POWER FLOW CONTROL METHODS FOR MICROGRID

With the growth of distributed generation and its operation in tandem with utility power
supply,the interconnection of distributed generators (DGs) to the utility grid through power
electronicconverters has raised concern about system control and power sharing among the DGs.
Control of theDG system is important and system regulation such as frequency deviation and
voltage drop becomesvery crucial during the decentralized power sharing through droop
control.This chapter presents, the power sharing in microgrid with converter interfaced sources.
Theconventional frequency droop control is first demonstrated. As the sources are converter
interfaced, itis possible to control the output voltage angles instantaneously. The proposed angle
droop control isderived from load flow analysis and demonstrated in a similar system to compare
the performance ofboth the droop controllers.

5.1 FREQUENCY DROOP METHOD FOR CONTROL OF LOAD SHARING

The basic power system model with two DG sources connected to the load at the point of
commoncoupling (PCC) is shown in Fig. 5.1. The load can be a constant impedance load or a
motor load. Theconverter output voltages are denoted by V1 1 and V2 and are connected
to the microgrid withoutput filter of inductance L1and L2 .P1, P2 and Q1, Q2 represent the real and
reactive power suppliedby the DGs while PLand QLare respectively the real and reactive power
demand of the load. The lineresistances are denoted by R1 and R2 while Lline1 and Lline2 represent

the

lineinductances.

Utility

P 2 Q2

P 1 Q1

L1

Lline2

L2
2 2

1 1

DG-1

Lline1

RD1

RD2

DG-2

Load

Fig 5.1:-Utility connected microgrid system

5.1.1 Frequency control method

The conventional droop control method is given by
mP

(5.1)

V = V* - nQ

(5.2)

Wherem and n are the droop coefficients, sis the synchronous frequency, V is the
magnitude of theconverter output voltage and w is its frequency, while P and Q respectively denote
the active andreactive power supplied by the converter. Thus the frequency and the voltage are
being controlled bythe active and reactive power output of the DG sources.

5.1.2 Modular control structure

A modification to the conventional droop controller is proposed here. This is shown in Fig.
5.2for DG-1 only. A similar structure is also used for DG-2. The output voltage V1 1 and output
currentI1 of the converter are used for calculating the real power (P1) and reactive power (Q1)
injected byDG-1. These are then used in (5.1) to calculate sand V1*. The quantity sand the angle
of the PCCvoltage Dpccare then used to calculate the reference angle 1*. This is described in
Section 5.1.3. Thereference magnitude V1* and its angle 1* are then used to generate the
instantaneous referencevoltages of the three phases which are then compared with the measured
instantaneous phase voltagesof V1. The resultant error is used in the feedback control to generate
the firing pulses (u) of VSC-1.

Fig. 5.2.The modular control structure.

5.1.3 Converter voltage angle calculation

The converter voltage angle control loop is shown in Fig. 5.3. The frequency 1 is
calculated fromthe droop given in (5.1) and is then compared with the frequency (PCC) of the
PCC voltage. The erroris passed through an integrator with a gain ofKIand is then added with the
integral ofPCCto obtain1*. The angle1* rotates at the synchronous speedsmaking an angle1*
with the reference.Changing the value of KI, we can influence the close loop dynamics without
affecting the steady statefrequency regulation.

Fig. 5.3 Voltage angle control loop.

5.2 ANGLE DROOP CONTROLAND POWER SHARING

The DGs have the potential to deliver reliable power when their locations are strategically
planned. However, for large scale application of DGs, the commercial and regulatory challenges
have to be considered before their benefits can be realized . One of the most significant aspects is
the change in system frequency. As discussed in , DG real power output is controlled by dropping
the system frequency. Depending on the stiffness of the power-frequency curve, the steady state
frequency will change with the changes in system loads.
It is not desirable to operate the system in a much lower frequency and a complimentary
frequencyrestoration strategy is proposed in [7]. The reference powers of the DGs are modified to
restore thefrequency which is equivalent to shifting the power-frequency curve vertically. The
process can becontrolled in a slow, coordinated manner by a master controller, using a slow
communication channel between the converters [9]. In conversational frequency droop, the
frequency deviation signal is usedto set the power output of the converter. The limitations of the
use of frequency deviation alone havebeen established for many years . Nevertheless, the
conventional droop method has severaldrawbacks that limit its application, such slow transient
response, frequency and amplitudedeviations, imbalanced harmonic current sharing, and high
dependency on converter outputimpedance [3]. High frequency signals are injected to overcome
the imbalance reactive power flow.Since the power balance and the system stability rely on these
signals, the application of such signalincreases system complexity and reduces reliability.

It is possible for a VSC to instantaneously change its output voltage waveform and power
sharingin a microgrid by controlling the output voltage angle of the DGs through droop. Let us
consider samemicrogrid system as shown in Fig. 5.1 is considered. First, the load sharing with
angle droop isderived using the DC load flow method. It is possible to share power among the DGs
proportional totheir rating by dropping the output voltage angles.
The angle droop control strategy is applied to all the DGs in the system. It is assumed that
the totalpower demand in the microgrid can be supplied by the DGs such that no load shedding is
required.The output voltages of the converters are controlled to share the load proportional to the
rating of theDGs. As an output inductance is connected to each of the VSCs, the real and reactive
power injectionfrom the DG source to the microgrid can be controlled by changing voltage
magnitude and its angle [10-11]. Fig. 5.4 shows the power flow from a DG to the microgrid where
the RMS values of thevoltages and current are shown and the output impedance is denoted byjXf.
It is to be noted that realand reactive power (P and Q) shown in the figure are average values.
The average real power is denoted by P and the reactive power by Q. These powers, from
the DG to the microgrid, can then be calculated as

V Vt sin( t )
Xf

V 2 V Vt cos( t )
Q
Xf

(5.3)

(5.4)

Fig. 5.4.DG connection to microgrid.

These instantaneous powers are passed through a low pass filter to obtain the average real
andreactive power P and Q. It is to be noted that the VSC does not have any direct control over
themicrogrid voltage at the bus Vt ,t(see Fig. 5.4). Therefore from (5.3 and 5.4), it is obvious that
if the angledifference (t) is small, real power can be controlled by controlling, while the
reactive power canbe controlled by controlling voltage magnitude. Thus the power requirement
can be distributed amongthe DGs, similar to a conventional droop by dropping the voltage
magnitude and angle as

rated m( p prated )

(5.5)

V Vrated n(Q Qrated )

(5.6)

WhereVratedand

ratedare

the

rated

voltage

magnitude

and

angle

of

the

DGrespectively.When it is supplying the load to its rated power levels of Pratedand Qrated. The
coefficients m and n respectively indicate the voltage angle drop vis--vis the real power output
and the voltage magnitude drop vis--vis the reactive power output. These values are chosen to
meet the voltage regulation requirement in the microgrid. To derive power sharing with angle
droop, a simple system of Fig. 5.1 with two machines and a load is considered. Applying DC load
flow with all the necessary assumptions we get,

1 ( X 1 X L1 ) P1

(5.7)

 2 ( X 2 X L 2 ) P2

(5.8)

WhereX1=L1/(V1V) , XL1=LLine1/(V1V), X2 = L2/(V2V) and XL2 = LLine2/(V2V).

From (5.7 and 5.8), the angle droop equations of the two DGs are given by

1 1rated m1 ( p1 p1rated )

(5.9)

2 2 rated m2 ( p2 p2 rated )

(5.10)

The offsets in the angle droop are such that when DG output power is zero, the DG source
angle iszero. Therefore the rated droop angles are taken as 1rated= m1P1ratedand 2rated= m2P2rated.
Then from (5.9 and 5.10) we get
m1P1 m2P2

(5.11)

Similarly from (5.7 and 5.8) we get

X1+XL1P1X2+XL2P2

(5.12)

Assuming the system to be lossless (as normally used in DC load flow), we get,
X1+XL1P1 X2+XL2PL-P1) = m1P1 m2(PL-P1)

(5.13)

X 2 X L 2 m2
PL
X 2 X L 2 m2 X 1 X L1 m1

(5.14)

P1

Similarly P2 can be calculated as

P2

X 1 X L1 m1
PL
X 2 X L 2 m2 X 1 X L1 m1

(5.15)

From (5.13), (5.14) and (5.15), the ratio of the output power is calculated as,

P1 X 2 X L 2 m2

P2
X 1 X L1 m1

(5.16)

It is to be noted that the value of X1and X2are very small compared to the value of m1 and
m2.Moreover if the microgrid line is considered to be mainly resistive with low line inductance
and theDG output inductance is much larger, we can write
m1>>X1>>XL1 and m2>>X2>>XL2

Therefore from (5.16), it is evident that the droop coefficients play the dominant role in the
powersharing. Since the droop coefficients are taken as inversely proportional to the DG rating,
from (5.16)we can write

P1 m2 P1rated

P2 m1 P2 rated

(5.17)

The above approximation can incorporate little error in power sharing ratios depending on
thedroop gain and inductances values. The error is further reduced by taking the output inductance
(L1and L2) of the DGs inversely proportional to power rating of the DGs. If the microgrid line
isinductive in nature and of high value, then knowledge about the network is needed to minimize
the error.
5.3 ANGLE DROOP AND FREQUENCY DROOP CONTROLLER
The converter structure is given in fig both the angle and frequency droopcontrollers are
modeled separately from their droop equations (5.5), (5.6) and (5.1) respectively. The
droopcontroller model is then combined with the converter model. All the combined converter
andcontroller models are converted to a common reference frame and then connected to the
network toderive the entire microgrid model. The microgrid model is used to select theparameters
of the droop controllers through eigenvalue analysis.

5.3.1 Converter structure

The converter structure is shown in Fig. 5.5. This contains three H-bridge converters that
areconnected to the DG sources, denoted by Vdc1. The outputs of the H-bridges are connected to
threesingle-phase transformers that are connected in wye for required isolation and voltage
boosting [8].The resistance Rfrepresents the switching and transformer losses, while the inductance
Lfrepresentsthe leakage reactance of the transformers. The filter capacitor Cfis connected to the
output of thetransformers to bypass switching harmonics. The inductance L1 is added to provide
the outputimpedance of the DG source. The advantage of this structure is that power flow can be
controlledindependently in the three phases and the phases are magnetically decoupled from each
other.

Fig. 5.5 Three Phase converter structure.

The above structure is used for all the three phase DGs with LCL type of filter. If the DGs
output filteris LC type, the output inductance L1 shown in Fig. 5.5 is not present. For single phase
DGs, theconverter structure is shown in Fig. 5.6

5.3.2 Converter control

The equivalent circuit of one phase of the converter is shown in Fig. 5.7. In this, uVdc1
representsthe converter output voltage, where u = 1. The main aim of the converter control is to
generate u.

Fig. 5.6 Single phase converter structure

(a) Output filter LCL type (b) Output filter LC type

Fig. 5.7.Equivalent circuit of one phase of the converter.

From Fig. 5.7 (a), state space description of the system can be given as
x1 = Ax1 + B1uc+ B2vPCC

(5.18)

While the state space equation for Fig. 5.7 (b) can be given as,
x 2 = Ax2 + B1uc

(5.19)

Whereucis the continuous time version of switching function u. Based on this model and a
suitablefeedback control law, uc(k) is computed.
The equivalent circuit of one phase of the converter is shown in Fig. 5.8. The choice of
statesdepends on the converter output filter type. In case of LCL filter the state vector is chosen
from the circuit of Fig. 5.8, as

x1 i1 i2
T

vcf

(5.20)

While in case of LC filter, the states are

x2 i1 vcf
T

(5.21)

Fig. 5.8.Single-phase equivalent circuit of VSC (LCL filter).

The switching function u is then generated as
If uc>h than u=+1
elseifuc<-h than u = -1
Whereh is a small number.

5.3.3Load sharing from utility side

VSC, which is connected with PCC through an output inductance,controls the real and
reactive power ow betweenthe utility and the microgrid.Let us assume that, in mode-1 the
references for the real and reactive power be PTrefandQTref, respectively,

and the VSC output

voltage be denoted byVT and the PCCvoltage byVp . Then the reference VSC

voltage

magnitudeand its can be calculated as

= 1 ( (

2 + )

VT=

) +

(5.22)

(Vp2 +QTref XG )

(5.23)

(VP cos(T P ))

In mode-2, the utility supplies any decit in the powerrequirement through back-to-back
converters while the DGs supply their maximum available power. Let the maximum rating of the
back-to-back converters be given byPTmax andQTmax. Then the voltage magnitude and angle
reference of VSC is generated as
= ( )

(5.24)

= ( )(5.25)
where, VT and are the voltage magnitude and angle,respectively, when it is supplying the
maximum load. TheVSCdroopcoefficient and are chosen such that thevoltage regulation is
within acceptable limit from maximum to minimum power supply.