961 research outputs found
Voltage Stabilization in Microgrids via Quadratic Droop Control
We consider the problem of voltage stability and reactive power balancing in
islanded small-scale electrical networks outfitted with DC/AC inverters
("microgrids"). A droop-like voltage feedback controller is proposed which is
quadratic in the local voltage magnitude, allowing for the application of
circuit-theoretic analysis techniques to the closed-loop system. The operating
points of the closed-loop microgrid are in exact correspondence with the
solutions of a reduced power flow equation, and we provide explicit solutions
and small-signal stability analyses under several static and dynamic load
models. Controller optimality is characterized as follows: we show a one-to-one
correspondence between the high-voltage equilibrium of the microgrid under
quadratic droop control, and the solution of an optimization problem which
minimizes a trade-off between reactive power dissipation and voltage
deviations. Power sharing performance of the controller is characterized as a
function of the controller gains, network topology, and parameters. Perhaps
surprisingly, proportional sharing of the total load between inverters is
achieved in the low-gain limit, independent of the circuit topology or
reactances. All results hold for arbitrary grid topologies, with arbitrary
numbers of inverters and loads. Numerical results confirm the robustness of the
controller to unmodeled dynamics.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figure
Secondary Frequency and Voltage Control of Islanded Microgrids via Distributed Averaging
In this work we present new distributed controllers for secondary frequency
and voltage control in islanded microgrids. Inspired by techniques from
cooperative control, the proposed controllers use localized information and
nearest-neighbor communication to collectively perform secondary control
actions. The frequency controller rapidly regulates the microgrid frequency to
its nominal value while maintaining active power sharing among the distributed
generators. Tuning of the voltage controller provides a simple and intuitive
trade-off between the conflicting goals of voltage regulation and reactive
power sharing. Our designs require no knowledge of the microgrid topology,
impedances or loads. The distributed architecture allows for flexibility and
redundancy, and eliminates the need for a central microgrid controller. We
provide a voltage stability analysis and present extensive experimental results
validating our designs, verifying robust performance under communication
failure and during plug-and-play operation.Comment: Accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Industrial
Electronic
Uncovering Droop Control Laws Embedded Within the Nonlinear Dynamics of Van der Pol Oscillators
This paper examines the dynamics of power-electronic inverters in islanded
microgrids that are controlled to emulate the dynamics of Van der Pol
oscillators. The general strategy of controlling inverters to emulate the
behavior of nonlinear oscillators presents a compelling time-domain alternative
to ubiquitous droop control methods which presume the existence of a
quasi-stationary sinusoidal steady state and operate on phasor quantities. We
present two main results in this work. First, by leveraging the method of
periodic averaging, we demonstrate that droop laws are intrinsically embedded
within a slower time scale in the nonlinear dynamics of Van der Pol
oscillators. Second, we establish the global convergence of amplitude and phase
dynamics in a resistive network interconnecting inverters controlled as Van der
Pol oscillators. Furthermore, under a set of non-restrictive decoupling
approximations, we derive sufficient conditions for local exponential stability
of desirable equilibria of the linearized amplitude and phase dynamics
Gather-and-broadcast frequency control in power systems
We propose a novel frequency control approach in between centralized and
distributed architectures, that is a continuous-time feedback control version
of the dual decomposition optimization method. Specifically, a convex
combination of the frequency measurements is centrally aggregated, followed by
an integral control and a broadcast signal, which is then optimally allocated
at local generation units. We show that our gather-and-broadcast control
architecture comprises many previously proposed strategies as special cases. We
prove local asymptotic stability of the closed-loop equilibria of the
considered power system model, which is a nonlinear differential-algebraic
system that includes traditional generators, frequency-responsive devices, as
well as passive loads, where the sources are already equipped with primary
droop control. Our feedback control is designed such that the closed-loop
equilibria of the power system solve the optimal economic dispatch problem
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