• Journal of Power Electronics
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• 제18권5호
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• pp.1555-1566
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• 2018

Proportional capacitor-current-feedback active damping (AD) is a common damping method for the resonance of LCL-type grid-connected inverters. Proportional capacitor-current-feedback AD behaves as a virtual resistor in parallel with the capacitor. However, the existence of delay in the actual control system causes impedance in the virtual resistor. Impedance is manifested as negative resistance when the resonance frequency exceeds one-sixth of the sampling frequency ($f_s/6$). As a result, the damping effect disappears. To extend the system damping region, this study proposes a virtual resistor-inductor-capacitor (RLC) AD method. The method is implemented by feeding the filter capacitor current passing through a band-pass filter, which functions as a virtual RLC in parallel with the filter capacitor to achieve positive resistance in a wide resonance frequency range. A combination of Nyquist theory and system close-loop pole-zero diagrams is used for damping parameter design to obtain optimal damping parameters. An experiment is performed with a 10 kW grid-connected inverter. The effectiveness of the proposed AD method and the system's robustness against grid impedance variation are demonstrated.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• 제17권3호
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• pp.756-765
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• 2017

The control of the power conversion system (PCS) in a battery energy storage system has a challenge due to the existence of grid impedance. This paper studies an impedance model of an LCL-based PCS in the d-q domain. The feature of a PCS connected to a weak grid is unveiled by use of an impedance model and a generalized Nyquist criterion. It is shown that the interaction between grid impedance and the PCS destabilizes the cascaded system in certain cases. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel control method that adopts virtual resistors to overcome this issue. The improvement in the control loop leads the PCS to a more stable condition than the conventional method. Impedance measurement is implemented to verify the correctness of the theoretical analysis. Experimental results obtained from a down-scaled prototype indicate that the proposed control method can improve the performance of the PCS under a weak grid.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• 제18권4호
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• pp.1235-1244
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• 2018

The application of shunt capacitor banks and underground cables typically induces resonance in power distribution systems. In this study, the propagation of resonance in a microgrid (MG) with inverter-based distributed generators (IBDGs) is investigated. If resonances are not properly damped, then the output current of the inverters may experience distortion via resonance propagation due to the adverse effect of resonances on MG power quality. This study presents a conceptual method for identifying resonances and related issues in multi-inverter systems. For this purpose, existing resonances are identified using modal impedance analysis. However, some resonances may be undetectable when this method is used. Thus, the resonances are investigated using the proposed method based on the frequency response of a closed-loop MG equivalent circuit. After analyzing resonance propagation in the MG, an effective virtual impedance damping method is used in the IBDG control system to damp the resonances. Results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method in compensating for existing resonances.

• Advances in Energy Research
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• 제3권2호
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• pp.81-95
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• 2015

Microgrid, which can be considered as an integration of various dispersed resources (DRs), is characterized by number of DRs interfaced through the power electronics converters. The microgrid comprising these DRs is often operated in an islanded mode. To minimize the cost, reduce complexity and increase reliability, it is preferred to avoid any communication channel between them. Consequently, the droop control method is traditionally adopted to distribute active and reactive power among the DRs operating in parallel. However, the accuracy of distribution of active and reactive power among the DRs controlled by the conventional droop control approach is highly dependent on the value of line impedance, R/X i.e., resistance to reactance ratio of the line, voltage setting of inverters etc. The limitations of the conventional droop control approach are demonstrated and a modified droop control approach to reduce the effect of impedance mis-match and improve the time response is proposed. The error in reactive power sharing is minimized by inserting virtual impedance in line with the inverters to remove the mis-match in impedance. The improved time response is achieved by modifying the real-power frequency droop using arctan function. Simulations results are presented to validate the effectiveness of the control approach.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• 제16권4호
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• pp.1483-1493
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• 2016

Multiple parallel inverters have multiple resonant frequencies that are influenced by many factors. This often results in stability and power quality problems. This paper develops a multiple input multiple output model of grid-connected inverter systems using a closed-loop transfer function. The influence factors of the resonant characteristics are analyzed with the developed model. The analysis results show that the resonant frequency is closely related to the number, type and composition ratio of the parallel inverters. To suppress resonance, a scheme based on virtual impedance is presented, where the virtual impedance is emulated in the vicinity of the resonance frequency. The proposed scheme needs one inverter with virtual impedance control, which reduces the design complexity of the other inverter controllers. Simulation and experimental tests are carried out on two single phase converter-based setups. The results validate the correctness of the model, the analytical results and the resonant suppressing scheme.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• 제15권3호
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• pp.741-752
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• 2015

This study proposes a new solution for the parallel operation of microgrid inverters in terms of circuit topology and control structure. A combined three-phase four-wire inverter composed of three single-phase full-bridge circuits is adopted. Moreover, the control structure is based on adaptive three-order sliding-mode control and wireless load-sharing control. The significant contributions are as follows. 1) Adaptive sliding-mode control performance in inner voltage loop can effectively reject both voltage and load disturbances. 2) Virtual resistive-output-impedance loop is applied in intermediate loop to achieve excellent power-sharing accuracy, and load power can be shared proportionally to the power rating of the inverter when loads are unbalanced or nonlinear. 3) Transient droop terms are added to the conventional power outer loop to improve dynamic response and disturbance rejection performance. Finally, theoretical analysis and test results are presented to validate the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• 제18권6호
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• pp.1844-1854
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• 2018

Isolated power systems (IPS) are often characterized by a weak grid due to small power grids. The grid side voltage is no longer equivalent to an ideal voltage source of an infinitely big power grid. The conversion control of new energy sources, parameter perturbations as well as the load itself can easily cause the system voltage to oscillate or to become unstable. To solve this problem, increasing the energy-storage power sources is usually used to improve the reliability of a system. In order to provide support for the voltage, the energy-storage power source inverter needs an method to control the voltage source. Therefore, this paper has proposed the active damping control of a voltage source inverter (VSI) based on virtual compensation. By simplifying the VSI double closed-loop control, two feedback compensation channels have been constructed to reduce the VSI output impedance without changing the characteristics of the voltage gain of a system. This improvement allows systems to operate stably in a larger range. A frequency-domain analysis, and simulation and experimental results demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.