to the input variable of the fuzzy controller.Finally,based on the average model of converter,the system-level stability of microgrid is analyzed.MATLAB/Simulink simulation results verify the effectiveness and rationality of the proposed method.

State coordinated voltage control in an active distribution network with on-load tap changers and photovoltaic systems

Decreasing costs and favorable policies have resulted in increased penetration of solar photovoltaic(PV)power generation in distribution networks.As the PV systems penetration is likely to increase in the future,utilizing the reactive power capability of PV inverters to mitigate voltage deviations is being promoted.In recent years,droop control of inverter-based distributed energy resources has emerged as an essential tool for use in this study.The participation of PV systems in voltage regulation and its coordination with existing controllers,such as on-load tap changers,is paramount for controlling the voltage within specified limits.In this work,control strategies are presented that can be coordinated with the existing controls in a distributed manner.The effectiveness of the proposed method was demonstrated through simulation results on a distribution system.

Review on grid-forming converter control methods in high-proportion renewable energy power systems

Grid-forming(GFM)converters can provide inertia support for power grids through control technology,stabilize voltage and frequency,and improve system stability,unlike traditional grid-following(GFL)converters.Therefore,in future“double high”power systems,research on the control technology of GFM converters will become an urgent demand.In this paper,we first introduce the basic principle of GFM control and then present five currently used control strategies for GFM converters:droop control,power synchronization control(PSC),virtual synchronous machine control(VSM),direct power control(DPC),and virtual oscillator control(VOC).These five strategies can independently establish voltage phasors to provide inertia to the system.Among these,droop control is the most widely used strategy.PSC and VSM are strategies that simulate the mechanical characteristics of synchronous generators;thus,they are more accurate than droop control.DPC regulates the active power and reactive power directly,with no inner current controller,and VOC is a novel method under study using an oscillator circuit to realize synchronization.Finally,we highlight key technologies and research directions to be addressed in the future.

Frequency Support from PMSG-Based Wind Turbines with Reduced DC-Link Voltage Fluctuations

Frequency droop control is widely used in permanent magnet synchronous generators(PMSGs)based wind turbines(WTs)for grid frequency support.However,under frequency deviations,significant DC-link voltage fluctuations may occur during the transient process due to sudden changes in real power of such WTs.To address this issue,a current feedforward control strategy is proposed for PMSG-based WTs to reduce DC-link voltage fluctuations when the WTs are providing frequency support under grid frequency deviations.Meanwhile,the desired frequency support capability of the PMSG-based WTs can be ensured.Simulation results verify the rationality of the analysis and the effectiveness of the proposed control method.

Transient Angle Stability of Inverters Equipped with Robust Droop Control

Transient angle stability of inverters equipped with the robust droop controller is investigated in this work.At first,the conditions on the control references to guarantee the existence of a feasible post-disturbance operating point are derived.Then,the post-disturbance equilibrium points are found and their stability properties are characterized.Furthermore,the attraction regions of the stable equilibrium points are accurately depicted by calculating the stable and unstable manifolds of the surrounding unstable equilibrium points,which presents an explanation to system transient stability.Finally,the transient control considerations are provided to help the inverter ridethrough the disturbance and maintain its stability characteristics.It is shown that the transient angle stability is not a serious problem for droop controlled inverters with proper control settings.

Adaptive Reference Power Based Voltage Droop Control for VSC-MTDC Systems

Featuring low communication requirements and high reliability,the voltage droop control method is widely adopted in the voltage source converter based multi-terminal direct current(VSC-MTDC)system for autonomous DC voltage regulation and power-sharing.However,the traditional voltage droop control method with fixed droop gain is criticized for over-limit DC voltage deviation in case of large power disturbances,which can threaten stable operation of the entire VSCMTDC system.To tackle this problem,this paper proposes an adaptive reference power based voltage droop control method,which changes the reference power to compensate the power deviation for droop-controlled voltage source converters(VSCs).Besides retaining the merits of the traditional voltage droop control method,both DC voltage deviation reduction and power distribution improvement can be achieved by utilizing local information and a specific control factor in the proposed method.Basic principles and key features of the proposed method are described.Detailed analyses on the effects of the control factor on DC voltage deviation and imbalanced power-sharing are discussed,and the selection principle of the control factor is proposed.Finally,the effectiveness of the proposed method is validated by the simulations on a five-terminal VSC based high-voltage direct current(VSC-HVDC)system.

Reverse Droop Control-based Smooth Transfer Strategy for Interface Converters in Hybrid AC/DC Distribution Networks

Hybrid AC/DC distribution networks are promising candidates for future applications due to their rapid advancement in power electronics technology.They use interface converters(IFCs)to link DC and AC distribution networks.However,the networks possess drawbacks with AC voltage and frequency offsets when transferring from grid-tied to islanding modes.To address these problems,this paper proposes a simple but effective strategy based on the reverse droop method.Initially,the power balance equation of the distribution system is derived,which reveals that the cause of voltage and frequency offsets is the mismatch between the IFC output power and the rated load power.Then,the reverse droop control is introduced into the IFC controller.By using a voltage-active power/frequency-reactive power(U-P/f-Q)reverse droop loop,the IFC output power enables adaptive tracking of the rated load power.Therefore,the AC voltage offset and frequency offset are suppressed during the transfer process of operational modes.In addition,the universal parameter design method is discussed based on the stability limitations of the control system and the voltage quality requirements of AC critical loads.Finally,simulation and experimental results clearly validate the proposed control strategy and parameter design method.

Virtual Synchronous Generator Based Current Synchronous Detection Scheme for a Virtual Inertia Emulation in SmartGrids

Renewable energy sources, such as photovoltaic wind turbines, and wave power converters, use power converters to connect to the grid which causes a loss in rotational inertia. The attempt to meet the increasing energy demand means that the interest for the integration of renewable energy sources in the existing power system is growing, but such integration poses challenges to the operating stability. Power converters play a major role in the evolution of power system towards SmartGrids, by regulating as virtual synchronous generators. The concept of virtual synchronous generators requires an energy storage system with power converters to emulate virtual inertia similar to the dynamics of traditional synchronous generators. In this paper, a dynamic droop control for the estimation of fundamental reference sources is implemented in the control loop of the converter, including active and reactive power components acting as a mechanical input to the virtual synchronous generator and the virtual excitation controller. An inertia coefficient and a droop coefficient are implemented in the control loop. The proposed controller uses a current synchronous detection scheme to emulate a virtual inertia from the virtual synchronous generators. In this study, a wave energy converter as the power source is used and a power management of virtual synchronous generators to control the frequency deviation and the terminal voltage is implemented. The dynamic control scheme based on a current synchronous detection scheme is presented in detail with a power management control. Finally, we carried out numerical simulations and verified the scheme through the experimental results in a microgrid structure.

A 6n-Order Low-Frequency Mathematical Model of Multiple Inverters Based Microgrid

Microgrid stability analysis is a critical issue especially due to the inverters’low-inertia nature.The voltage and current control loops influences on stability are researched frequently most of which focus on medium and high-frequency characteristic.Although the complete state-space model aims at low-frequency characteristic,it is too complicated and the calculation amount is huge with the scale of the microgrid increasing.One available reduced-order model of an inverter is simple,but it is suitable for only single inverter without network dynamic in microgrid.To fill in these gaps,a novel modeling method is proposed in this paper to investigate the low-frequency instability phenomenon and describe the whole DG connected system including network.In consideration of the high penetration level of induction motor(IM)loads and constant power(CP)loads in practical applications,the low-frequency mathematical model of IM and CP loads on the basis of static load is also built in this paper.Simulation and experimental results verify the effectiveness of the proposed model.

Analysis and Optimization of Boost Converter Parameters in Internal Model Control for Voltage Source Converter-based AC Microgrids

This paper investigates integration of distributed energy resources(DERs)in microgrids(MGs)through two-stage power conversion structures consisting of DC-DC boost converter and DC-AC voltage source converter(VSC)subsystems.In contrast to existing investigations that treated DC-link voltage as an ideal constant voltage,this paper considers the non-ideal dynamic coupling between both subsystems for completeness and higher accuracy,which introduces additional DC-side dynamics to the VSC.The analysis shows parameters of the boost converter’s power model that impact stability through the DC-link.Carefully selecting these parameters can mitigate this effect on stability and improve dynamic performance across the DC-link.Hence,an optimization framework is developed to facilitate in selecting adequate boost converter parameters in designing a stable voltage source converter-based microgrid(VSC-MG).The developed optimization framework,based on particle swarm optimization,considers dynamic coupling between both subsystems and is also effective in avoiding inadequate boost converter parameters capable of propagating instability through the DC-link to the VSC.Simulations are performed with MATLAB/Simulink to validate theoretical analyses.

Distributed power conditioning unit of large-scale space solar power station

In this paper,a multi-bus distributed Power Conditioning Unit(PCU)is proposed for the Space Solar Power Station with large scale photovoltaic(PV)array and power levels reaching MW level.In this unit,there are multiple independent PV arrays.In each PV array,there are multiple independent PV subarrays.In this paper,a V-P droop control method with adaptive droop coefficient is proposed,which modifies the droop intercept based on the bus voltage deviation and the power per unit value of the PV array.This method ensures the accuracy of bus voltage and achieves proportional distribution of power between PV arrays based on the proposed topology structure in this paper.When the load changes or the output power of the PV array fluctuates,this method can ensure that power is distributed proportionally.The principle and control method of the proposed droop control method is analyzed in this paper.The effectiveness of the method is verified through MATLAB/Simulink simulation and experiment.Simulation and experimental results show that the proposed method can achieve power distributed proportionally when load changes and PV output power fluctuates,reduce bus voltage error caused by line impedance and differences in rated power of different PV arrays,and improve the performance of PV power generation system applied to space.

Distributed Harmonic Power Sharing with Voltage Distortion Suppression in Islanded Microgrids Considering Non-linear Loads

In contemporary power grids or microgrids,harmonic distortion has emerged as one of the critical power quality issues for utility power grids,which has escalated especially due to the high penetration of power-electronic-converter-interfaced distributed generation(DG).This paper first illustrates the prevalent dispute revolving around the harmonic power sharing and distortion restraint,and subsequently proposes a consensusbased framework that facilitates an accurate sharing of harmonics among multi-DGs connected in parallel,with an effective suppression of the output voltage distortion.Compared with the majority of existing studies addressing the issue of voltage harmonics at the point of common coupling(PCC),our method primarily emphasizes on the output voltage distortion since the power quality requirement for certain local critical loads is often known to be high.With the help of adaptive regulation,the overall distortion produced at the output terminals of DGs can be retained within an acceptable range.The working principle of the proposed control method,which is not only easy to implement but also independent of model parameters,is further described in detail.Employing the small-signal dynamic model,the system stability and robustness are analyzed.The hardware-in-the-loop(HIL)simulations aid in determining the outcome of the proposed strategy in microgrid control.