A review of model predictive control strategies for matrix converters

Matrix converters are a well-known class of direct AC-AC power converter topologies that can be used in applications in which compact volume and low weight are necessary. For good performance, special attention should be paid to the control scheme used for these converters. Model predictive control strategy is a promising, straightforward and flexible choice for controlling various different matrix converter topologies. This work provides a comprehensive study and detailed classification of several predictive control methods and techniques, discussing special capabilities they each add to the operation and control scheme for a range of matrix converter topologies. The paper also considers the issues regarding the implementation of model predictive control strategies for matrix converters. This survey and comparison is intended to be a useful guide for solving the related drawbacks of each topology and to enable the application of this control scheme to matrix converters in practical applications

Analysis and Modeling of Advanced Power Control and Protection Requirements for Integrating Renewable Energy Sources in Smart Grid,

Attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are promising with the recent dramatic increase of installed renewable energy sources (RES) capacity. Integration of large intermittent renewable resources affects smart grid systems in several significant ways, such as transient and voltage stability, existing protection scheme, and power leveling and energy balancing. To protect the grid from threats related to these issues, utilities impose rigorous technical requirements, more importantly, focusing on fault ride through requirements and active/reactive power responses following disturbances. This dissertation is aimed at developing and verifying the advanced and algorithmic methods for specification of protection schemes, reactive power capability and power control requirements for interconnection of the RESs to the smart grid systems. The first findings of this dissertation verified that the integration of large RESs become more promising from the energy-saving, and downsizing perspective by introducing a resistive superconducting fault current limiter (SFCL) as a self-healing equipment. The proposed SFCL decreased the activation of the conventional control scheme for the wind power plant (WPP), such as dc braking chopper and fast pitch angle control systems, thereby increased the reliability of the system. A static synchronous compensator (STATCOM) has been proposed to assist with the uninterrupted operation of the doubly-fed induction generators (DFIGs)-based WTs during grid disturbances. The key motivation of this study was to design a new computational intelligence technique based on a multi-objective optimization problem (MOP), for the online coordinated reactive power control between the DFIG and the STATCOM in order to improve the low voltage ride-through (LVRT) capability of the WT during the fault, and to smooth low-frequency oscillations of the active power during the recovery. Furthermore, the application of a three-phase single-stage module-integrated converter (MIC) incorporated into a grid-tied photovoltaic (PV) system was investigated in this dissertation. A new current control scheme based on multivariable PI controller, with a faster dynamic and superior axis decoupling capability compared with the conventional PI control method, was developed and experimentally evaluated for three-phase PV MIC system. Finally, a study was conducted based on the framework of stochastic game theory to enable a power system to dynamically survive concurrent severe multi-failure events, before such failures turn into a full blown cascading failure. This effort provides reliable strategies in the form of insightful guidelines on how to deploy limited budgets for protecting critical components of the smart grid systems

A new supervisory energy managmement control strategy of a modified D-STATCOM configuration and dual DC source in distribution grids.

A microgrid is a state-of-the-art, next generation of electric distribution grid that provides a fundamental paradigm shift from passive grid networks to active networks. Power electronic technologies play a vital role in enabling microgrids to meet their system level requirements of power quality, reliability and demand response capability. A conventional distribution static compensator (D-STATCOM) is a power electronic converter which acts as a reactive power compensator and voltage controller at the point of common coupling in a grid system. However, these devices have limited ability to mitigate voltage fluctuations caused by active power disturbances. By integrating energy storage into the DC link of a D-STATCOM, controllable active power from the storage device can result in enhanced voltage compensating capability. The active and reactive power control between the D-STATCOM and AC power point is achieved by suitable tuning of the phase and magnitude of the output voltage of the D-STATCOM’s converter. Recent advances and innovations in energy storage systems such as super-capacitors and batteries allow the combination of battery-supercapacitor hybrid energy storage systems to act as an effective solution for energy management in smart grid operation. However, the concept and control of the hybridisation of energy storage are relatively new, and there are great challenges to the development of control management systems, for example, reduce battery current stresses. This study presents a novel approach in applying a fuzzy-PI controller to a D-STATCOM based energy storage unit to provide enhanced power quality and voltage stability in distribution grids. Full information is provided concerning the implementation of the system, and the dynamic controls devised during the research programme. A second novel approach is the use of sugeno fuzzy logic controller based decision making for power management of the D-STATCOM based HESS to achieve a robust and superior performance for voltage regulation. Recent developments in this field have tended to converge on intelligent control as the best approach to achieve an effective strategy for power sharing with HESSs by using a high-power storage unit (supercapacitor) and high energy storage unit (battery) in combination with the D-STATCOM to avoid the drawbacks of a single storage unit. This development is considered one of the main ways to upgrade energy storage technology, with gains of faster voltage regulation and decreased battery current peak value. Verification of the control designs has been achieved through simulation using MATLAB/SIMULINK based on the derived analytical model in state-space form. Comprehensive simulation results show that the proposed fuzzy controller demonstrates significant improvements over conventional controllers in supporting voltage stability in distribution networksPhD in Energy and Powe

Power Quality

Electrical power is becoming one of the most dominant factors in our society. Power generation, transmission, distribution and usage are undergoing signifi cant changes that will aff ect the electrical quality and performance needs of our 21st century industry. One major aspect of electrical power is its quality and stability – or so called Power Quality. The view on Power Quality did change over the past few years. It seems that Power Quality is becoming a more important term in the academic world dealing with electrical power, and it is becoming more visible in all areas of commerce and industry, because of the ever increasing industry automation using sensitive electrical equipment on one hand and due to the dramatic change of our global electrical infrastructure on the other. For the past century, grid stability was maintained with a limited amount of major generators that have a large amount of rotational inertia. And the rate of change of phase angle is slow. Unfortunately, this does not work anymore with renewable energy sources adding their share to the grid like wind turbines or PV modules. Although the basic idea to use renewable energies is great and will be our path into the next century, it comes with a curse for the power grid as power fl ow stability will suff er. It is not only the source side that is about to change. We have also seen signifi cant changes on the load side as well. Industry is using machines and electrical products such as AC drives or PLCs that are sensitive to the slightest change of power quality, and we at home use more and more electrical products with switching power supplies or starting to plug in our electric cars to charge batt eries. In addition, many of us have begun installing our own distributed generation systems on our rooft ops using the latest solar panels. So we did look for a way to address this severe impact on our distribution network. To match supply and demand, we are about to create a new, intelligent and self-healing electric power infrastructure. The Smart Grid. The basic idea is to maintain the necessary balance between generators and loads on a grid. In other words, to make sure we have a good grid balance at all times. But the key question that you should ask yourself is: Does it also improve Power Quality? Probably not! Further on, the way how Power Quality is measured is going to be changed. Traditionally, each country had its own Power Quality standards and defi ned its own power quality instrument requirements. But more and more international harmonization efforts can be seen. Such as IEC 61000-4-30, which is an excellent standard that ensures that all compliant power quality instruments, regardless of manufacturer, will produce of measurement instruments so that they can also be used in volume applications and even directly embedded into sensitive loads. But work still has to be done. We still use Power Quality standards that have been writt en decades ago and don’t match today’s technology any more, such as fl icker standards that use parameters that have been defi ned by the behavior of 60-watt incandescent light bulbs, which are becoming extinct. Almost all experts are in agreement - although we will see an improvement in metering and control of the power fl ow, Power Quality will suff er. This book will give an overview of how power quality might impact our lives today and tomorrow, introduce new ways to monitor power quality and inform us about interesting possibilities to mitigate power quality problems. Regardless of any enhancements of the power grid, “Power Quality is just compatibility” like my good old friend and teacher Alex McEachern used to say. Power Quality will always remain an economic compromise between supply and load. The power available on the grid must be suffi ciently clean for the loads to operate correctly, and the loads must be suffi ciently strong to tolerate normal disturbances on the grid

A multi-modular second life hybrid battery energy storage system for utility grid applications

The modern grid system or the smart grid is likely to be populated with multiple distributed energy sources, e.g. wind power, PV power, Plug-in Electric Vehicle (PEV). It will also include a variety of linear and nonlinear loads. The intermittent nature of renewable energies like PV, wind turbine and increased penetration of Electric Vehicle (EV) makes the stable operation of utility grid system challenging. In order to ensure a stable operation of the utility grid system and to support smart grid functionalities such as, fault ride-through, frequency response, reactive power support, and mitigation of power quality issues, an energy storage system (ESS) could play an important role. A fast acting bidirectional energy storage system which can rapidly provide and absorb power and/or VARs for a sufficient time is a potentially valuable tool to support this functionality. Battery energy storage systems (BESS) are one of a range suitable energy storage system because it can provide and absorb power for sufficient time as well as able to respond reasonably fast. Conventional BESS already exist on the grid system are made up primarily of new batteries. The cost of these batteries can be high which makes most BESS an expensive solution. In order to assist moving towards a low carbon economy and to reduce battery cost this work aims to research the opportunities for the re-use of batteries after their primary use in low and ultra-low carbon vehicles (EV/HEV) on the electricity grid system. This research aims to develop a new generation of second life battery energy storage systems (SLBESS) which could interface to the low/medium voltage network to provide necessary grid support in a reliable and in cost-effective manner. The reliability/performance of these batteries is not clear, but is almost certainly worse than a new battery. Manufacturers indicate that a mixture of gradual degradation and sudden failure are both possible and failure mechanisms are likely to be related to how hard the batteries were driven inside the vehicle. There are several figures from a number of sources including the DECC (Department of Energy and Climate Control) and Arup and Cenex reports indicate anything from 70,000 to 2.6 million electric and hybrid vehicles on the road by 2020. Once the vehicle battery has degraded to around 70-80% of its capacity it is considered to be at the end of its first life application. This leaves capacity available for a second life at a much cheaper cost than a new BESS Assuming a battery capability of around 5-18kWhr (MHEV 5kWh - BEV 18kWh battery) and approximate 10 year life span, this equates to a projection of battery storage capability available for second life of >1GWhrs by 2025. Moreover, each vehicle manufacturer has different specifications for battery chemistry, number and arrangement of battery cells, capacity, voltage, size etc. To enable research and investment in this area and to maximize the remaining life of these batteries, one of the design challenges is to combine these hybrid batteries into a grid-tie converter where their different performance characteristics, and parameter variation can be catered for and a hot swapping mechanism is available so that as a battery ends it second life, it can be replaced without affecting the overall system operation. This integration of either single types of batteries with vastly different performance capability or a hybrid battery system to a grid-tie 3 energy storage system is different to currently existing work on battery energy storage systems (BESS) which deals with a single type of battery with common characteristics. This thesis addresses and solves the power electronic design challenges in integrating second life hybrid batteries into a grid-tie energy storage unit for the first time. This study details a suitable multi-modular power electronic converter and its various switching strategies which can integrate widely different batteries to a grid-tie inverter irrespective of their characteristics, voltage levels and reliability. The proposed converter provides a high efficiency, enhanced control flexibility and has the capability to operate in different operational modes from the input to output. Designing an appropriate control system for this kind of hybrid battery storage system is also important because of the variation of battery types, differences in characteristics and different levels of degradations. This thesis proposes a generalised distributed power sharing strategy based on weighting function aims to optimally use a set of hybrid batteries according to their relative characteristics while providing the necessary grid support by distributing the power between the batteries. The strategy is adaptive in nature and varies as the individual battery characteristics change in real time as a result of degradation for example. A suitable bidirectional distributed control strategy or a module independent control technique has been developed corresponding to each mode of operation of the proposed modular converter. Stability is an important consideration in control of all power converters and as such this thesis investigates the control stability of the multi-modular converter in detailed. Many controllers use PI/PID based techniques with fixed control parameters. However, this is not found to be suitable from a stability point-of-view. Issues of control stability using this controller type under one of the operating modes has led to the development of an alternative adaptive and nonlinear Lyapunov based control for the modular power converter. Finally, a detailed simulation and experimental validation of the proposed power converter operation, power sharing strategy, proposed control structures and control stability issue have been undertaken using a grid connected laboratory based multi-modular hybrid battery energy storage system prototype. The experimental validation has demonstrated the feasibility of this new energy storage system operation for use in future grid applications

Performance Enhancement of Shunt APFs Using Various Topologies, Control Schemes and Optimization Techniques

Following the advent of solid-state power electronics technology, extensive usage of nonlinear loads has lead to severe disturbances like harmonics, unbalanced currents, excessive neutral current and reactive power burden in three-phase power systems. Harmonics lower down the efficiency and power factor, increase losses, and result in electromagnetic interference with neighbouring communication lines and other harmful consequences. Over the years, active power filter (APF) has been proven to be a brilliant solution among researchers and application engineers dealing with power quality issues. Selection of proper reference compensation current extraction scheme plays the most crucial role in APF performance. This thesis describes three time-domain schemes viz. Instantaneous active and reactive power (p-q), modified p-q, and Instantaneous active and reactive current component (i_d-i_q) schemes. The objective is to bring down the source current THD below 5%, to satisfy the IEEE-519 Standard recommendations on harmonic limits. Comparative evaluation shows that, i_d-i_q is the best APF control scheme irrespective of supply and load conditions. Results are validated with simulations, followed by real-time analysis in RT-Lab.In view of the fact that APFs are generally comprised of voltage source inverter (VSI) based on PWM, undesirable power loss takes place inside it due to the inductors and switching devices. This is effectively minimized with inverter DC-link voltage regulation using PI controller. The controller gains are determined using optimization technique, as the conventional linearized tuning of PI controller yield inadequate results for a range of operating conditions due to the complex, nonlinear and time-varying nature of power system networks. Developed by hybridization of Particle swarm optimization (PSO) and Bacterial foraging optimization (BFO), an Enhanced BFO technique is proposed here so as to overcome the drawbacks of both PSO and BFO, and accelerate the convergence of optimization problem. Extensive simulation studies and RT-Lab real-time investigations are performed for comparative assessment of proposed implementation of PSO, BFO and Enhanced BFO on APF. This validates that, the APF employing Enhanced BFO offers superior harmonic compensation compared to other alternatives, by lowering down the source current THD to drastically small values.Another indispensable aspect of APF is its topology, which plays an essential role in meeting harmonic current requirement of nonlinear loads. APFs are generally developed with current-source or voltage-source inverters. The latter is more convenient as it is lighter, cheaper, and expandable to multilevel and multistep versions for improved performance at high power ratings with lower switching frequencies. There can be different topologies of VSI depending on the type of supply system. With each topology, constraints related to DC-link voltage regulation change. For effective compensation, irrespective of the number and rating of DC-link capacitors used in any particular topology, voltages across them must be maintained constant with optimal regulation of DC-link voltage. Various topologies for three-phase three-wire systems (conventional two-level and multilevel VSIs) and four-wire systems (split-capacitor (2C), four-leg (4L), three H-bridges (3HB) and three-level H-bridge (3L-HB) VSIs) are analyzed and compared based on component requirements, effectiveness in harmonic compensation, cost and area of application

AVERAGE-VALUE MODELING OF HYSTERESIS CURRENT CONTROL IN POWER ELECTRONICS

Hysteresis current control has been widely used in power electronics with the advantages of fast dynamic response under parameter, line and load variation and ensured stability. However, a main disadvantage of hysteresis current control is the uncertain and varying switching frequency which makes it difficult to form an average-value model. The changing switching frequency and unspecified switching duty cycle make conventional average-value models based on PWM control difficult to apply directly to converters that are controlled by hysteresis current control. In this work, a new method for average-value modeling of hysteresis current control in boost converters, three-phase inverters, and brushless dc motor drives is proposed. It incorporates a slew-rate limitation on the inductor current that occurs naturally in the circuit during large system transients. This new method is compared with existing methods in terms of simulation run time and rms error. The performance is evaluated based on a variety of scenarios, and the simulation results are compared with the results of detailed models. The simulation results show that the proposed model represents the detailed model well and is faster and more accurate than existing methods. The slew-rate limitation model of hysteresis current control accurately captures the salient detail of converter performance while maintaining the computational efficiency of average-value models. Validations in hardware are also presented

Application of the cascaded multilevel inverter as a shunt active power filter

Abstract unavailable please refer to PD