Enhanced Transient Angle Stability Control of Grid-Forming Converter Based on Virtual Synchronous Generator

This paper investigates transient angle stability of parallel system of two virtual synchronous generators (VSGs) and hybrid system comprised by VSG and diesel generator (DG). Compared to single grid-connected VSG, the paralleled VSGs system and hybrid system are facing larger challenges on stability aspect during serious faults. Although there exist several publications on transient stability, the transient instability mechanism is rather ambiguous, especially for paralleled systems. Besides, swing equations of paralleled VSGs system and paralleled DG-VSG system are established to discuss the dynamic characteristics of the system during short-circuit fault. The increase of power angle between DG and VSG is caused by the different angular accelerations, which deteriorates the transient angle stability of paralleled DG-VSG system. Thus, paralleled DG-VSG system is more prone to instability than paralleled VSGs system, which can be illustrated by power angle (P-δ) characteristic curves. Finally, simulation results validate the correctness of theoretical analyses.

Since the wide application of virtual synchronous generators (VSGs), the power grid faces great challenges in the safe and stable operation due to their limited thermal capacity and weak anti-disturbance ability. During transient period, for example, a fault occurs in the transmission line, the VSG may lose the transient angle stability and provoke the current hard limit. Even if the fault is cleared by tripping of line, it still faces the problem of instability and voltage dips. To address this problem, in this paper, the post-fault large-signal model of VSG is derived first via the travelling waves based fault information acquisition. Subsequently, with the effect of both active and reactive power loops taken into account, a two-stage simultaneous control scheme is proposed for improving the transient stability of VSG, while considering the current limitation during fault state and voltage support after fault clearance. This method is fulfilled by mode switching and an additional feedback control based on the fault signal. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method under both symmetrical and asymmetrical faults is verified. Moreover, the application of the proposed method in a multiple VSGs system is also verified. Besides, the robustness to parameter mismatch and the feasible operating region for the method are discussed.

Virtual synchronous generators (VSGs) are prone to over-current and instability issues when grid faults occur. However, directly restraining the current reference in the control system of the VSGs will lead to a loss of connection between the inner current control loop and the outer power loops resulting in synchronization control failure and power angle instability. Besides, the VSGs are also susceptible to transient angle instability issues caused by losing stable operating point during grid faults. Therefore, achieving current limitations and maintaining the stable operation of the VSG is a worthwhile research topic. Hence, this article analyzes the adaptive current limiting characteristics of the VSG with a virtual impedance (VI) method and investigates the transient stability of the VSG under different fault clearance angles. It finds that the inherent growth of the VI during the current limiting process increases the risk of power angle instability. An improved control method is proposed in this article by adjusting the active power reference to account for the changes of the grid voltage and the VI, which is beneficial to enhance the power angle stability of VSGs during grid voltage drops. Besides, an estimation method of the grid voltage is adopted to deal with the instability issues caused by the uncertain grid voltage at the fault point. Then, the influence of grid impedance variation on the proposed method is analyzed, considering the voltage estimation errors, the power angle change, and the active power waste. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is verified through simulation and experiment.

Transient stability analysis of a grid-connected type-4 wind turbine with grid-forming control during the fault

This paper develops the transient stability enhancement of the inverter-based resources (IBRs) with the virtual synchronous generator (VSG) control employed. Firstly, based on the large-signal model, the instability phenomenon of the VSG control during voltage dips is fully analyzed. It is found that the frequency deviation Δω in the active power control loop (APCL) of VSG is always positive when the VSG is transiently unstable. Then, for guaranteeing stronger transient stability, an additional integral controller with the frequency deviation is added to the APCL in the VSG control. Moreover, a large-signal model of the proposed strategy is established. Then, the phase portraits with an integral controller in the APCL disabled/enabled are presented. It is seen that the improved control strategy has better transient stability under voltage dips. Finally, the simulation results verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Transient virtual inertia optimization strategy for virtual synchronous generator based on equilibrium point state assessment

The transient angle instability and overcurrent of the virtual synchronous generator (VSG) under severe fault are risks for the stable and safe operation. Existing works have proposed some efficient methods for the transient stability enhancement or current limitation of VSG. Yet, the consideration for both of them is rarely studied. Moreover, the reasonable parameter design method for the control is usually lacked. In this paper, with the large signal model of VSG, a dual-loop PQ control scheme is introduced. With the proposed method, both the transient angle stability and overcurrent can be controlled simultaneously. In addition, how to design the reasonable coefficients of the proposed control scheme with additional requirement of output active power is also presented. The effect of the proposed method can be achieved with the coefficients in the allowable range. Finally, this method is validated by simulation results.

As one of the most promising control strategies, virtual synchronous generators (VSG) control is studied worldwide and impedance models have been built for VSG by some papers, but most of them overlook the inner loops which can make significant difference to impedance of VSG. This paper establishes the sequence impedance models of VSG with and without inner loops and demonstrates the negative influence of inner loops on dynamic performances in the range of low frequency by the comparison of impedance models of VSG with and without inner loops. Then the paper gives suggestion that virtual resistance should be adopted to the VSG with inner loops to improve stability. Finally, all the theoretical analysis is verified by simulation results.

The increasing penetration of renewable energy, such as photovoltaic generation, makes it essential to enhance power system dynamic performance through improved grid-forming control strategies. In the grid-forming control system, the virtual synchronous generator control (VSG) is currently widely used. However, the inertia (J) and damping (D) in the traditional VSG are fixed values, which can result in large overshoots and long adjustment times when dealing with disturbances such as load switching. To address these issues, this paper proposes an adaptive virtual synchronous generator (VSG) control strategy for grid-side inverters, which is accomplished by adaptively adjusting the VSG’s inertia and damping. Firstly, we established a photovoltaic-storage VSG grid-forming system; here, the photovoltaic power is boosted through a DC-DC converter, and the energy storage is connected to the common DC bus through a bidirectional DC-DC converter. We analyzed how J and D shape the system’s output characteristics. Based on the power-angle characteristic curve, the tanh function was introduced to design the control function, and a JD collaborative adaptive control (ACL) strategy was proposed. Finally, simulation experiments were conducted under common working conditions, such as load switching and grid-side voltage disturbance, to verify the results. From the results shown, the proposed strategy can effectively improve the response speed of the system, suppress system overshoot and oscillation, and, to a certain extent, improve the dynamic performance of the system.

For a VSC-HVDC transmission system based on a hybrid topology converter of full-bridge and half-bridge, a kind of virtual synchronous generator (VSG) control strategy which can be applied to modular multilevel converter (MMC) grid-connected structure was researched and proposed. First, based on the conventional VSG control strategy, the energy stored in the equivalent capacitor of MMC power module was used to imitate the rotor inertia of synchronous generator. The characteristics of generator can be simulated during transient frequency fluctuations and it can help relieve the power fluctuations. Secondly, with respect to the structural characteristics of the direct grid connection through the reactor on the AC side of the MMC, which is unlike the microgrid inverter, there are no additional filter capacitors. So, the existing commonly used VSG control strategy of the microgrid inverter and double-closed-loop structure composed of filter capacitor voltage and AC current cannot be directly applied. For this, a method where the given values of inner current loop are calculated by grid impedance matrix was used. So, a double-closed-loop control structure composed of a power outer loop based on VSG control and a current inner loop is obtained. It can effectively improve the current control capability during the transient process. Finally, a hybrid MMC simulation model was built based on PSCAD to verify the correctness and effectiveness of the proposed methods.

An enhanced second-order-consensus-based distributed secondary frequency controller of virtual synchronous generators for isolated AC microgrids

This paper proposes a novel model for the analysis and design of a virtual synchronous generator (VSGs). To enhance the stability in power systems with distributed generators, the concept of VSG has been proposed. The VSG is designed based on the swing equation of a synchronous generator ignoring the dynamics of current flowing through an interconnection reactor. However, responses obtained with actual system are different from those calculated from the model. It implies that the VSG cannot be correctly analyzed and designed by using the conventional model. This paper constructs an accurate VSG model considering the dynamics of current. Moreover, we address the stability analysis of the VSG and reveal a relation between the parameters of VSG controller and the rated power/energy capacity of energy storage systems equipped with the VSG based on the proposed model. © 2019 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

The hybrid AC/DC microgrid gains a great attention in recent years as it can improve the energy efficiency and ensure the reliability of the system. This paper makes an investigation on the operation mode switching performance of an AC/DC combined hybrid microgrid based on a real system at Griffith University, Queensland, Australia. An improved virtual synchronous generator (VSG) control strategy is developed to optimize the switching performance from the grid-tied mode to the islanding mode. The basic VSG principle is described and the improved VSG model is introduced. Based on the improved model, a pre-synchronization method is proposed. Comparison of the microgrid performance between conventional droop control and the improved VSG control is carried out by simulation on Matlab/SIMULINK environment. Simulation results show the advantage of VSG control strategy and the validity of the pre-synchronization method.

Pole–zero placement based feed-forward damping control for virtual synchronous generators in power systems with inverter-based resources

In recent years, countries around the world have been vigorously developing new energy and electrifying new energy sources. As a result an increasing number of power electronic devices appear in the grid which makes the power grid develop toward low inertia and low damping. The Virtual Synchronous Generator (VSG) control strategy can simulate the working state of the synchronous generator and provide the grid with inertia and damping, which has become a research hotspot for scholars. Due to the unbalanced load distribution and the random change of power load, the grid voltage may become unbalanced during the actual operation process. The three-phase output current of the VSG would be unbalanced and a fluctuation of output power appears. To solve this problem, a new current and power quality control strategy based on VSG is proposed in this paper, in which the current balancing or constant power is achieved without changing the basic characteristics of the inverters using VSG control strategy.