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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 28, NO. 6, JUNE 2013

Integrated Autonomous Voltage Regulation and

Islanding Detection for High Penetration
PV Applications
Yan Zhou, Student Member, IEEE, Hui Li, Senior Member, IEEE, and Liming Liu, Senior Member, IEEE

AbstractThis paper proposes an autonomous unified var controller to address the system voltage issues and unintentional islanding problems associated with distributed photovoltaic (PV)
generation systems. The proposed controller features the integration of both voltage regulation (VR) and islanding detection (ID)
functions in a PV inverter based on reactive power control. Compared with the individual VR or ID methods, the function integration exhibits several advantages in high PV penetration applications: 1) fast VR due to the autonomous control; 2) enhanced
system reliability because of the capability to distinguish between
temporary grid disturbances and islanding events; 3) negligible
nondetection zone (NDZ) and no adverse impact on system power
quality for ID; and 4) no interferences among multiple PV systems during ID. As the VR and ID functions are integrated in one
controller, the controller is designed to fulfill the requirement of
VR dynamic performance and ensure small ID NDZ simultaneously. The interaction among multiple PV systems during VR is
also considered in the design procedure. Finally, the feasibility of
the proposed controller and the controller design method is validated with simulation using a real-time digital simulator and a
power hardware-in-the-loop testbed.
Index TermsHigh penetration PV systems, islanding detection
(ID), voltage regulation (VR).

UDS
VR
D
f
f
fm in , fm ax
ig
ig q
KI
KI ave
KP ins
KPC
KPW M
Lf
N 844, N 890
Pg
PL
PPV
Q844 , Q890
Qdes

AVC
ID
IVC
NDZ
OF/UF
OV/OU
PCC
PHIL
PLL
RTDS
STS

NOMENCLATURE
Average voltage reference compensator.
Islanding detection.
Instantaneous voltage reference compensator.
Nondetection zone.
Over/under frequency.
Over/under voltage.
Point of common coupling.
Power hardware-in-the-loop.
Phase-locked loop.
Real-time digital simulator.
Static transfer switch.

Manuscript received January 28, 2012; revised May 14, 2012; accepted
September 4, 2012. Date of current version December 7, 2012. This work
was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Award ECCS1001415 and in part by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Sunshine State
Solar Grid Initiative (SUNGRIN) under Award DE-EE0002063. Recommended
for publication by Associate Editor T. Suntio.
The authors are with the Center for Advanced Power Systems, Florida
State University, Tallahassee, FL 32310 USA (e-mail: zou@caps.fsu.edu;
hli@caps.fsu.edu; liming@caps.fsu.edu).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPEL.2012.2218288

Qf
Qg
QL
QPV
Rs
tc
tS
v1
vPCC
V844 , V890
Vave
Vb
Vcom p
Vins
Vm in , Vm ax
Vn
VPCC

VPCC
Xs

P
Q

0885-8993/$31.00 2012 IEEE

Utility disconnect switch.

Voltage regulation.
Volts/var curve deadband.
PCC voltage frequency.
PCC voltage frequency after islanding.
OF/UF protection thresholds.
Grid-connected current.
q-axis component of ig .
Gain of the voltage controller.
Gain of the AVC.
Gain of the IVC.
Proportional gain of the PI current controller.
Inverter PWM gain.
Inverter output inductor.
Node 844 and node 890.
Real power from the grid.
Real power of the local load.
PV inverter output real power.
Reactive power outputs from inverters at
N 844 and N 890.
Reactive power reference from the volt/var
curve block.
Quality factor of the local load.
Reactive power from the grid.
Reactive power of the local load.
PV inverter output reactive power.
Line resistance.
Required islanding clearing time.
VR response settling time.
Infinite bus voltage.
PCC voltage.
PCC voltages of N 844 and N 890.
Output of the AVC.
System voltage disturbance.
Voltage reference compensation.
Output of the IVC.
OV/UV protection thresholds.
Rated PCC voltage.
PCC voltage amplitude.
PCC voltage amplitude after islanding.
Line inductance.
Phase difference between vPCC and v1 .
Real power mismatch between the PV and
load.
Reactive power mismatch between the PV
and load.

ZHOU et al.: INTEGRATED AUTONOMOUS VOLTAGE REGULATION AND ISLANDING DETECTION

QPV
VPCC

c
s

Accumulative PV inverter output reactive

power after islanding.
PCC voltage deviation.
Inverter output phase angle.
Damping ratio of the second-order low-pass
filter.
Natural frequency of the second-order lowpass filter.
Time constant of the first-order delay.
Time constant of the PI current controller.
Time constant of the sampling and transport
delay.
I. INTRODUCTION

NCREASING penetration of distributed PV systems introduces new integration issues concerning the safe operation of
distribution systems [1], [2]. The voltage rise due to the reverse
power flow and voltage fluctuations associated with the irradiation variation has been envisioned from field observations
and research results [3][5]. Possible false tripping of mass
distributed PV systems as a result of the tight anti-islanding
voltage/frequency settings could lead to unacceptable low voltage [1]. These problems impose more stress on the utility voltage
regulation (VR) devices, and even cause them to malfunction.
Therefore, it is important to research effective methods to mitigate the impact of the distributed PV systems on the feeder
voltage profiles.
To actively involve distributed PV systems in feeder VR
is one of the promising solutions for the potential voltage issues [6][10]. In fact, they can assist and coordinate with the
low-speed utility VR devices to form a two-layer (low and high
speed) VR system [1]. The state-of-the-art inverter-based VR
methods mainly include power curtailment [3], [7], volts/var
droop control [7], [8] and communication-based PI control [9],
[10]. In order to ride through the grid disturbances, loose antiislanding voltage/frequency trip settings are recommended [11],
but it increases the possibility of islanding detection (ID) failure.
Consequently, it is necessary to develop more intelligent active
ID algorithms to ride through voltage disturbances without expanding the islanding nondetection-zone (NDZ) [12].
However, there are possibilities of operation conflicts between
VR and active ID algorithms implemented in the same PV inverter. On one hand, some VR and ID methods cannot be realized
simultaneously because the same control variable is employed
for different objectives. Typically, the frequency positive feedback ID method [13] cannot work with the reactive-power-based
VR method [7][10], since they control the reactive power based
on voltage frequency and amplitude feedback, respectively. On
the other hand, an incorrect response of VR or ID algorithms
to the instantaneous voltage variation without distinguishing
the cause may result in function failures. This possibility is
due to the fact that both islanding and short-duration voltage
events [14] could induce an instantaneous voltage change. For
example, if there is a voltage sag event, the voltage positive
feedback ID [13] method will reduce the inverter real power
output which leads to further feeder voltage decrease. More-

2827

over, improper VR at the islanding instant may increase the

chance of unintentional power matching between the load and
source [15], which would increase the risk of ID failure. Communication is thus considered to be applied between the utility
and PV systems [8], [12]. However, it will add extra cost and
require a backup scheme during communication failure.
In addition, the interference among different PV systems with
respect to the VR and ID performances is also of high interest.
It is reported in [9] that inverter-based VR may lead to feeder
voltage instability, so an adaptive PI controller design is given in
that paper. However, the method needs communication to obtain
an ideal voltage response curve for adjusting controller gains in
real time. For active ID, the effectiveness may be compromised
because of the interference, as discussed in [12] and [16]. Another disadvantage shared by most active ID methods is the
possible degradation of system power quality [12]; some even
can cause stability problems when there is large number of PV
systems [17].
Authors in [18] pointed out that it is beneficial to implement
the PI-based voltage controller and the rate of change of frequency (ROCOF) ID method together. They can coordinate with
each other to realize the VR function and decrease the ID NDZ.
However, a communication device is required for practical implementation as the PI-based voltage controller usually requires
communication to give the PCC voltage reference. Moreover,
this reference discussed the ID performance based on fixed controller parameters but did not provide any further study of the
impact of the controller parameters on the VR stability and ID
NDZ. An autonomous controller was proposed by the authors
in [19] to integrate the VR and ID functions in a PV inverter.
It can be applied in the PV systems that are not equipped with
the communication device or when the communication device
failed, which is an advantage when compared to those controllers that require communication capability. But the design
of the controller is difficult due to the nonlinear programmed
limiter in the controller, and it may cause unnecessary reactive
power consumption during voltage regulating.
Based on the previous work [19], an unified var controller is
proposed in this paper to address the VR and ID issues in high
PV penetration application. The nonlinear programmed limiter
is eliminated to simplify the controller design, and the volts/var
droop curve [7] is integrated in the proposed controller to prevent unnecessary reactive power consumption. The unified var
controller integrates the VR and ID functions in a PV inverter
through reactive power control. It can discriminate between islanding and short-duration voltage events readily, so it enables
the capabilities to ride through the short-duration voltage events
and help mitigate the potential voltage issues. Moreover, the
anti-islanding protection can be realized with no impact on the
system power quality. The ID performance is also not degraded
in multiple-PV scenarios, because all the PV systems can be synchronized by the proposed controller as will be explained later.
Theoretical analysis has also been done to give the controller
design criterion according to the VR dynamic performance and
its effect on the ID NDZ.
To validate the proposed control strategy and controller design
method, a modified IEEE 34 node test feeder model [20] and the

2828

Fig. 1.

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 28, NO. 6, JUNE 2013

Local PV system connected to the distribution system.

IEEE anti-islanding test circuit [21] with multiple PV systems

are developed in the real-time digital simulator (RTDS). Several
test cases, including overvoltage, voltage sag, and islanding, are
conducted in RTDS simulation. A power hardware-in-the-loop
(PHIL) testbed is built in the laboratory where a PV inverter
prototype is developed and integrated with the rest of the distribution system being simulated in the RTDS platform. Therefore,
the proposed controller can be verified experimentally under
system level in high penetration conditions.
II. PROPOSED PV CONTROL SYSTEM DESCRIPTION
A. Principle of Integrating VR and ID
In high PV penetration conditions, advanced interconnection
technologies are required to operate PV systems safely with
the utility and yield benefits for the customers. The concept of
integrating VR and ID through a unified controller is proposed
in this paper. Fig. 1 shows a generic diagram of a PV system
connected to the distribution system, where the PV array is
connected to the point of common coupling (PCC) through the
inverter and a passive filter. A triac is used as the static transfer
switch (STS) to enable/disable the connection between the PV
system and the grid. For simplicity, the local load is lumped as a
parallel RLC circuit, and the distribution system is represented
by an infinite voltage source with an equivalent line impedance
Rs + jXs . The PV inverter output power, local load power, and
the power from grid are denoted as PPV + jQPV , PL + jQL ,
and Pg + jQg , respectively.
In grid-connected mode where the utility disconnect switch
(UDS) is closed, the PCC frequency f is clamped by the infinite
bus v1 . The PCC voltage amplitude VPCC can be calculated as
follows:
VPCC = V1 +
+

(PPV PL ) (RS cos XS sin )

VPCC

(QPV QL ) (XS cos + RS sin )

VPCC

(1)

where V1 is the amplitude of v1 ; is the phase difference between vPCC and v1 . The detailed derivation of (1) is shown in
Appendix A. As required by the local utility operator or standards such as ANSI C84.1, VPCC needs to be maintained within
the permitted voltage range by certain measures. Equation (1)
illustrates that VPCC can be regulated through adjusting PPV
and QPV from distributed PV systems. The real power control
is usually employed to eliminate PCC overvoltage by forcing the
PV system operation away from the maximum power point [3],

[7]. The reactive power control can contribute to network voltage regulating both dynamically and statically [7][10].
Subsequent to an islanding event when the UDS is open, the
PCC voltage deviation directly depends on the power mismatch

and f  are defined as
between the PV and the load. If VPCC
the new PCC voltage and frequency after islanding, and P +
jQ = (PPV PL ) + j (QPV QL ) is the power mismatch
between the PV and load, the relationship between them can be
described as follows [22]:
P
V2
= 1 PCC
2
PPV
VPCC


f 2
Qf
f  P
f
Q
+
1

1
f PPV
QPV
f2
tan
f

(2)
(3)

where is the inverter output phase angle and Qf is the quality

factor of the local load [23]. When the power mismatch is within

and f  will remain within the nomispecified thresholds, VPCC
nal ranges even after the grid is disconnected, in which case the
islanding network is difficult to be detected. From this understanding, control of PPV or QPV after the grid is disconnected

or f  out of the nominal ranges.
can push VPCC
As shown earlier, both VR and ID control need the PCC
information and can be implemented by means of real/reactive
power variation, which provides a possibility of integrating both
functions.
B. PV Control System With the Proposed Unified
Var Controller
A distribution network including multiple PV systems
equipped with the proposed control system is shown in Fig. 2.
One of the PV systems is depicted in detail. The PV control system is mainly composed of the grid-current controller,
root-mean-square (RMS) and phase-locked loop (PLL) blocks,
over/under voltage (OV/UV) and over/under frequency (OF/UF)
protection block, and the proposed unified var controller. The
grid-current controller ensures high-quality sinusoidal current
injected into the grid by tracking the current reference synthesized from the real and reactive power reference. The modulation
index is then sent to the PWM generator to drive the inverter.
The RMS and PLL blocks generate VPCC and f information to
manage the STS ONOFF operation through the OV/UV and
OF/UF protection block. The unified var controller realizes VR
and ID functions through reactive power control. It consists of
the voltage controller and the adaptive voltage reference generator, including the instantaneous voltage reference compensator

ZHOU et al.: INTEGRATED AUTONOMOUS VOLTAGE REGULATION AND ISLANDING DETECTION

Fig. 2.

2829

Proposed PV control system applied to multiple distributed PV systems.

(IVC) and the average voltage reference compensator (AVC).

They are introduced as follows.
C. Voltage Controller


The voltage controller, which is an integral regulator, KI dt,
is the key component of the unified var controller to integrate the
VR and ID functions. The reference of the voltage controller is

and the feedback signal is the measured VPCC . When the

VPCC
grid is connected, the voltage controller adjusts QPV to regulate
VPCC . If the islanding forms, control of QPV can no longer
change VPCC , hence the voltage controller will integrate the

and VPCC , which leads to rapid increase of

error between VPCC

|QPV |. Consequently, a sudden reactive power injection can be

initiated to break the power balance inside the islanding network.
In this case, the islanding and temporary grid disturbances can
be discriminated readily. The proposed controller does not need
to perturb the real/reactive power output for ID during gridconnected conditions. The ID function is seamlessly triggered
when islanding occurs, so it has no adverse impact on system
power quality. Detail design of the voltage controller regarding
the VR dynamic performance and NDZ of ID will be discussed
in Sections III and IV.
D. Adaptive Voltage Reference Generation

is generated autonomously
In the proposed controller, VPCC
by an adaptive voltage reference generation mechanism. This
is different from the communication-based PI control, in which

is sent from a central controller through communicacase VPCC

tion and the reference dispatching for each PV system should be
solved by optimization algorithms, such as the multiagent-based

is created by adding an initial

scheme [24]. In this paper, VPCC
value (for example, the PCC rated voltage Vn = 1.0 p.u.) with

the compensation part Vcom p which includes the instantaneous

part Vins and the average part Vave .
Vins is generated from the IVC, which is composed of a proportional controller KP ins and limiter 1. When Qpv is beyond
the saturation value of limiter 1, the exceeded value will lead
to quick voltage reference adjustment Vins through KP ins . In
case QPV reaches the limit value at the moment of islanding,
the saturation value of limiter 1 is set to be smaller than the final
output limiter (limiter 2). For example, if the limiter 2 saturation
value is 0.5 p.u., the limiter 1 saturation value could be set to
0.45 p.u. The reserved 0.05p.u. reactive power is required for
the reactive power variation for ID. The function of IVC is similar to antiwindup with back-calculation, so the selection of Kins
can refer to the antiwindup design [25].
Vave is generated from AVC, which is used to prevent unnecessary reactive power consumption by including the volts/var
droop curve [7]. The
 AVC includes a low-pass filter, an integral
controller KI ave dt and a volts/var curve. A desired reactive power value Qdes is output from the volt/var curve block

and compared with Qpv to adjust Vave through KI ave dt.
The volts/var curve is shown in Fig. 3. There is a dead band
in the curve with Qdes = 0 when VPCC is in the vicinity of
(1 D) (1 + D) p.u. The length of the dead band can be
different depending on the inverter locations. Usually, the inverter at the end of the distribution feeder will have narrower
dead band [7]. Qdes increases/decreases to the limit value when
VPCC is at the threshold service voltage level. The low-pass
2
filter s 2 +2cc s+ 2 is used to filter the short-time voltage tranc
sient, so the AVC does not interfere with the voltage controller
operation. The selection of KIave and the second-order filter
parameters is a tradeoff between AVC not affecting the voltage
controller performance and the settling time not being too slow
to interfere with the low-speed utility VR devices.

2830

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 28, NO. 6, JUNE 2013

obtained by multiplying ig q with 0.5VPCC . The relationship

between QPV and VPCC can be expressed in (4), which is derived from (1) by setting cos 1 and sin 0 as the phase
difference is usually small in distribution systems [20]
(PPCC PL ) Rs QL Xs
QPV Xs
+
VPCC
= V1 +
VPCC
VPCC
= Vb +

Fig. 3.

Volts/var curve for the AVC.

III. VOLTAGE CONTROLLER DESIGN METHODOLOGY

Since the VR and ID functions are integrated in the unified
var controller, the controller design must fulfill the requirement
of VR dynamic performance and ensure small ID NDZ area
simultaneously. Compared with the IVC and AVC, the voltage
controller has a significant effect on the performance of the two
functions, thus design of the voltage controller is important. In
order to achieve small ID NDZ, higher voltage controller gain is
always preferred, but it may degrade the dynamic performance
of VR. Consequently, the voltage controller design needs to be
performed according to the VR requirement first. The ID NDZ
can then be examined afterward.
In this section, a PV system model is developed first to investigate the limitations of VR dynamics. Based on the analysis,
a voltage controller design criterion is then obtained to achieve
optimized dynamic performance of VR. In addition, the influence of the interaction among multiple PV systems on the VR
dynamics should be taken into consideration. Thus, a typical
system including two PV systems is applied to investigate the
performance of the designed voltage controller.
A. Voltage Controller Design Based on the Single PV System
In order to elaborate the voltage controller design, a single
PV system model is developed in Fig. 4 under the synchronous
rotating dq reference frame aligned with the grid voltage. The
single PV system model includes the control stage and the power
stage. In this paper, only q-axis model is described because of the
interest in the control effect of reactive power on PCC voltage.
The d-axis model can be built in similar manner, but it is out of
scope of this paper. In this model, the voltage controller outputs
the reference of the q-axis component of the grid current ig ,
which is defined as ig q . ig q is directly related to QPV in dq
reference frame. The voltage controller feedback is generated
through the RMS block. The RMS block has a calculation delay
caused by the 90 delay that is introduced to create the imaginary
orthogonal phase in single-phase application [26]. This delay
can be imitated by a first-order component 1/( s + 1). The
current controller includes a proportional-integral (PI) regulator
KPC (1 + 1/sc ) and associated sampling and transport delay
1/(s s + 1) [27].
In the power stage, ig q is generated through the inverter PWM
gain KPW M and the inverter filter inductor Lf . QPV is then

QPV Xs
VPCC

(4)

s Q L X s
where Vb = V1 + (P P V PVLP)R
represents the system disCC
turbance that affects the PCC voltage.
Because the purpose of VR is to compensate the system disturbance, the PCC voltage disturbance rejection capability is of
great interest. It can be described in (5) according to Fig. 4

VPCC
s ( s + 1)
=
Vb
s ( s + 1) + 0.5 Gc (s) KI XS

(5)

where Gc (s) is the transfer function of the current control loop,

which can be expressed as
Gc (s) =
=

ig q
ig q
KPC KPW M (c s + 1)
.
s c Lf s3 +c Lf s2 +KPC KPW M c s+KPC KPW M
(6)

The dynamic performance of VR is constrained by the RMS

calculation delay as seen from (5). This constrain can be first
assessed by assuming ideal current control loop (Gc (s) = 1) in
(5). Under this assumption, the system poles are calculated as

1 1 2 KI XS
.
(7)
s=
2
When 1 2 KI XS 0, the voltage regulating response is
overdamped and the response settling time equals to tS =
8
. In this case, tS can be decreased by increas1 12 K I X S

ing KI . However, when 1 2 KI XS < 0, 1 2 KI XS becomes the imaginary part of the pole and further increase of KI
only increases the response oscillation frequency. Therefore, the
voltage response settling time is limited to tS = 8 due to the
RMS calculation delay.
In addition, since the current control loop has finite bandwidth, its influence on VR response can be illustrated in Fig. 5
by examining the system root locus. The root locus was derived
based on the selected PV system parameters given in Appendix
B. It is indicated that tS can be further decreased as compared
with 8 , but this is accompanied by a higher frequency response
oscillation. Moreover, the voltage response oscillation may become undamped when KI is even larger, in which case the
voltage controller poles move to the right-hand plane.
In practical implementation, the required settling time of VR
does not need to be as short as 8 . Also, PCC voltage oscillation is not desired during voltage regulating. Therefore, the
optimized VR performance can be achieved by designing the
voltage controller poles on the real axis, as seen from Fig. 5.
With this design criterion, the coupling between the voltage

ZHOU et al.: INTEGRATED AUTONOMOUS VOLTAGE REGULATION AND ISLANDING DETECTION

Fig. 4.

2831

Single PV system model block diagram.

Appendix A

QPV i Xsi
QPV j Xsi

+
V
= Vb +

PCCi
VPCCi
VPCCj

(PPV j PL j )Rsj QL j Xsj QPV j Xsj

VPCCj
+
= VPCCi +
VPCCj
VPCCj
(9)
where
Vb = V1 +
+

Fig. 5.

(PPV i PL i )Rsi QL i Xsi

VPCCi

(PPV j PL j )Rsi QL j Xsi

.
VPCCj

The PCC voltages phase angle i and j are ignored in the

network model derivation.
The disturbance Vb is selected as the system input. The system
output variables include all PCC voltages. Thus, the transfer
function of VPCCi and VPCCj versus input Vb can be obtained
in (10) and (11) by incorporating (9) and the control systems

Root locus of a single PV system.

VPCCi
0.5KI j XS j s (i s + 1) Gcj (s)
=
Vb
Ci (s) Cj (s) 0.25KI i KI j XS2 i Gci (s)Gcj (s)
(10)
Fig. 6.

Distribution network with two PV systems.

VPCCj
s (i s + 1) (j s + 1)
=
Vb
Ci (s) Cj (s) 0.25KI i KI j XS2 i Gci (s)Gcj (s)

control and the current control loop becomes negligible. Detailed explanation is provided in Appendix C. Consequently,
the voltage controller design procedure can be simplified by employing an ideal current control loop. The condition of assigning
the voltage controller poles on the real axis can be implemented
as
1 2 KI XS 0.

(8)

B. VR Interaction Among Multiple Systems

The effectiveness of the aforementioned voltage controller
design criterion needs to be further verified by investigating the
VR interaction among multiple PV systems. A typical network
with two PV systems is provided in Fig. 6. The subscripts i and
j are affiliated to identify two different PV systems.
The two PV systems are coupled through the impedance network. The network model describing the relationship between
the PV injected active/reactive power and the PCC voltages
is given in (9). The detail derivation of (9) can be found in

(11)
where Ci (s) = s (i s + 1) + 0.5KI i XS i Gci (s) and Cj (s) =
s (j s + 1) + 0.5KI j (XS i + XS j ) Gcj (s).
It is noticed the two subsystems share the same characteristic equation, which equals to the sum of the term
0.25KI i KI j XS2 i Gci (s)Gcj (s) and the multiplication of each
single systems characteristic equation. The additional term,
0.25KI i KI j XS2 i Gci (s)Gcj (s), is the result of system interaction and is affected by both the network impedance and controller parameters. Moreover, extra system zeros, which are contributed by the simultaneous response of multiple systems to reject the disturbance, are added in each subsystem. These added
zeros could lead to faster VR dynamics. Nevertheless, undesired
VR overshoot may also exist. It is unavoidable when there is
no communication between systems. To further look into the
system stability, the dynamic of the current control loop can
be ignored because it has minor affect on the VR stability, if
the aforementioned voltage controller design criterion is met.
Accordingly, the two-PV system characteristic equation is sim-

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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 28, NO. 6, JUNE 2013

plified to
C(s) = [s (i s + 1) + 0.5KI i XS i ]
[s (j s + 1) + 0.5KI j (XS i + XS j )]
0.25KI i KI j XS2 i .

(12)

Since the same RMS calculation method is applied in the

two PV systems, thus i = j = , the system poles can be
calculated as

A+B
1

p1 =
2
2

AB
1

p2 =
2
2

A+B
1
+
p3 =
2
2

AB
1
p4 =
+
(13)
2
2
where
A = 1 KI i XS i KI j (XS i + XS j ) and B =
2 [0.5KI i XS i 0.5KI j (XS i + XS j )]2 + KI i KI j XS2 i .
The calculated poles p1 p4 are all in the left-hand plane
because A + B < 1 and A B < 1. Therefore, the interaction
does affect the VR dynamics but the system stability is still
guaranteed, which implies that the voltage controller design
criteria obtained in single-PV case can be applied for multiplePV case. The following aspects have been considered in the
analysis.
1) The influence of i and j are neglected because of the
small values, but in fact i and j will dynamically change
during voltage regulating because of the PV reactive power
injection. If the change of i and j during voltage regulating becomes significant, then more detailed analysis
should be performed. However, this is the rare case which
happens only when the change of PV reactive power is
comparable to load power in the network.
2) The current control dynamic is neglected in the analysis
due to the loose coupling between the voltage control and
the current control loop. However, the interaction among
multiple current control loops could also cause system instability [28]. Therefore, the current control loop stability
should be ensured first in the design process. Detailed discussion of the current control loop design considering the
system interaction can be found in [28] and [29].
IV. ID CHARACTERISTIC ANALYSIS
A. NDZ of the Proposed Method
After KI is identified according to the requirement of VR
dynamics, it is necessary to examine its effect on the ID performance. The NDZ is the primary index to evaluate the ID
performance. There are several approaches to define the NDZ,
such as the power mismatch space, RLC load space, and the
Qf versus load resonant frequency space. The power mismatch
space represented by the space formed by the P /PPV and
Q/PPV boundaries [30] is used here to determine the NDZ
of the proposed ID method.

As a comparison, the NDZ of the passive ID without the

proposed controller is first calculated in (14) and (15) based on
the OV/UV and OF/UF settings [30]

2
2

Vn
P
Vn
1

1
(14)
Vm ax
PPV
Vm in



2 
2 
f
f
Q
Qf 1
Qf 1

(15)
fm in
PPV
fm ax
where Vm in and Vm ax are the OV/UV protection thresholds;
fm in and fm ax are the OF/UF protection thresholds.
The proposed unified var controller facilitates the ID through
reactive power injection at the islanding moment. If in the prescribed islanding clearing time, the reactive power is accumulated to a value outside of the region defined in (15), the islanding network can be detected. From the control block diagram
shown in Fig. 4, the accumulative reactive power output after
grid disconnection is

KI VPCC

VPCC ) dt
QPV =
(VPCC
2

KI V n

(VPCC
VPCC ) dt
(16)
=
2
where the integral part does not include the initial value obtained
before islanding.
It is shown that both KI and the PCC voltage deviation

VPCC at the islanding instant determines

VPCC = VPCC
the value of QPV . When KI is fixed, there will be a range
of VPCC between which the islanding cannot be detected. In
addition, as shown in (2), the value of VPCC depends on the
real power mismatch between PV and load P at the islanding
moment, so the proposed controller has a different real power
mismatch region comparing with the passive ID. Based on the
analysis and (14)(16), the new real power mismatch region can
be calculated as

2
2

P
Vn2
Vn2
1

1 (17)
PPV
Vn2 + K2QI t2c
Vn2 + K2QI t1c
where tc is the required islanding clearing time, Q1 = PPV
Qf (1 ( f mf i n )2 ) and Q2 = PPV Qf (1 ( f mfa x )2 ). The aforementioned real power mismatch region strongly depends on the
value of KI and PPV . To exhibit the performance improvement
of the proposed ID method, the system provided in Appendix B
is employed as an example to specify the NDZ.
According to the IEEE Std. 1547 [23], the OV/UV and OF/UF
protection thresholds are set as
Vm ax = 110% Vn ,
fm ax = 60.5 Hz

and

Vm in = 88% Vn
fm in = 59.3 Hz.

The required islanding clearing time is tc = 2 s. If Qf =

2.5, PPV = 10 kW and KI is selected as 0.5/2 XS , that is half
of the critical value given in (8), the NDZ of the passive ID and
the proposed method can be specified in Fig. 7(a). It is obvious
that the NDZ is largely reduced by using the proposed strategy.
For the proposed controller, higher Qf leads to larger NDZ.

ZHOU et al.: INTEGRATED AUTONOMOUS VOLTAGE REGULATION AND ISLANDING DETECTION

2833

The simulation study shows that the simulated NDZ is even

smaller than the theoretical NDZ. The main reason for the difference is that the theoretical analysis treats the PLL block as an
ideal one. However, the PLL block does generate errors when
the PCC voltage frequency changes quickly under islanding
conditions. The generated error in PLL block leads to extra real
power output, which could change VPCC and thus accelerate
the change of QPV . Fig. 7(b) shows one simulation case of
Q
P
P P V 0 and P P V = 0.011%, which corresponds to a point
at the edge of the theoretical NDZ. When the controller was
not enabled, the PCC voltage kept nearly the same before and
after the islanding event; when the controller was enabled, the
PCC voltage frequency drifted away and reached the threshold
59.3 Hz after around 400 ms. In practical conditions, there is
always some real power mismatch during islanding and there is
voltage sensing noise as well, so the ID NDZ of the proposed
method becomes negligible.
To enable the PV systems fault-voltage ride-through capability, the OV/UV and OF/UF protection settings need to be
widened comparing with the settings given in the IEEE Std.
1547. As seen from (15) and (17), only the OF/UF protection
settings have an influence on the NDZ of the proposed controller.
If the OF/UF settings recommended in [11], fm ax = 62.2 Hz
and fm in = 57.8 Hz, are adopted, the new NDZ is depicted in
Fig. 7(c). Moreover, to coordinate with the reclosers in the distribution systems, the required islanding clearing time may be
less than 2 s. In Fig. 7(b), the NDZ of the proposed controller
with tc = 500 ms and tc = 100 ms are also given. The NDZ
increases with the widen OV/UV settings and the decreased
clearing time, but it is still much smaller than the NDZ of the
passive method.

B. Coordination of Multiple PV Systems in ID

The coordination of multiple PV systems is vital for ID effectiveness. During the islanding event, the reactive power injection
from multiple systems should be synchronized both in time and
direction. This can be readily realized with the proposed unified
var controller. The total reactive power injection from the PV
systems is calculated as

QPVtotal =

QPV x

x=1


n

KI x VPCCx

x=1

Fig. 7. NDZ of the passive anti-islanding method and the proposed method
(a) theoretical analysis according to the IEEE std. 1547 requirement; (b) simulation validation; and (c) theoretical analysis with widened protection settings
and with different clearing time.

For example, when Qf is decreased to 1, the NDZ decreases

from 0.011% PPPV 0.016%, 5.94% PPQV 4.11% to
0.004% PPPV 0.006%, 5.94% PPQV 4.11%.

(VPCCx
VPCCx ) dt (18)

where the subscript x is used to identify different PV systems;

n is the number of PV systems.
Each PV system outputs the reactive power according to the

VPCCx ). When the islanding occurs, the

value of (VPCCx
PCC voltages VPCCx (x = 1, 2, . . . , n) would have the same
direction of deviation at the same time. This allows for the reactive power outputs from different PV systems to be synchronized
autonomously.

2834

Fig. 8.

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 28, NO. 6, JUNE 2013

PHIL testbed for experimental verification under high PV penetration conditions.

V. RTDS SIMULATION AND PHIL

EXPERIMENTAL VERIFICATION
In order to validate the effectiveness of the proposed unified
var controller and demonstrate the performance of the voltage
controller design method, typical scenarios including overvoltage, voltage sag and unintentional islanding in distribution system with multiple PV systems have been selected and studied
using RTDS simulation and the PHIL experimental testbed,
respectively.
A. RTDS Simulation Platform and PHIL Testbed
To accurately model the distribution system transients, multiple distributed PV systems, distributed loads, distribution lines,
substation transformers and control systems should be included
in the simulation models. As a result, the simulation speed becomes an issue due to the large number of components. RTDS
provides a good simulation platform when the system becomes
complicated. It features the capability of simulating electromagnetic power system models in real time with a typical time step
of 50 s. The 14 RTDS racks installed in the laboratory can
simulate electrical networks of up to 784 electrical nodes.
In addition, the RTDS simulation platform can integrate with
the hardware device to perform PHIL closed-loop testing. A
PHIL testbed has been built in the laboratory as shown in Fig. 8.
It is composed of the simulated power system built in RTDS,
a 1-kW PV inverter prototype [31], and an interface voltage
amplifier. The interface voltage amplifier is a back-to-back converter system and employs the ABB Power Electronics Building
Block (PEBB). The PV inverter prototype is connected to the interface point in the simulated power system through the voltage
amplifier, where the voltage type ideal transformer model [32]
is applied as the interface algorithm. The interface point voltage

signal is sent to the PEBBs control system through the digital/analog converter (DAC) and reproduced at the PEBB inverter
stage output. The actual PV inverter output current is measured
and fed back into the simulated circuit through the analog/digital
converter (ADC). A coefficient k in series with the ADC is used
to virtually scale up/down the PV inverter power rating [33].
The proposed unified var controller is implemented in both the
PV inverter hardware and rest of the PV inverters simulated in
RTDS. Therefore, the PHIL testbed provides an environment in
which not only the proposed controller can be verified experimentally, but also the interaction among multiple PV systems
can be investigated. In addition, the PHIL experimental results
are also compared with pure RTDS software simulation results
and they are consistent with each other.

B. Overvoltage and Momentary Voltage Sag Test Cases

1) IEEE 34 Node Test Feeder: The IEEE 34 node test feeder
characterized as a very long feeder requiring VR [20] is chosen
as the testing environment. Some modifications have been made
on the standard test feeder in this paper. As shown in Fig. 9,
clustered single-phase PV systems are installed at the nodes
844 and 890 (indicated as N 844 and N 890) with the total PV
penetration level reaching to approximately 20%. The selection
of N 844 and N 890 for PV installation is due to the heavy load
on the two nodes. Besides, secondary line impacts are taken
into account by adding the customer service transformer and
15.24 m of service line for each customer. In the simulation
model, the PV systems connected to one node are lumped and
modeled as a controlled current source for simplicity. The PCC
voltages and the reactive power output from the PV systems
at N 844 and N 890 are denoted as V844 , V890 and Q844 , Q890
respectively. Affixes a, b, and c will be added in the subscript to

ZHOU et al.: INTEGRATED AUTONOMOUS VOLTAGE REGULATION AND ISLANDING DETECTION

2835

Fig. 9. One-line diagram of the modified IEEE 34 node test feeder with high
penetration PV systems.
TABLE I
UNIFIED VAR CONTROLLER PARAMETERS FOR THE PV INVERTERS
AT NODE 844 AND 890

represent phase A, B, and C in the following descriptions. The

unified var controller parameters for the PV inverters at N 844
and N 890 are given in Table I.
2) Overvoltage Test: In this test case, the voltage rise phenomenon was created at N 890 by the reverse power flow from
the PV systems. The purpose of this test is to demonstrate the
static VR capability and fast response speed of the proposed
controller. The influence of the interaction among the PV systems on VR dynamics can also be investigated. Fig. 10 shows
the RTDS simulation results of the PCC voltages and the reactive power response at N 844 and N 890. In the beginning, the
unified var controllers in all PV systems were enabled except
the one at N 890a. As shown in the results, V890b and V890c
were regulated at 1.046 and 1.039 p.u., respectively, and they
were still under the ANSI upper service voltage limit 1.05 p.u.
In contrast, V890a experienced an overvoltage issue. For the PV
systems at N 844, reactive power outputs were small because
V844a , V844b , and V844c were inside the defined volts/var curve
deadband 0.881.02 p.u. At t = 12 s, the unified var controller

Fig. 10. Overvoltage test case: RTDS simulation results of (a) node 890 PCC
voltages; (b) node 890 reactive power outputs; (c) node 844 PCC voltages and
(d) node 844 reactive powers outputs.

2836

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 28, NO. 6, JUNE 2013

Fig. 11. Overvoltage test case: PHIL experimental waveforms of the hardware
PV inverter reactive power output and PCC voltage.

in the N 890a PV system was enabled, V890a was reduced into

the nominal voltage range in around 0.5 s. At the same time,
it is observed that the regulation of the N 890a PV system had
interactive influence on other nodes, especially for N 844a. The
influence on phase B and C inverters caused by the phase mutual impedance was much smaller. Nevertheless, there were no
high-frequency voltage oscillations when multiple PV systems
tried to regulate their own PCC voltage.
In the PHIL test, the PV system at N 890a was replaced
with the PV inverter prototype. The coefficient k in Fig. 8 was
selected as 75, thus the 1-kW PV inverter can be virtually scaled
up to a 75-kW inverter. The PHIL experimental results are given
in Fig. 11. The upper two waveforms are the instantaneous PCC
voltage and output current of the PV inverter hardware. The
lower two waveforms are the PCC voltage RMS value and PV
inverter reactive power output. The noise on the PCC voltage
RMS value waveform was from measurement, which did not
affect the system operation. Once the unified var controller was
enabled, the PV inverter absorbed reactive power to reduce the
PCC voltage from 1.065 to 1.042 p.u. in 0.5 s, which is the same
as in the simulation.
3) Momentary Voltage Sag Test: The momentary voltage sag
test aims to demonstrate the proposed controllers capability of
distinguishing between the short-duration voltage disturbances
and islanding events. A 90% voltage sag lasting for 3 s was
assumed at the substation, node 800. The simulation results
are shown in Fig. 12. The unified var controller in every PV
system was enabled in the beginning. Before the voltage sag
event, Q844a , Q844b , and Q844c were nearly zero because the
node voltages were in the volts/var curve deadband. The PV
systems at N 890 had injected reactive power resulting from the
relatively low PCC voltage. When the voltage sag happened, all
the PV systems output around 0.45 p.u. reactive power to support
the voltage. However, because of the limited reactive power
rating, V890a , V890b , and V890c were still below 0.88 p.u. (the
undervoltage protection threshold defined in [23]) during the
voltage sag. It has been illustrated in Section IV that the passive

Fig. 12. Momentary voltage sag test case: RTDS simulation results of
(a) node 844 PCC voltages; (b) node 844 reactive power outputs; (c) node
890 PCC voltages and (d) node 890 reactive power outputs.

ZHOU et al.: INTEGRATED AUTONOMOUS VOLTAGE REGULATION AND ISLANDING DETECTION

Fig. 14.

2837

ID test circuit.

Fig. 13. Momentary voltage sag test case: PHIL experimental waveforms of
the hardware PV inverter reactive power output and PCC voltage.

protection settings can be widened when the proposed controller

is employed. Hence those PV inverters could ride through the
voltage sag event as shown in Fig. 12. If the unified var controller
was not enabled in the PV systems, the PCC voltages could be
much lower and the PV systems may disconnect from the grid
because of the tight passive protection settings.
In the PHIL test, the PV system at N 844a was replaced with
the PV inverter prototype. The reason for selecting N 844a is
that its reactive power response during voltage sag is more noticeable. The scale coefficient k in Fig. 8 was chosen as 67.5.
Fig. 13 shows the experimental waveforms of the instantaneous
PCC voltage, inverter output current, PCC voltage RMS value,
and inverter reactive power output. During the voltage sag, the
PV inverter output 0.46 p.u. capacitive reactive power to support
the grid. At the end of the voltage sag event, the reactive power
output decreased dramatically and even became inductive. This
is caused by the IVC having brought the PCC voltage reference to a low level during the voltage sag. When the voltage
sag ended, the voltage controller tried to track the old voltage
reference, thus the reactive power decreased. When the reactive
power was lower than the saturation value of limiter 1, the voltage reference compensation from the IVC vanished. Finally, the
reactive power output was restored to zero due to the AVC.

Fig. 15. Single-PV-inverter ID test when the unified var controller was
disabled.

C. ID Test Cases
The ID test cases were conducted based on a standard test
circuit, shown in Fig. 14. There are two reasons of using this
circuit instead of the IEEE 34 node test feeder. First, the circuit
given in Fig. 14 is a standard inverter anti-islanding test circuit
adopted in IEEE Std. 1547, IEEE Std. 929, and UL 1741. The
same circuit was also widely used by researchers studying ID
algorithms [34][37]. Second, by changing the RLC load power
rating and quality factor, the circuit can represent the islanding
networks formed in the IEEE 34 node test feeder.
As explained in Section IV, higher Qf leads to larger NDZ.
Therefore, a relatively high Qf = 2.5 is selected in the following
test and the RLC load was adjusted to resonate at 60 Hz . The PV

Fig. 16.
enabled.

Single-PV-inverter ID test when the unified var controller was

inverter 2 and 3 were used during multiple-PV-inverter ID test

cases. The voltage controller gain was selected to be 0.1/2 XS
in all the three inverters.
1) Single-PV-Inverter ID Test: In this test, the PV inverter
1 real power output matched with the load at 1 kW. Figs. 15
and 16 show the experimental waveforms during the islanding

2838

Fig. 17. Multiple-PV-inverter ID test when the unified var controller was
enabled: simulation waveforms.

event when the proposed controller was disabled and enabled,

respectively. In the two figures, the upper two waveforms are
the instantaneous PCC voltage and inverter output current, and
the lower two waveforms are the PCC voltage frequency and inverter output reactive power. From the zoomed view in Fig. 15,
the PCC voltage amplitude kept nearly the same before and
after the islanding event occured at 3.8 s. The PCC voltage
frequency dropped to 59.7 Hz which was still in the nominal
range, hence the islanding network cannot be detected. In the
case when the unified var controller was used, the inverter reactive power output was around zero in the beginning, as seen
from Fig. 16, because the PCC voltage was 1.0 p.u. When the
UDS was switched off at 3.8 s, the reactive power output quickly
reached to its maximum value of 0.5 p.u. Accordingly, the network frequency dropped to 53 Hz, which was far beyond the
nominal range.
2) Multiple-PV-Inverter ID Test: This test is to demonstrate
the coordination of multiple PV systems during ID. The load
was rated at 3 kW to match with the PV generated power from
the three inverters. Fig. 17 shows the simulation results during
the test. The waveforms of the instantaneous PCC voltage, PCC
voltage frequency and reactive power outputs from the three
inverters are provided. It is seen that when islanding occurred,
the three inverters injected capacitive reactive power at the same
time. The PCC voltage frequency drifted to 54.5 Hz in 2 s. Fig. 18
provides the PHIL experimental results of the test where the PV
inverter 1 was replaced with the PV inverter prototype. When
islanding happened, the PV inverter injected 0.5 p.u. reactive
power and the PCC voltage frequency dropped to 54 Hz. It is
noticed that the reactive power injection in the experiment was
faster. This is due to the larger PCC voltage amplitude deviation
at the islanding moment in the experiment. Fig. 19 shows the
PHIL experimental waveforms without the unified var controller
enabled. The PCC frequency was stabilized at 59.9 Hz when
the UDS was switched off, so the islanding network cannot be
detected.

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 28, NO. 6, JUNE 2013

Fig. 18. Multiple-PV-inverter ID test when the unified var controller was
enabled: PHIL experimental waveforms.

Fig. 19. Multiple-PV-inverter ID test when the unified var controller was
disabled: PHIL experimental waveforms.

VI. CONCLUSION
Theoretical analysis revealed that the VR and ID functions can
be integrated in a PV inverter by means of real/reactive power
control. The unified var controller, composed of the voltage controller and adaptive voltage reference generator, was presented
to achieve the function integration autonomously. With the proposed controller implemented in the distributed PV systems,
the potential system voltage issues can be mitigated and the
false tripping of the PV systems can be avoided. The feasibility
and advantages of the proposed controller were validated in the
RTDS and PHIL testbed. The voltage controller design criterion
was provided by investigating the limitations of VR dynamics
based on a single PV system model. The analysis illustrated
that the design criterion is applicable in multiple-PV scenario
as well, which was confirmed by the simulation/PHIL test results. Several design considerations for IVC and AVC were also
given.

ZHOU et al.: INTEGRATED AUTONOMOUS VOLTAGE REGULATION AND ISLANDING DETECTION

2839

amplitude of vPCCi can be calculated approximately by

(PPV i PL i ) Rsi QL i Xsi
VPCCi
= V1 +
VPCCi
+

(PPV j PL j ) Rsi QL j Xsi

QPV i Xsi
+
VPCCj
VPCCi

QPV j Xsi
.
VPCCj

(22)

Similarly
VPCCj j = vPCCi


(PPV j PL j ) j(QPV j QL j )
+
(Rsj + jXsj )
VPCCj j
Fig. 20.

Root locus comparison of the complete model and simplified model.

(23)

(PPV j PL j )Rsj QL j Xsj QPV j Xsj

+
.
VPCCj
= VPCCi +
VPCCj
VPCCj
(24)
APPENDIX B

APPENDIX A

PARAMETERS OF A SINGLE PV SYSTEM

DERIVATION OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN

QPV AND VPCC
According to Fig. 1, the relationship between QPV and VPCC
is derived as follows:

TABLE II
PARAMETERS OF A SINGLE PV SYSTEM

(PPV PL ) j (QPV QL )
(Rs + jXs )
VPCC


[(PPV PL ) j(QPV QL )]
(cos + j sin )(Rs + jXs )
= V1 +
. (19)
VPCC

VPCC = V1 +

The amplitude of vPCC can be calculated approximately by

(PPV PL ) (RS cos XS sin )
VPCC
= V1 +
VPCC
(QPV QL ) (XS cos + RS sin )
+
.
VPCC

APPENDIX C
(20)

For the two-PV system shown in Fig. 6, the network model

is derived as follows:

INFLUENCE OF THE CURRENT CONTROL LOOP ON THE

VOLTAGE CONTROL LOOP

When the current control loop is assumed to be ideal, the locus

of the voltage controller poles are redrawn to be compared with
the complete system.
VPCCi i
It is noticed that the two curves share the same locus along

(P
PV i PL i ) j(QPV i QL i )
the real-axis segment. The breakaway points at the real axis
1

VPCCi i
(Rsi + jXsi ) of the two curves are both at s = 2 . The KI values at the
= V1 +

breakaway point are calculated as follows:

(PPV j PL j ) j(QPV j QL j )
+
VPCCj j
Vn
(1 + M ) for the complete model
(25)
KI =


4 X
[(PPV i PL i ) j(QPV i QL i )]
Vn
(cos i + j sin i )(Rsi + jXsi )
for the simplified model
(26)
KI =
= V1 +
4 X
VPCCi


(2 ) L
[(PPV j PL j ) j(QPV j QL j )]
where M = 4K P C K P W Ms c2 (2f c ) .
With typical current control design [27], M is usually much
(cos j + j sin j )(Rsi + jXsi )
+
.
(21) smaller than 1. For the system in Table II, it is M = 0.0019.
VPCCj
Therefore, when the voltage controller poles are designed to
By assuming cos i cos j 1 and sin i sin j 0, the

2840

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 28, NO. 6, JUNE 2013

be positioned on the real axis, the current control loop can be

considered to be ideal if only the voltage dynamic is concerned.
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Yan Zhou (S10) received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from the Huazhong
University of Science and Technology, Hubei, China,
in 2007 and 2009, respectively. He is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree in the Department of
Electrical and Computer Engineering, Florida State
University, Tallahassee.
His research interests include grid-connected PV
system control, PV microinverter, GaN FETs application, and high PV penetration integration issues.

ZHOU et al.: INTEGRATED AUTONOMOUS VOLTAGE REGULATION AND ISLANDING DETECTION

Hui Li (S97M00SM01) received the B.S. and

M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from the
Huazhong University of Science and Technology,
Hubei, China, in 1992 and 1995, respectively, and
the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the
University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in 2000.
She is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Florida A&M UniversityFlorida State University
College of Engineering, Tallahassee. Her research
interests include bidirectional dcdc converters, cascaded multilevel inverters, and power electronics application in hybrid electric
vehicles.

2841

Liming Liu (M09SM11) received the B.S. and

M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Wuhan
University, Hubei, China, in 1998 and 2003, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering
from the Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Hubei, China, in 2006.
He joined the Center for Advanced Power Systems, Florida State University, Tallahassee, in 2007
as a Postdoctoral Researcher, where he is currently
an Assistant Scientist. His research interests generally include modeling and control of multilevel inverter applications, renewable energy conversion systems, high penetrative gridinteractive photovoltaic system, smart grid, motor drive control with hybrid energy storages, and flexible ac transmission system.