Virtual Impedance Impact on Inverter Control Topologies

The different nature of the energy resources requires high reliable power inverters to supply regulated power to the end customer and to ease its integration within the microgrid. In this paper, modeling, design and control of inverters are presented for two different topologies. The study addresses the feasibility of the single loop and double loop control of inverters. The bode plot technique is used to analyze the system behavior when the inductor and the capacitor currents are used as feedback signals. The different output impedance natures affect the power sharing between inverters and stability. Therefore, a proposed virtual impedance is implemented to enhance the control performance. Simulation results are presented to show the validity of the control strategy

Control Strategy for Uninterrupted Microgrid Mode Transfer during Unintentional Islanding Scenarios

This paper presents a microgrid control strategy to unify the control topology for energy storage systems (ESS) and renewable energy sources (RES) inverters in an AC microgrid and to protect the microgrid reliability from unintentional islanding instability using control loops which use the DC link voltage as a feedback. This bounds the DC link voltage and provides reliable operation in the microgrid. Simulation validates the proposed control strategy, and experiment results extol the concept

Bipolar and unipolar schemes for confined band variable switching frequency PWM based inverter

The single phase inverter performance through the unipolar and bipolar strategies has been previously analyzed based on the constant switching frequency pulse width modulation (CSFPWM). However, the confined band variable switching frequency PWM (CB-VSFPWM) is currently proposed as a new variable switching frequency PWM technique through unipolar strategy to facilitate the design of high order filter, to reduce the switching losses, and to reduce the current total harmonics distortion (THD) as well. To evaluate the performance of a single phase inverter based on the CBVSFPWM through bipolar strategy, this paper presents a comparative study of the CB-VSFPWM based inverter performance using the unipolar PWM and the bipolar PWM strategies. The study adopts MATLAB/Simulink to simulate the inverter and to analyze the simulation results in terms of harmonics spectrum, total harmonic distortion (THD), and fundamental components. The analysis of the study results gives an indication about the appropriate type of CB-VSFPWM strategy (unipolar PWM or bipolar PWM) to guarantee the desired performance of the connected inverter in terms of the electrical grid standards like THD, and harmonics spectrum of the inverter current

A new DC-DC converter linking LCC-HVDC transmission networks

Transferring bulk power via high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission is dominated by line commutated converters (LCC). This is due to the robustness and higher ratings of the thyristors as well as the higher converter efficiency. Nevertheless, most of these transmission networks are point to point. This is due to the challenges of allowing multi-terminal LCC based networks and power reversal. This paper introduces a new dc-dc converter topology that allows connecting two independent LCC networks. The proposed converter is based on insulated gate commutated thyristors (IGCTs). Utilizing IGCTs allow mimicking similar control and performance as in insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) based voltage source dc-dc converters. However, IGCTs have more superior features over IGBTs such as higher efficiency, higher short circuit current and higher power ratings. Detailed analysis and simulations are provided to validate the proposed converter topology, which confirms its potential in connecting HVDC-LCC networks

Analysis, Design and Experimental Validation of a Primary Side Current Sensing Flyback Converter for Use in a Battery Management System

The purpose of the presented flyback converter is to equalise the voltage between the cells in a series string within a battery pack providing an active cell-balancing system. This would be an important part of a battery management system (BMS) for charging li-ion batteries in electric vehicles. The converter is based on primary side current sensing, where the conventional feedback circuit is omitted. The purpose of this converter is to improve efficiency by decreasing losses and to increase battery power density by decreasing the number of elements which constitute the power electronics; these are important factors for the future development of electric vehicle battery packs. Analysis of the circuit and the design procedure of the DC-DC flyback converter with primary current sensing is presented in this paper. Finally, several experimental converters have been built and tested to validate the authors’ approach