• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.282-293
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• 2017

There exists a strong coupling between real and reactive power owing to the complex impedances in droop based islanded microgrids (MGs). The existing virtual impedance methods consider improvements of the impedance matching for sharing of the voltage controlled power (VCP) (reactive power for Q-V droop, and real power for P-V droop), which yields a 1-DOF (degree of freedom) tunable virtual impedance. However, a weak impedance matching for sharing of the frequency controlled power (FCP) (real power for $P-{\omega}$ droop, and reactive power for $Q-{\omega}$ droop) may result in FCP overshoots and even oscillations during load transients. This in turn results in VCP oscillations due to the strong coupling. In this paper, a 2-DOF tunable adaptive virtual impedance method considering impedance matching for both real and reactive power (IM-PQ) is proposed to improve the power sharing performance of MGs. The dynamic response is promoted by suppressing the coupled power oscillations and power overshoots while realizing accurate power sharing. In addition, the proposed power sharing controller has a better parametric adaptability. The stability and dynamic performances are analyzed with a small-signal state-space model. Simulation and experimental results are presented to investigate the validity of the proposed scheme.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.57 no.4
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• pp.582-588
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• 2008

Microgrids are new distribution level power networks that consist of various electronically-interlaced generators and sensitive loads. The important control object of Microgrids is to supply reliable and high-quality power even during the faults or loss of mains(islanding) cases. This paper presents power control methods to coordinate multiple distributed generators(DGs) against abnormal cases such as islanding and load power variations. Using speed-droop and voltage-droop characteristics, multiple distributed generators can share the load power based on locally measured signals without any communications between them. This paper adopts the droop controllers for multiple DG control and improved them by considering the generation speed of distribution level generators. Dynamic response of the proposed control scheme has been investigated under severe operation cases such as islanding and abrupt load changes through PSCAD/EMTDC simulations.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.234-243
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• 2019

Studying the control strategy of a microgrid under the load unbalanced state helps to improve the stability of the system. The magnitude of the power fluctuation, which occurs between the power supply and the load, is generated in a microgrid under the load unbalanced state is called negative sequence reactive power $Q^-$. Traditional power distribution methods such as P-f, Q-E droop control can only distribute power with positive sequence current information. However, they have no effect on $Q^-$ with negative sequence current information. In this paper, a stationary-frame control method for power sharing and voltage unbalance compensation in islanded microgrids is proposed. This method is based on the proper output impedance control of distributed generation unit (DG unit) interface converters. The control system of a DG unit mainly consists of an active-power-frequency and reactive-power-voltage droop controller, an output impedance controller, and voltage and current controllers. The proposed method allows for the sharing of imbalance current among the DG unit and it can compensate voltage unbalance at the same time. The design approach of the control system is discussed in detail. Simulation and experimental results are presented. These results demonstrate that the proposed method is effective in the compensation of voltage unbalance and the power distribution.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.455-468
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• 2015

A microgrid (MG) with integrated renewable energy resources can benefit both utility companies and customers. As a result, they are attracting a great deal of attention. The control of a MG is very important for the stable operation of a MG. The droop-control method is popular since it avoids circulating currents among the converters without using any critical communication between them. Traditional droop control methods have the drawback of an inherent trade-off between power sharing and voltage and frequency regulation. An adaptive droop control method is proposed, which can operate in both the island mode and the grid-connected mode. It can also ensure smooth switching between these two modes. Furthermore, the voltage and frequency of a MG can be restored by using the proposed droop controller. Meanwhile, the active power can be dispatched appropriately in both operating modes based on the capacity or running cost of the Distributed Generators (DGs). The global information (such as the average voltage and output active power of the MG and so on) required by the proposed droop control method to restore the voltage and frequency deviations can be acquired distributedly based on the Multi Agent System (MAS). Simulation studies in PSCAD demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control method.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.1020-1033
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• 2019

This paper presents a control strategy to enhance the accuracy of reactive power sharing between paralleled three-phase inverters in an islanded microgrid. In this study, the mismatch of power sharing when the line impedances have significant differences between inverters connected to a microgrid has been solved, the accuracy of the reactive power sharing in an islanded microgrid is increased, the voltage droop slope is tuned to compensate for the mismatch of voltage drops across the line impedances by using an enhanced droop controller. The proposed method ensures accurate power sharing even if the microgrid has local loads at the output of the inverters. The control model has been simulated by MATLAB/Simulink with two or three inverters connected in parallel. Simulation results demonstrate the accuracy of the implemented control method. Furthermore, in order to validate the theoretical analysis and simulation results, an experimental setup was built in the laboratory. Results obtained from the experimental setup verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.42-47
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• 2011

Automatic generation control (AGC) is an important function for load frequency control, which is being implemented in Energy Management System (EMS). A key feature of AGC is to back up governors to enhance the performance of frequency control. The governor regulates system frequency in several to ten seconds, while the droop control concept results in steady-state control error. AGC is a supplementary tool for compensation of the steady-state error caused by the droop setting of the governors. As the AGC target is delivered to each generator as an open loop control target, the generator output is not guaranteed to follow the AGC target. In this paper, we introduce generating unit controller (GUC) control block, which has the purpose of enabling the generator output to track the AGC target while maintaining the governor performance. We also address the tuning methods of GUC for better performance of AGC in the Korea Energy Management System (K-EMS).

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2018.07a
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• pp.138-140
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• 2018

Parallel distributed generators (DGs) in the islanded microgrid are generally operated autonomously by means of the droop control scheme. However, the traditional droop control methods which use the P-${\omega}$ and Q-E curve to share power between DGs are still concerned to improve the accuracy of reactive power sharing. Moreover, the uncontrolled harmonic power reduces the point of common coupling (PCC) voltage quality and microgrid stability. In order to solve these problems, this paper proposes an enhanced PCC harmonic control strategy and an improved reactive power sharing control scheme. Based on the low bandwidth communications, a secondary control is implemented with both central controller and local controller. The effectiveness of the proposed control scheme is analyzed through the simulation.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2016.11a
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• pp.47-48
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• 2016

Parallel distributed generators (DGs) in the islanded micro-grid are normally controlled with the aid of the droop control scheme. However, the traditional droop control methods which use the P-${\omega}$ and Q-E curve to share power between DGs are still concerned to improve the accurate of reactive power sharing and variation of frequency and voltage at the point of common coupling (PCC). This paper proposes a control scheme to solve the limitation of microgrid in islanded operation such as reactive power sharing accuracy and PCC voltage and frequency restoring. In order to achieve the control objective, a secondary control is implemented with both central controller and local controller by using the low bandwidth communications. The effectiveness of the proposed control scheme is analyzed through the simulation.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.294-304
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• 2017

This paper proposes a point of common coupling (PCC) voltage compensation method for islanding microgrids using an improved power sharing control scheme among distributed generators (DGs) without communication. The PCC voltage compensation algorithm is implemented in the droop control scheme to reduce the PCC voltage deviation produced by the droop controller itself and the voltage drop on the line impedance. The control scheme of each individual DG unit is designed to use only locally measured feedback variables and an obtained line impedance to calculate the PCC voltage. Therefore, traditional voltage measurement devices installed at the PCC as well as communication between the PCC and the DGs are not required. The proposed control scheme can maintain the PCC voltage amplitude within an allowed range even to some extent assuming inaccurate line impedance parameters. In addition, it can achieve proper power sharing in islanding microgrids. Experimental results obtained under accurate and inaccurate line impedances are presented to show the performance of the proposed control scheme in islanding microgrids.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.61 no.11
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• pp.1584-1589
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• 2012

The grid-interconnected microgrid can be able to operate with and without the utility microgrid to supply electricity. when the microgrid operates in grid-connected mode, the frequency of the microgrid synchronizes with the system frequency. In this case, the frequency of the microgrid has small variation which is able to change the output of distributed generation with a droop controller. Thus, the small variation of frequency can make the distributed generation generate unnecessary electricity consistently. In this paper, we propose a frequency droop control with a dead band so as to prevent the distributed generations from generating unnecessary output while in grid-interconnected mode. In addition, a distributed generation can have a restoration control to restore the frequency changed by a droop control as a rated frequency. Also, we state the problem of restoration control with a dead band, and propose its solution when the microgrid operates in stand alone mode. We simulate the proposed droop control using PSCAD/EMTDC to verify the validity of the control.