28-2
Parallel Operation of Three-phase UPS Inverters by Wireless Load Sharing Control
Y. B. Byun*, T. G. Koo**, K. Y. Joe*, E. S. Kim*, J. I. Seo*, D. H. Kim**
* K.orea Electro-technology Research Institute
28-1, Seongjudong, Changwon, Kyungnam,
64 1- 120, South Korea
ybbyun@keri.re.kr
Abstract A load sharing control based on the frequency and
voltage droop concept for parallel operation of two three-phase
Uninterruplible Power Supply (UPS) systems with no control
interconnection lines is presented in this paper. First of all, due
to the use of active power and reactive power as control
variables, the characteristics of output powers according to
amplitude and phase differences between output voltages of two
UPS systems are analyzed. Secondly, simulation results with
different line impedance are demonstrated the feasibility of the
wireless load sharing control. Finally, experiments are presented
to verify the theoretical discussion with two three-phase 2OkVA
UPS systems employed TMS320C32, a kind of real time digital
signal processor (DSP).
I
1. Introduction
Recently computer related equipment has been widely
used in various areas. The design criterion of its power
supply is stricter than that of general equipment. Thus, a
stable and high quality power source is required to ensure the
equipment operates continuously. To supply the clean power,
the UPS has become more important in many parts as the
power supply system.
In order to improve the performance of the whole system,
the demand for the UPS system connected in parallel is
increasing. The parallel operation UPS has many desirable
features such as expandability of output power, ease of
maintenance, and redundancy implementation. The technical
aspect of the parallel operation is a proper load sharing
among the UPS systems. Since the load sharing is very
sensitive to discrepancy between components of each UPS
system, line impedance imbalance, errors of detection and so
on, a proper control is required to share the load equally [ 1-61.
The output voltages of all the paralleled systems must be
strictly synchronized in frequency, phase and amplitude to
guarantee the equality of output power sharing, otherwise the
output current may contain reactive circular component, i.e.,
circulating current. This will decrease the capability of the
whole power system [ 1-21. Generally, I-degree difference in
phase lead!; to 50 percent power difference. The line
impedance, from the output terminal of a system to the load,
considerably affects the load sharing [5-61.
Although many techniques of parallel operation inverters
can be found in the literature, most of the techniques
normally need auxiliary interconnection lines to get
0-7803-6407-4/00/$10.00e 2 0 0 0 IEEE
** Electrical Engineering, Yeungnam univ.
2 14- 1, Daedong, Kyungsan, Kyungbuk,
712-749, South Korea.
information such as output frequency and current of other
systems [3-51. However, the control interconnection lines
restrict the location of the paralleled systems, cause noise
disturbance, and hinder the isolation and redundancy of
multi-inverter systems.
To operate independently each UPS system in this paper,
the load sharing control is adapted to the frequency and
voltage droop method except for the variation of output
power per every sampling time. The output frequency and
voltage droops as function of the active and reactive power
respectively, and each UPS system has no control
interconnection lines except for the power lines.
In order to share a load equally, the essential requirements
are high precision in detection and control, as well as
extremely high speed in calculating. Such being the case, we
could found no experimental results on the wireless
independent control in the literature. Thus, this paper
proposes the discrete real time calculation method and
verifies the wireless load sharing control algorithm through
simulation and experiment on two three-phase 20kVA UPS
systems. All the control operation are performed by DSP
(TMS320C32). Hardware of the whole control system is
completely digitized. Simulation and experimental results
show that the control algorithm can achieve a good load
sharing and a fast dynamic response.
2. Analysis of Power Sharing
For the analysis of power sharing according to amplitude
and phase differences between output voltages of two UPS
systems, the equivalent circuit is shown in Fig. 1.
When Z = Z , = Z , , following basic circuit equations can
be obtained from Fig. 1.
I , =- , I2=- L -- (1)
z z ZL
i.Z, Z.i,
Z+Z, Z+Z,
VL =E1 +E 2
. Z.iL . i.ZL
Z+- Z+-
z+i, i+Z,
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 28-2

2 . 1 A E = O & q=o

Assuming that both amplitude difference AE and phase

difference rp between two output voltages are zero, that is,
the two UPS systems have the same output voltage. The
complex powers and s2,0are equal as follows:

-A

where VL = load voltage, i.1 and E2 =output voltages of UPS1 and2,

I , = load current, and I 2 = output currents of UPS1 and 2, Z L =

load impedance, Z l and Z 2 = line impedance of UPS1 and 2, and A E

and cp = amplitude and phase differences between two output voltages.
Fig. 1. Equivalent Circuit for Analysis of Power Sharing
2.2AEm f O & p = O
To facilitate the derivation of the relationship between the
amplitude difference AE and the output power, if rp puts
zero into Eq. (3) and (4),the complex powers and

The equation VL can be simplified as follows: S2,lzE will be written as follows:

Thus, using the two equations above, the complex powers

SI and Sz of two UPS systems are derived as follows:

SI =vL. I ; For simplifying the analysis, we can assume that Z L >> Z

jL
2' .cp and line impedancez = RijwL . Thus, the variations of
-
-
2 E I . e 2 +AE.eJV
' [ E , (2 i i2 -J-

- 2e 2 ) - A E . e-JP
the complex powers A$M and A.$m under the
z' * ( 2 + -z) ( 2 + 7 z*
) amplitude difference AE are derived as follows:
ZL z,
(3)
S2 =vL.i;

From Eq. (9) and (IO), the relationship between the

where I ; , I ; , Z*and Z;
Z and Z L , respectively.
(4) amplitude difference and the active and reactive power of
each UPS system is known completely. That is, if the
aretheconjugatesof I , , 1 2 , amplitude difference between two output voltages increases,
the powers of UPS1 having the higher output voltage of the
two are increased too. However, the powers of UPS2 are
decreased.

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28-2
Note that the line impedance is dominantly resistive.
However, the source impedance of the inverter is highly
inductive. Thus the total impedance of the system becomes
almost purely inductive.
Consequently, if the reactive power of an UPS system
increases, its amplitude must be decreased for compensating
the reactive power imbalance between two UPS systems.
2.3AEm=O&p f 0
To know the relationship between the phase difference and
the output power, if there is only the phase difference rp and
the amplitude difference AE = O in Eq. (3) and (4), the
complex powers Sl,+, and S2,+, will be obtained as
follows:
In order to simplify the analysis, assuming that Z L >> Z
and Z = R + jwL , the variations of the complex powers
A,?,,+, and A&,+, according to the phase difference rp
will be derived as follows:
From Eq. (13) and (14), we can know the relationship
between the phase difference and the active and reactive
power of each UPS system. Note that the total impedance of
the system is nearly inductive.
Therefore, to ensure an equal active power sharing, if the
active power of an UPS system increases, its phase must be
lagged. Especially, owing to the Ef terms in Eq. (13) and
(14), the variation rate of the complex power under the phase
difference is very high, so we should slightly control the
phase.
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2.4 Line Impedance Imbalance
The line impedance imbalance considerably impacts the
output power sharing. To get the characteristics of the power
sharing under the line impedance imbalance, we set the line
resistance = 0.01[ Q ] and the line inductance = 0.0001[H] of
the UPSl, and change the line resistance = 0.01 0.5[Q] -
-
and the line inductance = 0.0001 O.OOS[H] of the UPS2.
As can be seen Fig. 2, the output power is very sensitive to
the line impedance imbalance. Therefore, we can know that a
proper control is required for compensating the imbalance.
5
a
(a) (b)
Fig. 2. Complex Powers of (a) UPSl and (b) UPS2 Under Line Impedance
Imbalance
2.5 Circulating Current
Circulating current, which flows from one UPS system to
another, will increase output currents of both UPS systems
and operation loss, and hinder the UPS system's proper
operation.
The circulating current i, is defined as follows:
.
I , =-
il - I 2
2
The circulation current is caused by amplitude and phase
difference between two output voltages. Fig. 3 shows the
circulating current in the case of the amplitude difference
-
AE = 0 2[V] and the phase difference rp = 0 2'. In the -
figure, the circulating current increases in proportion to the
amplitude difference and the phase difference between two
output voltages.
Fig. 3. Circulating Current Under Amplitude Differences and Phase Differences
 28-2

3. Digital Control Algorithm Active power = V . I cos(@, - e j )

= V.l(cos6, .cos@;+sin@, .sine;)
3. I Digital Filter
= v,. .I,.+vi .I; (19)
Ramamoorthy[7] first proposed that the desired Reactive power = V . I sin(@, - 0;)
fundamental voltage or current be extracted from the = V.Z(sin@, .cos@;-cos@, .sin@;)
distorted signal by correlating one cycle of data samples with
the stored samples of reference fundamental sine and cosine = vi ' I , - v,. . Ii (20)
waves. Fig. 4 illustrates the process [SI. With a sampling rage
of N samples per kth harmonic time period and an where V and I are the rms values of phase voltage and
observation window of one full cycle, the cross-correlation of current, 8, and Bi are the phase difference between
the digitized signal {x(n)) with cosine and sine waves is voltage and reference waveforms, and between current and
expressed as reference waveforms respectively, and V,. , Vi, I,. and 1;
2 (N-1) are the real and imaginary components of voltage and current
yrk (m) = - x(m - n ) cos(m - n ) (16)
N n=O respectively.
2 (N-1)
y;k(m)=- x(m-n)sin(m-n) 3.3 Control Algorithm
N n=O

The wireless parallel operation control algorithm is

adapted to the frequency and voltage droop method except
where cos(m-n) and sin(m-n) are the digital values of the for the variation of output power per every sampling time.
cosine and sine functions of the kth harmonic frequency at The output power of each UPS system is calculated by only
the (m-n)th sampling instant, and the filter outputs yrk(m) its output voltage and current.
and yik(m) are the real and imaginary components of the The configuration of wireless load sharing control is
shown in Fig. 5.
fundamental frequency at the Lth sampling instant.
Sample of Reference Sinusoid
I
I
I
I
Input Current Waveform I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I

Fig. 4. Fourier Notch-Filter Algorithm Fig. 5. Configuration of Control System

3.2 Output Power Calculation The control algorithm of the reactive power is as follows:

To operate independently each UPS system, its three-phase

active and reactive powers are required as control variables.
Therefore, the real and imaginary components of three-phase where Q is the reactive power, AQ represents Q , ~-Q,?-~,
voltage and current are needed.
The components can be simply obtained by the digital
v,,, is the output voltage, vref is the reference voltage,
filter. Thus, active power and reactive power of one-phase and ~~2 are reactive power coefficients.
out of three-phase can be calculated easily as follows:
We can derive that the output voltage v,,,, is dropped by

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28-2

Q and AQ in Eq. (21). Due to the droop characteristics, in In Fig. 7, the simulation waveforms of the load voltage and
case that the reactive powers of two UPS systems are current, and the output currents for the steady state are
different while parallel operation, the two output voltages illustrated. It can be observed from Fig. 7 that equal current
will drop to such values that both systems will be operating distribution can be achieved regardless of line impedance
in a lower voltage eliminating the reactive power imbalance. imbalance, Z2 is twice as much as Z1.
The Kq2 .AQ term in Eq. (21) is added to the
conventional droop method. It is to minimize the output
voltage drop for the steady state, and to get a fast transient
response.
The droop method is simple to implement. However, in
this case a trade-off must be made between accuracy of
reactive power sharing and output voltage quality. The higher
the reactive power coefficients K q l and K q 2 the better
accuracy of the reactive power sharing. However, higher the
coefficierrts mean a reduction in output voltage quality, As a
result, the coefficients should be decided so that the output
voltage can be within a permission range.

The control algorithm of the active power is as follows:

Fig. 7 . The Simulation Waveforms of Load Voltage V L , Load Current iL , and

where P is the active power, AP represents P,, - P,,-~, f,,
is the reference frequency, K~~ and ~~2 are the active
power coefficients.
Generally, the frequency difference creates the phase
difference. In Eq. (22), the difference of the active powers of
two UPS systems in parallel causes the phase difference
between two output voltages. Hence, the active power
sharing can be controlled by the phase of output voltage
slightly varied from that of the bypass voltage. Also there is a
trade-off between accuracy of active power sharing and phase
synchronization. Thus, the active power coefficient K~~
should be decided carefully.
Output Currents il and i2 for the Steady State
To see the characteristics of transient response and power
sharing, the simulation results of the active and reactive
power, and the output currents are shown in Fig. 8 when the
initial load impedance 13+ j 9 . 7 [ Q ] is stepped down to
6.5+ j4.85 [ Q ] at 0.25 sec. In this figure, the transient
response is quite fast, and the active power is equally shared
between two systems while the reactive power sharing is
slightly different. The reason for this discrepancy is the line
impedance imbalance.

4. SimuRation

For the simulation studies, the general - purpose simulation

package PSIM was used. As shown in Fig. 6, to prove the
validity of the control algorithm, two UPS systems in parallel
are composed with different line impedance.

IOW

om

F-&J-jj load
4oDD

Z , = 0.1 + j0.038 [a], Z , = 0.2 + j0.075 [Q] , Z,o,,,, = 13 + j9.7 [Q] Fig. 8. The Simulation Results of Active PowersP, and P2 , Reactive Powers
Fig. 6. Configurationof the Simulated System Q, and Qz,and Output Currents il and i2 with the Step Load Variation

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 28-2

In Fig. 9, the simulation results for two parallel UPS
systems of different power ratings are shown. The power
coefficients K~ and K of each system are set differently.
4
As can be seen from Fig. 9, the active and reactive power
sharing can be controlled by the power coefficients.
From the simulation results above, the validity of the
control algorithm is proved
Fig. 12 shows the experimental results of the active powers
and the output currents when a pure resistant load changes
from no load to 7.2[kW], and then to 14.4[kW]. It can be
observed from Fig. 12 that a fast transient response and an
equivalent active power sharing like the simulation results in
Fig. 8.
Fig. 13 illustrates the experimental results of the active and
reactive power when both a resistant load 7.2[kW] and a
reactant load 5.4[kVar] are connected, and disconnected to
the two UPS systems. The transient response of the reactive
power sharing is not so fast. However, totally the error of the
power sharing is within 5 percentages at steady state.
The experiment results above also show the validity of the
control algorithm like those of the simulation.

om 0 IO 020 030 04) 050 I I I I I I I I I 1 I

T"(%)

Fig. 9. The Simulation Results of Active Powers Ip and Zp, and Reactive
Powers Q,and Q2 in Case that the Power Coefficients of Each U P S System
Set Differently

5. Experimental Results

Two UPS systems have been designed and implemented. (2OOV/div, SNdiv, 5msldiv)
The parameters of each system are listed below: Fig. IO. The Experimental Waveforms of Load Voltage V L , Load Current iL ,
and Output Currents il and i2 with No Load
Each system capacity: 20[kVA]
Switching frequency: 5.16[kHz]
DC Link voltage: 265[V]
Output voltage: 3 4 38O[V] / 22O[V], 60[Hz]
LC filters: 400[ p F], 250[ p HI

The parallel operation control system has been employed a

full digital structure with a 32 bits floating-pointed DSP chip
(TMS320C32-50) to fit for the real time control, the
reliability of signal transmission, and the fast and complicate
calculation.
Fig. 10 shows the experimental waveforms of the load
voltage and current, and the output currents with no load. The
output current, i.e. circulating current, are quite small. Thus,
the parallel operation is quite stable at no load.
Fig. 11 illustrates the experimental waveforms of the load
voltage and current, and the output currents for the steady
state when a power factor, a resistant load = 7.2[kW] and a (ZOOV/div, SNdiv, Sms/div)
reactant load = 5.4[kVar], is 0.8. In this figure, the Fig. 1 I. The Experimental Waveforms of Load Voltage V L , Load Current iL ,
experimental waveforms are perfectly the same as those of and Output Currents il and i2 for Steady State When a Power Factor is 0.8
simulation in Fig. 7.

53 1
28-2

The characteristics of the power sharing under the line

impedance imbalance have been illustrated.
A good performance of the control algorithm has been
proved by simulation and experiment on two 20kVA UPS
systems that employed a 32 bits floating-pointed DSP chip.
Totally, the error of power sharing is within 5 percentages
at steady state.

7. References

[I] Brian T. Irving and Milan M Jovanovic, "Analysis, Design, and

Performance Evaluation of Droop Current-Sharing Method", IEEE-
APEC'2000, vol. I , pp235-241, Feb. 2000.
[2] Shoji-Nishikata and Makoto, "Steady-State Perfor- mance Analysis of a
Parallel-Running AC Power System When Loaded with a Capacitor-
Filtered Rectifier", T.IEE Japan, Vol.l17-D, No 2, pp255-256, 1997.
[3] H. Oshima, Y. Miyazawa, and A.Hirata, "Parallel Redundant UPS with
(2kW/div, IOA/div, 50ms/div) Instantaneous PWM Control", INTELEC'91, pp436-442, Nov. 1991.
Fig. 12. The Experimental Results of Active P o w e r 4 and P2, and Output [4] T. F. Wu, Y-H. Huang, Y.-K. Chen and Z.-R. Lin, "A3C Strategy for
Currents il and i2 with the Step Load Variation Multi-Module Inverters in Parallel Operation to Achieve an Equal
Current Distribution" JEEE-PESC'98, vol. I , ppl86-192, 1998.
[5] Duan Shanxu, Meug Yu, Xiong Jian, Kang Yong and Chen Jian, "Parallel
Operation Control Technique of Voltage Source Inverters in UPS",
IEEE-PEDS'99, ~ ~ 8 8 3 - 8 8July
7 , 1999.
[6] A. Tuladhar, H. Jin, T. Uger, and K. Mauch, "Control of Parallel Inverters
in Distributed AC Power Systems with Consideration of the Line
Impedance Effect", IEEE-APEC'98, vol. I , pp321-328, 1998.
[7] M. Ramanoorthy, "Application of Digital Computers to Power System
Protection", T. Inst. Eng. (India), 52, pp. 235-238, 1977.
[8] IEEE Tutorial Course, Microprocessor Relays and Protection Systems,
Course text 88EH 0269-I-PWR, pp. 16-28, 1988.

I I I I I
(2kW/div, 2kVar/div, Is/div)
Fig. 13. The Experimental Results of Active Power 4 and Pz , and Reactive
Power Q, and Q2 when Load is Connected and Disconnected

6. Conclusion

The parallel operation control algorithm with no control

interconnection lines has been studied. The control algorithm
has been achieved simulation and experiment, and showed
that a pretty good load sharing and a fast transient response.
The key findings of this paper can be summarized as follows:

The Characteristics of the active and reactive power of each

system under amplitude and phase difference between two
output voltages have been analyzed.

532