Juan C. Vasquez

Hierarchical Control of Droop-Controlled AC and DC Microgrids—A General Approach Toward Standardization

AC and dc microgrids (MGs) are key elements for integrating renewable and distributed energy resources as well as distributed energy-storage systems. In the last several years, efforts toward the standardization of these MGs have been made. In this sense, this paper presents the hierarchical control derived from ISA-95 and electrical dispatching standards to endow smartness and flexibility to MGs. The hierarchical control proposed consists of three levels: 1) The primary control is based on the droop method, including an output-impedance virtual loop; 2) the secondary control allows the restoration of the deviations produced by the primary control; and 3) the tertiary control manages the power flow between the MG and the external electrical distribution system. Results from a hierarchical-controlled MG are provided to show the feasibility of the proposed approach.

Hierarchical control of droop-controlled DC and AC microgrids — a general approach towards standardization

DC and AC microgrids are key elements to integrate renewable and distributed energy resources as well as distributed energy storage systems. In the last years, efforts toward the standardization of these microgrids have been made. In this sense, this paper present the hierarchical control derived from ISA-95 and electrical dispatching standards to endow smartness and flexibility to microgrids. The hierarchical control proposed consist of three levels: i) the primary control is based on the droop method, including an output impedance virtual loop; ii) the secondary control allows restoring the deviations produced by the primary control; and iii) the tertiary control manage the power flow between the microgrid and the external electrical distribution system. Results from a hierarchical-controlled microgrid are provided to show the feasibility of the proposed approach.

Control Strategy for Flexible Microgrid Based on Parallel Line-Interactive UPS Systems

In this paper, the control strategy for a flexible microgrid is presented. The microgrid presented here consists of several line-interactive uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems connected in parallel. The control technique is based on the droop method to avoid critical communications among UPS units. Thus, a flexible microgrid is obtained to operate in either grid-connected or islanded mode. A small-signal analysis is presented in order to analyze the system stability, which gives rules to design the main control parameters. Simulation and experimental results are presented, showing the feasibility of the proposed controller.

Distributed Secondary Control for Islanded Microgrids—A Novel Approach

This paper presents a novel approach to conceive the secondary control in droop-controlled microgrids (MGs). The conventional approach is based on restoring the frequency and amplitude deviations produced by the local droop controllers by using an MG central controller (MGCC). A distributed networked control system is used in order to implement a distributed secondary control (DSC), thus avoiding its implementation in MGCC. The proposed approach is not only able to restore frequency and voltage of the MG but also ensures reactive power sharing. The distributed secondary control does not rely on a central control, so that the failure of a single unit will not produce the fail down of the whole system. Experimental results are presented to show the feasibility of the DSC. The time latency and data drop-out limits of the communication systems are studied as well.

Adaptive Droop Control Applied to Voltage-Source Inverters Operating in Grid-Connected and Islanded Modes

This paper proposes a novel control for voltage-source inverters with the capability to flexibly operate in grid-connected and islanded modes. The control scheme is based on the droop method, which uses some estimated grid parameters such as the voltage and frequency and the magnitude and angle of the grid impedance. Hence, the inverter is able to inject independently active and reactive power to the grid. The controller provides a proper dynamics decoupled from the grid-impedance magnitude and phase. The system is also able to control active and reactive power flows independently for a large range of impedance grid values. Simulation and experimental results are provided in order to show the feasibility of the control proposed.

An Improved Droop Control Method for DC Microgrids Based on Low Bandwidth Communication With DC Bus Voltage Restoration and Enhanced Current Sharing Accuracy

Droop control is the basic control method for load current sharing in dc microgrid applications. The conventional dc droop control method is realized by linearly reducing the dc output voltage as the output current increases. This method has two limitations. First, with the consideration of line resistance in a droop-controlled dc microgrid, since the output voltage of each converter cannot be exactly the same, the output current sharing accuracy is degraded. Second, the dc-bus voltage deviation increases with the load due to the droop action. In this paper, in order to improve the performance of the dc microgrid operation, a low-bandwidth communication (LBC)-based improved droop control method is proposed. In contrast with the conventional approach, the control system does not require a centralized secondary controller. Instead, it uses local controllers and the LBC network to exchange information between converter units. The droop controller is employed to achieve independent operation, and the average voltage and current controllers are used in each converter to simultaneously enhance the current sharing accuracy and restore the dc bus voltage. All of the controllers are realized locally, and the LBC system is only used for changing the values of the dc voltage and current. Hence, a decentralized control scheme is accomplished. The simulation test based on MATLAB/Simulink and the experimental validation based on a 2 × 2.2 kW prototype were implemented to demonstrate the proposed approach.

Modeling, Analysis, and Design of Stationary-Reference-Frame Droop-Controlled Parallel Three-Phase Voltage Source Inverters

Power-electronics-based microgrids (MGs) consist of a number of voltage source inverters (VSIs) operating in parallel. In this paper, the modeling, control design, and stability analysis of parallel-connected three-phase VSIs are derived. The proposed voltage and current inner control loops and the mathematical models of the VSIs are based on the stationary reference frame. A hierarchical control scheme for the paralleled VSI system is developed comprising two levels. The primary control includes the droop method and the virtual impedance loops, in order to share active and reactive powers. The secondary control restores the frequency and amplitude deviations produced by the primary control. Also, a synchronization algorithm is presented in order to connect the MG to the grid. Experimental results are provided to validate the performance and robustness of the parallel VSI system control architecture.

Supervisory Control of an Adaptive-Droop Regulated DC Microgrid With Battery Management Capability

DC power systems are gaining an increasing interest in renewable energy applications because of the good matching with dc output type sources such as photovoltaic (PV) systems and secondary batteries. In this paper, several distributed generators (DGs) have been merged together with a pair of batteries and loads to form an autonomous dc microgrid (MG). To overcome the control challenge associated with coordination of multiple batteries within one stand-alone MG, a double-layer hierarchical control strategy was proposed. 1) The unit-level primary control layer was established by an adaptive voltage-droop method aimed to regulate the common bus voltage and to sustain the states of charge (SOCs) of batteries close to each other during moderate replenishment. The control of every unit was expanded with unit-specific algorithm, i.e., finish-of-charging for batteries and maximum power-point tracking (MPPT) for renewable energy sources, with which a smooth online overlap was designed and 2) the supervisory control layer was designed to use the low-bandwidth communication interface between the central controller and sources in order to collect data needed for adaptive calculation of virtual resistances (VRs) as well as transit criteria for changing unit-level operating modes. A small-signal stability for the whole range of VRs. The performance of developed control was assessed through experimental results.

Voltage Support Provided by a Droop-Controlled Multifunctional Inverter

This paper presents a single-phase multifunctional inverter for photovoltaic (PV) systems application. The converter provides active power to local loads and injects reactive power into the grid providing voltage support at fundamental frequency. The proposed topology is controlled by means of the droop-control technique. Hence, it allows the obtaining of voltage-sag-compensation capability, endowing voltage ride-through to the system. A model and analysis of the whole system is given to properly choose the control parameters. Simulation and experimental results validate the proposed control using a 5-kVA PV converter.

State-of-Charge Balance Using Adaptive Droop Control for Distributed Energy Storage Systems in DC Microgrid Applications

This paper presents the coordinated control of distributed energy storage systems in dc microgrids. In order to balance the state-of-charge (SoC) of each energy storage unit (ESU), an SoC-based adaptive droop control method is proposed. In this decentralized control method, the droop coefficient is inversely proportional to the nth order of SoC. By using a SoC-based droop method, the ESUs with higher SoC deliver more power, whereas the ones with lower SoC deliver less power. Therefore, the energy stored in the ESU with higher SoC decreases faster than that with lower SoC. The SoC difference between each ESU gradually becomes smaller, and finally, the load power is equally shared between the distributed ESUs. Meanwhile, the load sharing speed can be adjusted by changing the exponent of SoC in the adaptive droop control. The model of the SoC-based adaptive droop control system is established, and the system stability is thereby analyzed by using this model. Simulation and experimental results from a 2 × 2.2 kW parallel converter system are presented in order to validate the proposed approach.