Microgrid, Its Control and Stability: The State of The Art

Some of the challenges facing the power industries globally include power quality and stability, diminishing fossil fuel, climate change amongst others. The use of distributed generators however is growing at a steady pace to address these challenges. When interconnected and integrated with storage devices and controllable load, these generators operate together in a grid, which has incidental stability and control issues. The focus of this paper, therefore, is on the review and discussion of the different control approaches and the hierarchical control on a microgrid, the current practice in the literature concerning stability and the control techniques deployed for microgrid control; the weakness and strength of the different control strategies were discussed in this work and some of the areas that require further research are highlighted

OPTIMAL DESIGN OF MICROGRID IN AN AUTONOMOUS MODE USING ANTCOLONY OPTIMIZATION

The dynamic nature of the distribution network challenges the stability and control effectiveness of the microgrid in autonomous mode. In this paper, nonlinear model of microgrid operating in autonomous mode has been presented. The controller parameters and power sharing coefficients are optimized in case of autonomous mode. The control problem has been formulated as an optimization problem where Ant colony optimization is employed to search for optimal settings of the optimized parameters. In addition, nonlinear time-domain-based objective function has been proposed to minimize the error in the measured power and to enhance the damping characteristics, respectively. Finally, the nonlinear time-domain simulation has been carried out to assess the effectiveness of the proposed controllers under different disturbances and loading conditions. The results show satisfactory performance with efficient damping characteristics of the microgrid considered in this study

Energy Shaping Control for Stabilization of Interconnected Voltage Source Converters in Weakly-Connected AC Microgrid Systems

With the ubiquitous installations of renewable energy resources such as solar and wind, for decentralized power applications across the United States, microgrids are being viewed as an avenue for achieving this goal. Various independent system operators and regional transmission operators such as Southwest Power Pool (SPP), Midcontinent System Operator (MISO), PJM Interconnection and Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) manage the transmission and generation systems that host the distributed energy resources (DERs). Voltage source converters typically interconnect the DERs to the utility system and used in High voltage dc (HVDC) systems for transmitting power throughout the United States. A microgrid configuration is built at the 13.8kV 4.75MVA National Center for Reliable Energy Transmission (NCREPT) testing facility for performing grid-connected and islanded operation of interconnected voltage source converters. The interconnected voltage source converters consist of a variable voltage variable frequency (VVVF) drive, which powers a regenerative (REGEN) load bench acting as a distributed energy resource emulator. Due to the weak-grid interface in islanded mode testing, a voltage instability occurs on the VVVF dc link voltage causing the system to collapse. This dissertation presents a new stability theorem for stabilizing interconnected voltage source converters in microgrid systems with weak-grid interfaces. The new stability theorem is derived using the concepts of Dirac composition in Port-Hamiltonian systems, passivity in physical systems, eigenvalue analysis and robust analysis based on the edge theorem for parametric uncertainty. The novel stability theorem aims to prove that all members of the classes of voltage source converter-based microgrid systems can be stabilized using an energy-shaping control methodology. The proposed theorems and stability analysis justifies the development of the Modified Interconnection and Damping Assignment Passivity-Based Control (Modified IDA-PBC) method to be utilized in stabilizing the microgrid configuration at NCREPT for mitigating system instabilities. The system is simulated in MATLAB/SimulinkTM using the Simpower toolbox to observe the system’s performance of the designed controller in comparison to the decoupled proportional intergral controller. The simulation results verify that the Modified-IDA-PBC is a viable option for dc bus voltage control of interconnected voltage source converters in microgrid systems

Coordinated Control of Energy Storage in Networked Microgrids under Unpredicted Load Demands

In this paper a nonlinear control design for power balancing in networked microgrids using energy storage devices is presented. Each microgrid is considered to be interfaced to the distribution feeder though a solid-state transformer (SST). The internal duty cycle based controllers of each SST ensures stable regulation of power commands during normal operation. But problem arises when a sudden change in load or generation occurs in any microgrid in a completely unpredicted way in between the time instants at which the SSTs receive their power setpoints. In such a case, the energy storage unit in that microgrid must produce or absorb the deficit power. The challenge lies in designing a suitable regulator for this purpose owing to the nonlinearity of the battery model and its coupling with the nonlinear SST dynamics. We design an input-output linearization based controller, and show that it guarantees closed-loop stability via a cascade connection with the SST model. The design is also extended to the case when multiple SSTs must coordinate their individual storage controllers to assist a given SST whose storage capacity is insufficient to serve the unpredicted load. The design is verified using the IEEE 34-bus distribution system with nine SST-driven microgrids.Comment: 8 pages, 10 figure

Advanced Modeling, Design, and Control of ac-dc Microgrids

An interconnected dc grid that comprises resistive and constant-power loads (CPLs) that is fed by Photovoltaic (PV) units is studied first. All the sources and CPLs are connected to the grid via dc-dc buck converters. Nonlinear behavior of PV units in addition to the effect of the negative-resistance CPLs can destabilize the dc grid. A decentralized nonlinear model and control are proposed where an adaptive output-feedback controller is employed to stabilize the dc grid with assured stability through Lyapunov stability method while each converter employs only local measurements. Adaptive Neural Networks (NNs) are utilized to overcome the unknown dynamics of the dc-dc converters at Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) and CPLs and those of the interconnected network imposed on the converters. Additionally, the use of the output feedback control makes possible the utilization of other measured signals, in case of loss of main signal, at the converter location and creates measurement redundancy that improves reliability of the dc network. The switching between measurement signals of different types are performed through using the NNs without the need to further tuning. Then, in a small-scale ac grid, PV-based Distributed Generation (DG) units, including dc/dc converters and inverters, are controlled such that mimic a synchronous generator behavior. While other control schemes such as Synchronverters are used to control the inverter frequency and power at a fixed dc link voltage, the proposed approach considers both the dc-link voltage and the inverter ac voltage and frequency regulation. The dc-link capacitor stores kinetic energy similar to the rotor of a synchronous generator, providing inertia and contributes to the system stability. Additionally, a reduced Unified Power Flow Controller (UPFC) structure is proposed to enhance transient stability of small-scale micro grids. The reduced UPFC model exploits dc link of the DG unit to generate appropriate series voltage and inject it to the power line to enhance transient stability. It employs optimal control to ensure that the stability of the system is realized through minimum cost for the system. A neural network is used to approximate the cost function based on the weighted residual method

Advanced Control Architectures for Intelligent MicroGrids, Part I:Decentralized and Hierarchical Control

This paper presents a review of advanced control techniques for microgrids. This paper covers decentralized, distributed, and hierarchical control of grid-connected and islanded microgrids. At first, decentralized control techniques for microgrids are reviewed. Then, the recent developments in the stability analysis of decentralized controlled microgrids are discussed. Finally, hierarchical control for microgrids that mimic the behavior of the mains grid is reviewed

Dynamic modeling, stability analysis, and controller design for DC distribution systems

The dc distribution systems or dc microgrids are known to be best suited for integration of renewable energy sources into the current power grid and are considered to be the key enabling technology for the development of future smart grid. Dc microgrids also benefit from better current capabilities of dc power lines, better short circuit protection, and transformer-less conversion of voltage levels, which result in higher efficiency, flexibility, and lower cost. While the idea of using a dc microgrid to interface distributed energy sources and modern loads to the power grid seems appealing at first, several issues must be addressed before this idea can be implemented fully. The configuration, stability, protection, economic operation, active management, and control of future dc microgrids are among the topics of interest for many researchers. The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the dynamic behavior and stability of a future dc microgrid and to introduce new controller design techniques for the Line Regulating Converters (LRC) in a dc distribution system. Paper I is devoted to dynamic modeling of power converters in a dc distribution system. The terminal characteristics of tightly regulated power converters which are an important factor for stability analysis and controller design are modeled in this paper. Paper II derives the simplified model of a dc distribution system and employs the model for analyzing stability of the system. Paper III introduces two controller design methods for stabilizing the operation of the LRC in presence of downstream constant power loads in a dc distribution system. Paper IV builds upon paper III and introduces another controller design method which uses an external feedback loop between converters to improve performance and stability of the dc grid. --Abstract, page iv