Cooperative Strategies for Management of Power Quality Problems in Voltage-Source Converter-based Microgrids

The development of cooperative control strategies for microgrids has become an area of increasing research interest in recent years, often a result of advances in other areas of control theory such as multi-agent systems and enabled by emerging wireless communications technology, machine learning techniques, and power electronics. While some possible applications of the cooperative control theory to microgrids have been described in the research literature, a comprehensive survey of this approach with respect to its limitations and wide-ranging potential applications has not yet been provided. In this regard, an important area of research into microgrids is developing intelligent cooperative operating strategies within and between microgrids which implement and allocate tasks at the local level, and do not rely on centralized command and control structures. Multi-agent techniques are one focus of this research, but have not been applied to the full range of power quality problems in microgrids. The ability for microgrid control systems to manage harmonics, unbalance, flicker, and black start capability are some examples of applications yet to be fully exploited. During islanded operation, the normal buffer against disturbances and power imbalances provided by the main grid coupling is removed, this together with the reduced inertia of the microgrid (MG), makes power quality (PQ) management a critical control function. This research will investigate new cooperative control techniques for solving power quality problems in voltage source converter (VSC)-based AC microgrids. A set of specific power quality problems have been selected for the application focus, based on a survey of relevant published literature, international standards, and electricity utility regulations. The control problems which will be addressed are voltage regulation, unbalance load sharing, and flicker mitigation. The thesis introduces novel approaches based on multi-agent consensus problems and differential games. It was decided to exclude the management of harmonics, which is a more challenging issue, and is the focus of future research. Rather than using model-based engineering design for optimization of controller parameters, the thesis describes a novel technique for controller synthesis using off-policy reinforcement learning. The thesis also addresses the topic of communication and control system co-design. In this regard, stability of secondary voltage control considering communication time-delays will be addressed, while a performance-oriented approach to rate allocation using a novel solution method is described based on convex optimization

Methods for Dynamic Stabilization, Performance Improvement, and Load Power Sharing In DC Power Distribution Systems

Modern DC power distribution systems (DC-PDS) offer high efficiency and flexibility which make them ideal for mission-critical applications such as on-board power systems of All-Electric ships, electric vehicles, More-Electric-Aircrafts, and DC Microgrids. Despite these attractive features, there are still challenges that need to be addressed. The two most important challenges are system stability and load power sharing. The stability and performance are of concern because DC-PDS are typically formed by the interconnection of several feedback-controlled power converters. The resulting interactions can lead to destabilizing dynamics. Likewise, in a DC-PDS there are several source converters that are operating in parallel to supply the total load power. This improves the system reliability through structural redundancy. Improper load sharing, however, leads to overloading of some of the source converters which might result in cascaded failures. Several stability criteria are proposed in the literature. Among all, the impedance-based approaches are well accepted for stability analysis and stabilizing controllers design. These methods are based on evaluating the system impedances using linear control theory and small-signal dynamic analysis. So, using such methods, stabilization is accomplished in an intuitive and design-oriented manner. However, an important disadvantage of linear methods is that their range of effectiveness is limited to a small-signal region around an operating point of the system wherein the non-linear system can be approximated by a linear one. Likewise, DC-PDS often experience large-signal transients and operating point variations. Thus, linear controllers may fail to preserve the stability and performance for large-signal transients. Therefore, there is a need to develop new methods that guarantee system stability and performance during such large-signal transients. To solve the problem of load power sharing in DC-PDS, various methods can be found in the literature. Load sharing mechanisms can be categorized as Droop methods and active sharing techniques. In the conventional Droop method, a virtual resistance is added to the output impedance of the source converter and a decentralized load sharing is achieved. Although simple and effective, Droop control causes a variable bus voltage drop which requires additional control measures to achieve tight voltage regulation. Active methods, on the other hand, manage to achieve load sharing at the cost of additional control requirements such as high bandwidth communication links among the source converters which increase the complexity and cost. Thus, it is desirable to develop new methods to solve the problem of proper load sharing in a simple, efficient, and inexpensive manner. To address the above challenges, in this dissertation, a generic DC-PDS is considered and the system dynamics is studied for small-signal and large-signal operations. Based on this analysis, novel stabilizing control methods are proposed that are implemented in a source converter. The proposed approach manages to guarantees stability and performance for various operating scenarios. Additionally, to solve the load-sharing problem, a novel communication-less current-sharing control scheme is proposed. This method guarantees proper distributed load sharing among several source converters without any bus voltage drop and requiring any physical communication network

Virtual inertia for suppressing voltage oscillations and stability mechanisms in DC microgrids

Renewable energy sources (RES) are gradually penetrating power systems through power electronic converters (PECs), which greatly change the structure and operation characteristics of traditional power systems. The maturation of PECs has also laid a technical foundation for the development of DC microgrids (DC-MGs). The advantages of DC-MGs over AC systems make them an important access target for RES. Due to the multi-timescale characteristics and fast response of power electronics, the dynamic coupling of PEC control systems and the transient interaction between the PEC and the passive network are inevitable, which threatens the stable operation of DC-MGs. Therefore, this dissertation focuses on the study of stabilization control methods, the low-frequency oscillation (LFO) mechanism analysis of DC-MGs and the state-of-charge (SoC) imbalance problem of multi-parallel energy storage systems (ESS). Firstly, a virtual inertia and damping control (VIDC) strategy is proposed to enable bidirectional DC converters (BiCs) to damp voltage oscillations by using the energy stored in ESS to emulate inertia without modifications to system hardware. Both the inertia part and the damping part are modeled in the VIDC controller by analogy with DC machines. Simulation results verify that the proposed VIDC can improve the dynamic characteristics and stability in islanded DC-MG. Then, inertia droop control (IDC) strategies are proposed for BiC of ESS based on the comparison between conventional droop control and VIDC. A feedback analytical method is presented to comprehend stability mechanisms from multi-viewpoints and observe the interaction between variables intuitively. A hardware in the loop (HIL) experiment verifies that IDC can simplify the control structure of VIDC in the promise of ensuring similar control performances. Subsequently, a multi-timescale impedance model is established to clarify the control principle of VIDC and the LFO mechanisms of VIDC-controlled DC-MG. Control loops of different timescales are visualized as independent loop virtual impedances (LVIs) to form an impedance circuit. The instability factors are revealed and a dynamic stability enhancement method is proposed to compensate for the negative damping caused by VIDC and CPL. Experimental results have validated the LFO mechanism analysis and stability enhancement method. Finally, an inertia-emulation-based cooperative control strategy for multi-parallel ESS is proposed to address the SoC imbalance and voltage deviation problem in steady-state operation and the voltage stability problem. The contradiction between SoC balancing speed and maintaining system stability is solved by a redefined SoC-based droop resistance function. HIL experiments prove that the proposed control performs better dynamics and static characteristics without modifying the hardware and can balance the SoC in both charge and discharge modes