Improved Secondary Frequency Control and Stability Analysis of Islanded Microgrid

The hierarchical control strategy enables seamless integration of power electronics-based distributed generators (DGs) into microgrids (MGs). This work presents a distributed coordinated secondary voltage and frequency control strategy of islanded MGs, utilizing distributed model predictive control (DMPC) approach. The Proposed approach is entirely distributed in nature, with plug and play features and requires minimal communication network with information exchange between immediate neighbors. This technique facilitates efficient information exchange and obviates the need for centralized control. Droop control is the primary controller for all the DGs, which leads to the deviations in DG voltage and operating frequency from standard nominal values. Secondary control enables the restoration of DG voltage and frequency to their nominal values. Input–output feedback linearization (IOFL) is used to transform nonlinear dynamics of inverter-interfaced DGs into first-order linear dynamics between input and output. Compared to some published works, the single-integrator dynamics eliminates the need to compute the derivative of the output voltage. Furthermore, DMPC has been used for all DG units as secondary controller, to achieve voltage and frequency regulation. This approach takes advantage of distributed architecture with optimal control actions and enhances reliability and flexibility of MG operations. Moreover, the proposed approach ensures that voltage and frequency of overall system are restored to its reference value while maintaining accuracy in real power sharing. Effectiveness of proposed control scheme is validated with simulations conducted on islanded MG test system using MATLAB/Simulink toolbox.

In islanded microgrids, secondary frequency control is often employed to compensate for frequency deviations caused by droop control, thereby enhancing the frequency security of the system. However, distributed generators (DGs) such as renewable energy sources and energy storage systems in microgrids have inherent power output constraints. Ignoring these constraints may lead to the system frequency failing to meet expectations or even exceeding safety limits, posing security risks. To address this issue, this paper proposes a distributed secondary frequency control strategy that considers power constraints. First, a model of the islanded microgrid system is established. Second, a distributed secondary frequency controller incorporating power constraints is designed, and the stability of the proposed control strategy is analyzed using Lyapunov theory. Finally, a simulation model is established in Simulink to verify the feasibility of the proposed control strategy through simulation.

This paper describes a control method for distributed generation (DG) units to implement active power sharing and frequency recovery simultaneously in an islanded microgrid. Conventional active power–frequency ( P – f ) droop control is used for the DG controller, and the frequency deviation is recovered by the DG itself via self-frequency recovery control, without requiring secondary frequency control. Because the electrical distance (impedance) from each DG unit to a point where the load demand changes differs among DG units, the instantaneous frequency deviations may differ between DG units. These differences are fed into the integrators of the self-frequency recovery control and may result in errors in active power sharing. To solve this problem and share active power more accurately, a compensation control method is developed for active power sharing, which considers the droop coefficients of each of the DG units. Simulation results show that the proposed control method is effective.

This paper presents a distributed voltage unbalance compensation method for an islanded microgrid (MG) system. By using hierarchical control concept, we design a distributed compensation scheme in the secondary control layer, while the traditional inverter control methods including voltage and current PR control, droop control, virtual impedance are implemented in the primary layer. Different from most existing centralized compensation methods, no specified individual centralized secondary controller exists. We decompose the traditional centralized controller into several local secondary controllers. A novel distributed PI controller with negative sequence current feedback is designed in each secondary controller. By allowing them to exchange information with their neighboring controllers respectively, the unbalanced voltage in the sensitive load bus (SLB) can be compensated by all the distributed generators (DGs) cooperatively. In addition, the compensation effort of each DG is designed to be proportional to their power ratings respectively. An islanded microgrid system consisting of 4 DGs is built in MATLAB to validate the proposed method.

Droop control is a key control method for operating islanded microgrids (IMGs). The settings of the droop parameters for distributed generation (DG) units can considerably affect the ability of an IMG to satisfy the required voltage tolerance boundary prescribed in steady-state voltage regulation standards. This paper analyzes the complexity of voltage regulations in droop-controlled IMGs. A new algorithm is proposed to satisfy the voltage regulation requirements of IMGs. The proposed algorithm obviates the need for a centralized secondary controller, where each DG unit updates its own voltage droop parameters, autonomously, via interaction with other DG units, using a low-bandwidth, peer-to-peer communication network. To that end, a distributed constraint satisfaction approach is adopted to formulate the problem of voltage regulation in a multi-agent environment. An asynchronous weak commitment technique is proposed to solve the formulated problem. Several case studies are simulated to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm. The results show that the proposed algorithm can effectively mitigate the challenges of voltage regulation in IMG systems.

Distributed cooperative control methods are widely used in the islanded microgrid control system. To solve the deviation of frequency and voltage caused by the droop control, it is necessary to recovery the frequency and voltage to the rated value using a secondary control strategy. However, the traditional communication method relies on the continuous periodic one, which makes the communication burden of the islanded microgrid system heavy and conflicts with the actual operation of the power grid. Using the secondary recovery control method based on the distributed event-triggered method, we conserve communication resources by reducing the number of transmissions of sampled data and achieving the recovery control of the frequency and voltage and the original proportional sharing of active power. In addition, we analyze the stability of the distributed event-triggered strategy and build a microgrid system with MATLAB/Simulink to verify the effectiveness of the control method. Furthermore, we compare with a traditional periodic communication system and demonstrate the superiority of our distributed event-triggered approach.

The primary function of microgrid (MG) is to share the power accurately among different distributed generation (DG) units according to the load demands. The droop control methods are normally used for appropriate power sharing. However, these control techniques suffer badly due to the feeder impedances and uncontrollable power coupling issues. Many techniques have been proposed to share power accurately, most of them rely on communication link. In this work a localized/communication free signal generating mechanism is proposed. The mechanism injects the transient reactive power in frequency droop characteristics by observing the changes in microgrid. This injection disturbs the actual active power sharing which is helpful for the computation of reactive power sharing errors. These errors are minimized by utilizing the proportional integral (PI) controller. The PI controller modifies the y-intercept and the slop of Q-E (Reactive Power –Voltage) droop characteristic for the correction of reactive power sharing error. Moreover, the parameters of droop and PI controller of inner control loop are optimized by Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) to obtain high precision and reliability. The proposed technique has the following salient features:1. Accurately shares the reactive power without the information of feeder line impedances2. This accurate reactive power sharing scheme has been started locally without the need of communication signal from the central controller. Thus, there is no delay in monitoring the notable changes in microgrid caused by DGs. 3. The careful selection of PI & droop controller parameters through PSO makes the system more stable as compared to the conventional methods in terms of transients and steady state responses.

This paper presents primary and secondary control of islanded microgrid. In conventional primary droop control, there is a problem of poor voltage regulation of microgrid. The drawback of conventional primary droop control is improved by voltage shifting based primary control. Voltage shifting based primary control is not completely satisfied by the voltage regulation of microgrid. Also, there is current sharing problem in both types of primary control. So, in secondary control, both current sharing and voltage regulation are achieved by slope adjusting and voltage shifting simultaneously. In this secondary control method, average value of current, voltage, and droop resistance of two neighboring converters is calculated then controlled by additional layer of distributed secondary control over both primary controls. By adjusting droop coefficient of different converters making same value of output impedance of converter, current sharing and voltage regulation are achieved. Also, in transient state, current sharing is achieved by using this secondary control technique. The performance of proposed microgrid is verified by MATLAB simulation.

Chapter 2 - Distributed voltage restoration and power allocation control in islanded DC microgrids

In order to achieve the flexible and efficient utilization of distributed energy resources, microgrids (MGs) can enhance the self-healing capability of distribution systems. Conventional primary droop control in microgrids exhibits deviations in voltage and frequency and lacks research on voltage–frequency control during network reconfiguration. Therefore, this paper investigates the control strategy of secondary control for voltage and frequency during the process of reconstructing distribution networks to operate in the form of microgrids after faults. Firstly, the mathematical model of three-phase voltage-source inverters with droop control is analyzed. Then, inspired by the generator’s secondary frequency control strategy, an improved secondary control method based on droop control is proposed, and the effectiveness of the improved droop control strategy is verified. Finally, simulation examples of distribution networks with various dynamic boundary topology changes are designed to simulate a relatively stable control result, validating the proposed strategy.

The paradigm shift in electrical power grids and the increased interest towards decentralisation has opened a new window in the design, control and theoretical analysis of small scale power systems, i.e. microgrids, which aim at the integration and utilisation of renewable energy sources, energy storage systems and responsive loads at a local scale. Given their DC nature, DC microgrids have attracted significant interest as they provide a natural interface to the main grid by avoiding additional conversion steps. The aim of this thesis is to design and analyse novel hierarchical control schemes, both at the primary and secondary control level, that guarantee tight voltage regulation, accurate power sharing, current or voltage limitation, and present a straightforward approach towards deriving stability conditions for DC microgrids that incorporate nonlinear loads. As the microgrid configuration is paramount in the theoretical analysis, a rigorous method of computing the admittance matrix is developed that facilitates the stability analysis of DC microgrid systems supplying a constant impedance (Z), constant current (I) or constant power (P) load. This method is particularly useful as it permits the factorisation of the admittance matrix, while separating the singular matrices. In this way, the closed-loop asymptotic stability proof can be more easily approached by isolating the singularities and then, employing straightforward linear algebra tools, such as quadratic eigenvalue problem (QEP) theory, to derive the stability conditions. As stated in the technical specifications of every source, a crucial issue is represented by the ability to protect itself and its interface device (power converter) during faults, transients and unrealistic power demands. That is why current-limiting control is often combined with the primary control, i.e. often droop control, in DC microgrids to ensure the desired unit protection. In this thesis, novel current-limiting droop controllers areformulated for DC microgrids consisting initially of multiple unidirectional DC/DC boost converters and, later on, bidirectional DC/DC boost and three-phase AC/DC converters, that integrate different distributed generation units with the local grid. In contrast to the traditional approaches that use small-signal modelling, here, the accurate nonlinear models of the converter units are taken into account to prove the boundedness and the current-limiting property, by employing Lyapunov methods and the ultimate boundedness theory. Exponential stability at the desired equilibrium point is mathematically guaranteed, and further analysed from a graphical perspective, providing insights of the load’s effect onto the system performance and stability. To address the shortcomings that conventional droop control approaches introduce, i.e. inaccurate power sharing and significant load voltage drop, a DC microgrid architecture that takes into account the power converter dynamics of distributed generation units is deployed under decentralised primary and distributed secondary control scheme, in a hierarchical control framework. At the primary control layer, a novel current-limiting droop control scheme is implemented in a decentralised manner, whereas at the secondary control layer a fully distributed controller that performs a voltage restoration and improves the power sharing is deployed using a nearest-neighbour coupling communication network. By investigating for the first time both the dynamics of the converters with the nonlinear load and the two-layer control, singular perturbation theory is applied to analytically guarantee the stability of the entire DC microgrid. Finally, apart from the desired overcurrent protection, since DC capacitors are customary used at the output of each converter unit to stabilise the output voltage, they also introduce a maximum voltage limit. Hence, as the need for protection against overvoltages has emerged, droop controllers with inherent overvoltage protection are also proposed for parallel and meshed configuration networks. The upper limit of the voltage of each source is rigorously proven using ultimate boundedness theory. Asymptotic stability to the desired equilibrium for the closed-loop system is analytically guaranteed, and detailed conditions are derived to guide the control design. In order to validate the effectiveness of the different control methodologies developed in this thesis, both simulation and experimental testing are performed for each one of the methods, and are also compared with the conventional approaches to highlight their superiority.

Grid-connected inverters based on droop control have been widely used in distributed generation (DG) systems, as they can ensure smooth transition between grid-connected mode and islanded mode. However, the traditional active power-frequency (P-ω) and reactive power-amplitude (Q-E) droop control method is vulnerable to the grid voltage distortion, because of the following two reasons. Firstly, the inverter under droop control behaves like a controlled voltage source connected in parallel with utility grid, and the grid current is not directly controlled. Secondly, the line impedance interlinking the inverter and the grid is usually very small, so a slight distortion in grid voltage can lead to serious distortion in grid current. To suppress grid current distortion, this paper proposes to employ harmonic virtual impedance (HVI), which is effective only at harmonic frequency, to increase the equivalent impedance between inverter and grid. Compared with the existing control methods, the proposed HVI control scheme does not need to detect grid voltage and it is easy to be implemented. Comprehensive simulation and experimental results are provided to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

This paper presents a distributed, robust, finite-time secondary control for both voltage and frequency restoration of an islanded microgrid with droop-controlled inverter-based distributed generators (DGs). The distributed cooperative secondary control is fully distributed (i.e., uses only the information of neighboring DGs that can communicate with one another through a sparse communication network). In contrast to existing distributed methods that require a detailed model of the system (such as line impedances, loads, other DG units parameters, and even the microgrid configuration, which are practically unknown), the proposed protocols are synthesized by considering the unmodeled dynamics, unknown disturbances, and uncertainties in their models. The other novel idea in this paper is that the consensus-based distributed controllers restore the islanded microgrid's voltage magnitudes and frequency to their reference values for all DGs within finite time, irrespective of parametric uncertainties, unmodeled dynamics, and disturbances, while providing accurate real-power sharing. Moreover, the proposed method considers the coupling between the frequency and voltage of the islanded microgrid. Unlike conventional distributed controllers, the proposed approach quickly reaches consensus and exhibits a more accurate robust performance. Finally, we verify the proposed control strategy's performance using the MATLAB/SimPowerSystems toolbox.

ABSTRACTThis paper presents an enhanced power sharing scheme (EPSS) for parallelly connected distributed generators (DGs) in an islanded microgrid (MG) using a constant switching frequency‐model predictive control (CSF‐MPC). Unlike conventional droop control, wherein only accurate real power sharing among DGs is possible, the EPSS enables accurate sharing of reactive and harmonic powers even under mismatched line impedances. Additionally, the voltage unbalance and distortion at the point of common coupling (PCC) are mitigated. The EPSS is implemented using a reference voltage that consists of (1) the fundamental droop control; (2) the virtual impedance control; (3) the unbalance compensation control; and (4) the harmonic compensation control. The performance of the EPSS is tested on a MG consisting of two DGs of both similar and dissimilar capacities under a step changes in loads. The EPSS is implemented using CSF‐MPC, which offers superior performance compared with conventional proportional plus integral and proportional resonant controllers. The simulation and hardware‐in‐loop results confirm the effectiveness of the EPSS in addressing power sharing issues and mitigating both distortion and unbalance of PCC voltage.

Microgrids consist of multiple parallel-connected distributed generation (DG) units with coordinated control strategies, which are able to operate in both grid-connected and islanded modes. Microgrids are attracting considerable attention since they can alleviate the stress of main transmission systems, reduce feeder losses, and improve system power quality. When the islanded microgrids are concerned, it is important to maintain system stability and achieve load power sharing among the multiple parallel-connected DG units. However, the poor active and reactive power sharing problems due to the influence of impedance mismatch of the DG feeders and the different ratings of the DG units are inevitable when the conventional droop control scheme is adopted. Therefore, the adaptive/improved droop control, network-based control methods, and cost-based droop schemes are compared and summarized in this paper for active power sharing. Moreover, nonlinear and unbalanced loads could further affect the reactive power sharing when regulating the active power, and it is difficult to share the reactive power accurately only by using the enhanced virtual impedance method. Therefore, the hierarchical control strategies are utilized as supplements of the conventional droop controls and virtual impedance methods. The improved hierarchical control approaches such as the algorithms based on graph theory, multi-agent system, the gain scheduling method, and predictive control have been proposed to achieve proper reactive power sharing for islanded microgrids and eliminate the effect of the communication delays on hierarchical control. Finally, the future research trends on islanded microgrids are also discussed in this paper.