IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 53, NO.
1, JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017
Control of a Hybrid AC/DC Microgrid Involving
Energy Storage and Pulsed Loads
Tan Ma, Member, IEEE, Mehmet Hazar Cintuglu, Student Member, IEEE, and Osama A. Mohammed, Fellow, IEEE
Abstract—This paper presents a real-time coordinated control
of the hybrid ac/dc microgrids involving energy storage and pulsed
loads. Grid-isolated hybrid microgrid applications require special
considerations due to the intermittent generation, online energy
storage control, and pulsed loads. In this study, we introduce a
comprehensive frequency and voltage control scheme for a hybrid
ac/dc microgrid consisting of a synchronous generator, solar gen-
eration emulator, and bidirectional (ac/dc and dc/dc) converters. A
bidirectional controlled ac/dc converter with an active and reactive
power decoupling technique is used to link the ac bus with the dc
bus, while regulating the system voltage and frequency. A dc/dc
boost converter with a maximum power point tracking function is
implemented to maximize the intermittent energy generation from
solar generators. Current-controlled bidirectional dc/dc convert-
ers are applied to connect each lithium-ion battery bank to the dc
bus. Lithium-ion battery banks act as energy storage devices that
serve to increase the system resiliency by absorbing or injecting
power. Experimental results are presented for verification of the
introduced hybrid ac/dc power flow control scheme.
Index Terms—Battery bank, energy management, energy stor-
age, microgrid, pulsed load, synchrophasor.
I. INTRODUCTION
YBRID power systems are gaining popularity due to
H increasing microgrid deployments featuring renewable
power systems connected to low-voltage ac distribution sys-
tems. Furthermore, dc grids are resurging due to the develop-
ment of new semiconductor technologies and sustainable dc
power sources such as solar energy. There has also been an
increase in dc loads, such as plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs)
[5]–[7] and light-emitting diodes, connected to the grid to save
energy and decrease greenhouse gas emissions. This growth
has been motivated by environmental concerns caused by the
conventional fossil-fueled power plants [24].
Thus far, a variety of control strategies have been introduced
for microgrids [1]–[4]. One of the major technical challenges
in microgrids is the interconnection of pulsed loads, which can
Manuscript received May 7, 2016; revised August 5, 2016; accepted Septem-
ber 15, 2016. Date of publication September 27, 2016; date of current version
January 18, 2017. Paper 2016-IACC-0369.R1, presented at the 2015 Industry
Applications Society Annual Meeting, Addison, TX, USA, Oct. 18–22, and ap-
proved for publication in the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS
by the Industrial Automation and Control Committee of the IEEE Industry Ap-
plications Society. This work was supported in part by grants for the Office of
Naval Research and the U.S. Department of Energy.
The authors are with the Energy Systems Research Laboratory, Depart-
ment of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Florida International University,
Miami, FL 33174 USA (e-mail: matan8571@gmail.com; mcint015@fiu.edu;
mohammed@fiu.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/TIA.2016.2613981
0093-9994 © 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
567
cause voltage collapse, oscillation of the angular velocity in the
generators, and degradation of the overall system performance
[22], [23], [25]. The pulsed loads draw high currents during a
short period of time, which can cause considerable voltage and
frequency fluctuation [22]. These disturbances can trip other
normal loads offline, causing a serious outage. The power re-
quirements of such loads can range from kilowatts to megawatts
with a charge interval on the order of seconds to minutes [23].
Power converters opened new horizons for effective integra-
tion of ac- and dc-distribution networks in a microgrid operation
concept [8]. Thus far, in [9] and [10], several ideas and models
of ac/dc microgrids have been proposed, but their systems op-
erate without the influence of the pulsed loads. System stability
and coordination control of the power electronic devices, during
islanded operation modes with the influence of pulsed loads, is
still an open issue.
At the same time, various utility grids and some hybrid mi-
crogrids are increasing the penetration of renewable energy re-
sources [11], [12]. The intermittent nature of wind and solar
power can quickly add up to the system-wide instability that
can force generators to ramp up and down wildly, push grid
protection gear into states it is not meant to handle, or force the
wind and solar generator to shut off altogether [13].
Hybrid power systems face far more challenges when oper-
ating in an islanded mode than they do in the grid-connected
mode. During the islanded mode, the ac side can no longer be
viewed as an infinite bus, which results in load variations ad-
versely affecting the frequency and voltage of the system. If
the system has a high penetration of the renewable power, the
situation can be even worse. At any time, reactive and active
power flow should be balanced between the ac and dc sides to
maintain the stability on both sides of the grid [14], [15].
To the best of author’s knowledge, a realistic coordinated
hybrid ac/dc microgrid control considering pulsed load mitiga-
tion with energy storage has not yet been studied. In this paper,
a real-time coordinated control of a grid-isolated hybrid ac/dc
microgrid involving energy storage and pulsed loads is stud-
ied. This microgrid can be viewed as a PEV parking garage
power system or a ship power system that utilizes sustainable
energy and is influenced by pulsed load. We introduce a com-
prehensive frequency and voltage control scheme for a hybrid
ac/dc microgrid consisting of a synchronous generator, solar
generation emulator, and bidirectional (ac/dc and dc/dc) con-
verters. A bidirectional controlled ac/dc converter with active
and reactive power decoupling technique is used to link the ac
bus with the dc bus, while regulating the system voltage and
frequency.
568
Fig. 1. Overview of the ac side of a hybrid microgrid configuration involving synchronous generators, inverter-based distributed energy resources, distribution
line and load models, synchrophasor, intelligent electronic devices (IED) protection setup, SCADA systems, and human–machine interface (HMI).
Fig. 2. Overview of the dc side of a hybrid microgrid configuration involving
bidirectional ac/dc dc/dc converters.
A dc/dc boost converter with a maximum power point
tracking (MPPT) function is implemented to maximize the
intermittent energy generation from the solar generators.
Current-controlled bidirectional dc/dc converters are applied to
connect each lithium-ion battery bank to dc bus [16].
II. HYBRID AC/DC MICROGRID CONFIGURATION
Fig. 1 shows the complete schematics of the studied hybrid
microgrid. Fig. 2 shows the dc side of the hybrid microgrid con-
figuration, where a photovoltaic (PV) emulator, battery banks,
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 53, NO. 1, JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017
and loads are connected [17], [18]. The ac and dc sides are
linked through a bidirectional three-phase ac/dc converter and
a transformer. The system features constant and pulse loads
on both the ac and dc sides. The PV emulator is connected to
the dc bus as the dc energy source through a dc/dc boost con-
verter with MPPT functionality. Five 50-Ah lithium-ion battery
banks with 51.8-V terminal voltage are connected to the dc
bus through five bidirectional dc/dc boost converters [19]. The
rated voltages of dc and ac sides are 300 and 208 V phase to
phase, respectively. The system can be operated in either grid-
connected mode or islanding mode. To maximize the utilization
of the renewable sources, the PV emulator can be operated
in on/off maximum power point modes based on the whole
system power.
Energy balancing is handled by controlling the dc/dc boost
converter. In a grid-connected mode, the proposed system can
be viewed as a PEVs car park system. The five batteries can
be viewed as five PEVs that can play the role of energy stor-
age. By controlling the charging process of the PEVs in the car
park, the hybrid microgrid can limit the PEVs’ charging impact
to the utility grid and at the same time provide some ancillary
support to the utility grid through V2G services, via frequency
regulation, reactive power compensation, and spinning reserve.
In an islanded mode, the proposed system can be viewed as a
ship power system with solar panels. The bidirectional ac/dc
converter can take control of the ac-side frequency and volt-
age amplitude. The dc-bus voltage is regulated by controlling
the charging and discharging of the battery banks, which also
means controlling the current flow through the bidirectional
dc/dc converter.
A. PV Panel Emulator
The PV panel can be viewed as a current source in parallel
with a diode. In this paper, the SunPower SPR-305-WHT solar
cell with 305-W maximum output power is used. Thirty-three
cells are used in the configuration of 11 parallel strings with
three serially connected cells per string. Fig. 3 shows the non-
linear P–V and I–V electric characteristics of a single SunPower
SPR-305-WHT solar sell. Under different solar irradiations, the
maximum power points of the power–voltage curves are asso-
ciated with different output voltages. Also, under certain solar
irradiance, the output of the PV panel is varying with different
terminal voltages.
MA et al.: CONTROL OF A HYBRID AC/DC MICROGRID INVOLVING ENERGY STORAGE AND PULSED LOADS 569

load can usually be viewed as a purely resistive load. On the ac

side, the pulse load can either be a resistive or an inductive load,
such as an induction motor. However, those inductive loads are
commonly connected to the ac side through power electronic
drives, such as back-to-back converters. In this way, the induc-
tive load can be converted and acts as a resistive load. In this
paper, only 18-Ω resistive loads are used, and the programmable
load is designed accordingly.

III. COORDINATED CONTROL OF CONVERTERS

Three types of converters are utilized in this proposed hybrid
microgrid, as shown in Fig. 1. These converters must be actively
controlled in order to supply an uninterrupted power with high
efficiency and quality to pulse loads on the ac and dc sides
during grid-connected and islanding modes. The coordinated
control strategies for converters are discussed.
Fig. 3. I–V and P–V curves for PV panel Sunpower SPR-305-WHT.
TABLE I A. Boost Converter Control With MPPT
PARAMETERS FOR PHOTOVOLATIC PANEL
To maximize the utilization of renewable energy from the PV
Symbol Description Vaule
farm, the boost converter should be operated in an on-MPPT
mode when the hybrid microgrid is connected to the utility
Vo c Rated open-circuit voltage 64.2 V grid. The battery banks in the microgrid can be used as an en-
Ip h Photocurrent 5.9602 A
Is a t Module reverse satuation current 1.1753 × 10−8
ergy buffer, and the charging/discharging rates can be controlled
q Electron charge 1.602 × 10−19 C based on the status of the output power from the PV farm and
A Ideality factor 1.50 the power flow in the ac side. In an islanded mode, the boost
k Boltzman constant 1.38 × 10−23 J/K
Rs Series resistance of a PV cell 0.037998 Ω
converter of the PV farm can be operated in on-MPPT or off-
Rp Parallel resistance of a PV cell 993.51 Ω MPPT, which is based on the system’s power balance and the
Is s o Short-circuit current 5.96 A SOCs of the battery banks. In most cases, this boost converter
ki SC current temperature coefficient 1.7 × 10−3
Tr Reference temperature 301.18 K
can operate in the on-MPPT mode since the variation ratio of
Ir r Reverse saturation current at T r 2.0793 × 10−6 A the solar irradiance is much lower compared to the power ad-
Egap Energy of the bandgap for silicon 1.1 eV justment ability of the small-size ac generator. Therefore, for a
np Number of cells in parallel 528
ns Number of cells inseries 480
constant load either on the ac or dc sides, the PV should supply
S Solar radiation level 0–1000 W/m2 as much power as possible to maximize its utilization. However,
T Surface temperature of the PV 350 K if the battery banks’ SOCs are high (near fully charged) and the
PV’s maximum output power is larger than the total load in the
Equations (1)–(3) show the mathematical model of the PV hybrid microgrid, the PV should be turned to off-MPPT to keep
panel with its output current Ipv and output voltage Vpv [19]. the system power in balance. In this paper, a perturbation and
Related parameters are shown in Table I: observe method is used to track the maximum power point.
Ipv = np Iph − np Isat
     B. Bidirectional DC/DC Converter Control
q  Vpv
· exp + Ipv Rs −1 (1) The bidirectional dc/dc converters are used to connect the
AkT ns battery banks to the dc bus. The hardware setup of a battery
S bank, bidirectional dc/dc converter together with the measure-
Iph = (Isso + ki(T − Tr )) · (2)
1000 ment circuit, and control driver circuit is shown in Fig. 2. In
 3     a grid-connected mode, these converters only regulate the bat-
T qEgap 1 1
Isat = Ir r exp · − . (3) tery banks charging rates. Based on the SOCs of the battery
Tr kA Tr T banks and the power flow conditions in the ac side, the charg-
ing/discharging current references are generated to regulate the
current flow in the converters.
B. Lithium-Ion Battery Banks and Pulsed Load Each battery has its own bidirectional dc/dc converter, which
An accurate battery cell model is needed to regulate the dc- means they can have different charging rates. The battery banks
bus voltage in an islanding mode. The battery terminal voltage can inject power to or absorb power from the dc bus. Also,
and state of charge (SOC) need to be estimated during opera- they can transfer energy between different battery banks if nec-
tion. A high-fidelity electrical model of the lithium-ion battery essary. In this case, only one closed current control loop with
model, with thermal dependence, is used. The pulse load can be the proportional-integral (PI) controller is enough to regulate
connected to both the ac and dc side. On the dc side, the pulse the current. The bidirectional dc/dc converters of the battery
570 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 53, NO. 1, JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017

Fig. 4. Control block diagram for a bidirectional dc/dc converter.

banks play an important role in an islanding mode to regulate

the dc-bus voltage. A two-loop control is used to regulate the
dc-bus voltage. The control scheme for the bidirectional dc/dc
converter is shown in Fig. 4.
The outer voltage-controlled loop is used to generate a refer-
ence charging current for the inner current-controlled loop. The
error between the measured dc-bus voltage and the system refer-
ence dc-bus voltage is set as the input of the PI controller, and the
output is the reference current. The inner current-control loop
compares the reference current signal with the measured current Fig. 5. Control block diagram for a bidirectional ac/dc converter in a grid-
flow through the converter, and, finally, generates a pulse width connected mode.
modulation signal to drive the IGBTs to regulate the current flow
through the converter. For example, when the dc-bus voltage is diagram for a bidirectional ac/dc converter in a grid-connected
higher than the reference voltage, the outer voltage controller mode is shown in Fig. 5. As discussed earlier, a two-loop con-
generates a negative current reference signal. The inner current- troller is used to regulate the dc-bus voltage. Based on the error
control loop adjusts the duty cycle to force the current flow between the dc-bus reference voltage and measured voltage, the
from the dc bus to the battery, which results in charging of the outer voltage control loop generates the id reference, which is
battery. In this way, the energy transfers from the dc bus to the used to regulate id in the bidirectional converter. In dq coordi-
battery and the dc-bus voltage then decreases to the rating value. nates, Id is controlled to regulate the active power flow through
If the dc-bus voltage is lower than the normal value, the outer the inverter, and Iq is controlled to regulate the reactive power
voltage-control loop generates a positive current reference sig- flow through the inverter. In the ac side, the active and reactive
nal, which regulates the current flow from the battery to the dc power flow will influence the frequency and voltage amplitude,
bus. Because of the extra energy injected from the batteries, the respectively.
dc-bus voltage increases to the rating value. In an islanded operation mode, the frequency and voltage
If several energy storage systems are connected to the com- amplitude of the three-phase ac side are volatile. The bidirec-
mon dc bus of the hybrid power system individually through tional ac/dc inverter is used to regulate the active and reactive
their own bidirectional dc–dc converter, a conventional PID power by controlling the id and iq , respectively. The control
controller could not be used to regulate the dc-bus voltage. If all scheme for the bidirectional ac/dc inverter is shown in Fig. 6.
of them are used to regulate the dc-bus voltage, they may conflict Two-loop controllers are applied for both frequency and voltage
with each other and cause instability problems; however, if only regulation. For frequency control, error between measured fre-
one of them is used to regulate the dc-bus voltage, distributing quency and reference frequency is sent to a PI controller which
power flow becomes unclear to the other controllers, which may generates the id reference.
cause SOC unbalance between energy storage systems. There- To control the voltage amplitude, the error between the mea-
fore, the droop control is used to regulate and dispatch power sured voltage amplitude and the reference voltage amplitude is
flow for multiple lithium-ion battery modules on the dc side of sent to a PI controller to generate iq reference.
the hybrid power system. With the SOC information, the five Equations (4) and (5) show the ac-side voltage equations
battery modules are ranked based on their SOC. With the SOC of the bidirectional ac/dc inverter in abc and dq coordinates,
rank and the measured dc-bus voltage, a central aggregator cal- respectively, where (Va , Vb , Vc ) are the ac-side voltages of
culates and assigns the droop coefficient to each battery module. the inverter, and (Ea , Eb , Ec ) are the voltages of the ac bus.
Each bidirectional dc–dc converter can generate its charging rate (Δa , Δb , Δc ) are the adjusting signals after the PI controller in
with the droop coefficient. the current-control loop
⎡ ⎤ ⎡ ⎤ ⎡ ⎤ ⎡ ⎤ ⎡ ⎤
C. Bidirectional AC/DC Converter i ia Va Ea Δa
d ⎣ a⎦
Lac ib + Rac ⎣ ib ⎦ = ⎣ Vb ⎦ − ⎣ Eb ⎦ + ⎣ Δb ⎦ (4)
In a grid-connected mode, the ac side can be viewed as an dt
ic ic Vc Ec Δc
infinite bus; therefore, the deviation of the voltage amplitude and
    
frequency can be ignored. In this case, the bidirectional ac/dc d id −Rac ωLac id
Lac =
converter only needs to regulate the dc-bus voltage. In order to dt iq −ωLac −Rac iq
operate in unit power factor, reference iq can be set as 0.      
The controller only needs to control the id , which controls V E Δd
+ d − d + . (5)
the active power flow through the converter. The control block Vq Eq Δq
MA et al.: CONTROL OF A HYBRID AC/DC MICROGRID INVOLVING ENERGY STORAGE AND PULSED LOADS 571

TABLE II
HYBRID MICROGRID SYSTEM PARAMETERS

Symbol Description Vaule

Cpv Solar panel capacitor 100 µF

Lpv Inductor for solar panel boost converter 5 mH
Cd DC-bus capacitor 6000 µF
Lac AC-filter inductor 1.2 mH
Rac Inverter equivalent resistance 0.3 Ω
Lb Battery converter inductor 3.3 mH
Rb Resistance of L b 0.5 Ω
f Rated ac-grid frequency 60 Hz
Vd Rated dc-bus voltage 300 V
Vm Rated ac-bus p–p voltage (rms) 208 K
n1/n2 Transformer ratio 1:1

Here, R is typically formulated with the maximum and min-

imum power outputs of the DG Pm ax and Pm in . The no-load
and full-load frequencies, fNL and fFL , are normally chosen
as the bounds which the system frequency must not cross. The
secondary-level control covers the residual frequency error and
Fig. 6. Control block diagram for a bidirectional ac/dc converter in an islanded puts back the frequency value to 60 Hz.
mode.

IV. SIMULATION AND EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

Fig. 7. Droop control implementation.
When the pulse load is connected or disconnected to the ac
side, the frequency or voltage amplitude changes. After de-
tecting the deviation using the phase-locked loop or voltage
transducer, Id and Iq reference signals are adjusted to regulate
power flow through the bidirectional ac/dc inverter. Because of
the power flow deviation, the dc-bus voltage is also influenced.
The dc-bus voltage transistor senses the voltage variation in dc
bus, and the bidirectional dc/dc converter regulates the current
flow between the battery and the dc bus. In the end, the energy
is transferred between the battery and the ac side to balance the
power flow.
For further frequency and voltage regulation, a droop con-
trol is implemented for solving the microgrid primary control
problem as shown in Fig. 7. Synchronous generator and grid-tie
inverter adjust their power output according to the no-load speed
setting with respect to the system frequency. The power output
for any given system frequency can be controlled. The no-load
frequency of a given generator can be set to obtain any desired
power output according to its droop slope R
fNL = P (fNL − fFL )/(Pm ax − Pm in ) + fsys
fNL = − P · R + fsys .
The operation of the hybrid microgrid is tested on both simu-
lation environment and experimental setup. 10.07-kW PV farm
under the influence of a 10-kW pulse load is applied to verify
the proposed hybrid microgrid control. The total rated power
of the synchronous generators is 13.8 kW, and a 4-kW constant
load is connected in the ac side. Five 51.8-V 21-Ah Lithium-ion
battery banks are connected individually to dc bus through the
bidirectional dc/dc converters with the rated power of 10 kW.
The rated power of the grid-tied bidirectional ac/dc inverter is
26 kW. In steady state, the hybrid ac/dc system is operated with
300-V rated dc-bus voltage and 208 V, phase-to-phase ac-bus
voltage. Further system parameters for hybrid microgrid are
listed in Table II.
A. Simulation Results
In both the grid-connected mode and islanded mode, to max-
imize the utilization of renewable energy, the boost converter
works in on-MPPT mode to keep seeking the maximum output
power from the PV farm. The MPPT of the boost converter is
enabled at 0.4 s. The output power, the terminal voltage of the
PV panel, the duty cycle of the boost converter, and the solar
irradiance levels are shown in Fig. 8. For general study, two
kinds of solar irradiance deviation with different charging rates
are used. Before 0.4 s, the duty cycle is set at 0.5, the terminal
voltage of the PV panel is 149 V, and the output power from the
PV panel is only 9.56 kW. After the MPPT is enabled, the duty
cycle is decreased to 0.45 and the terminal voltage is increased
to 165 V. This allows the PV panel to reach the maximum power
output of 10.07 kW. The simulation results show that the boost
converter, with MPPT functionality, can track the maximum
(6) power point within a short response time.
In a grid-connected mode, the dc-bus voltage is regulated
(7) by the bidirectional ac/dc converter. In this mode, the ac side
572 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 53, NO. 1, JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017
Fig. 8. PV output power control with a MPPT.
Fig. 9. Hybrid microgrid performance in a grid-connected mode.
can be viewed as an infinite bus; therefore, the 10-kW resistive
pulse load that is connected to the ac side would not have an
influence on the grid. Therefore, only the dc pulse load case is
studied. Fig. 9(a) shows the dc-bus voltage. The bidirectional
ac/dc converter was enabled at 0.05 s. Before being enabled, it
operates as an uncontrolled rectifier. After enabling the bidirec-
tional converter, the dc-bus voltage reached steady state in less
than 0.3 s. During this period, the solar irradiance is 1 kW/m2.
From 0.4 to 1.7 s, the system under two kinds of solar irradiance
variations is simulated. The output power from PV decreased
from 10 to 2.5 kW in 0.3 s, and recovered back from 2.5 to
10 kW also in 0.3 s. After that the PV output decreased from 10
to 2.5 kW in 0.05 s at 1.3 s, and it went back from 2.5 to 10 kW
at 1.65 s. The PV output power is shown in Fig. 9(b). The dc-bus
voltage was stable and stayed in the range of 293 to 307 V dur-
ing this process; therefore, the bidirectional converter can keep
the dc side stable under rapid alteration of solar irradiance and
PV output power. From 2 to 2.8 s, the charging/discharging of
battery banks impact to the dc bus is simulated. At 2 s, the cur-
rent references of the bidirectional dc/dc converters of those five
batteries were changed from 0 to −4 A, which means discharg-
ing those battery banks with 4 A. At 2.4 s, the current references
of the bidirectional dc/dc converters of the five battery banks
were changed from 0 to 4 A. At this point, the system began
charging the battery banks. The current flow of one bidirection
dc/dc converter is shown in Fig. 9(c). During this period, the
dc-bus voltage was still stable with less than 3-V voltage de-
viation. From 3 to 3.5 s, a 10-kW resistive load is connected
to the dc bus. During the connection and disconnection of the
10-kW pulse load, the bidirectional ac/dc inverter active power
flow was greatly changed to regulate the dc-bus voltage. The
dc bus was still stable, within 12-V voltage deviation, during
the transient response. The power flow through the bidirectional
ac/dc inverter is shown in Fig. 9(d). After the system entered
steady state, the system kept the unit power factor as the reactive
power was 0. The active power flow varied with the solar irra-
diance influence, battery banks charging/discharging influence,
and pulse load influence. The bidirectional inverter can quickly
adjust the power flow.
B. Experimental Result
Complementary to simulation results and extension of [16],
the real-time experimental performance of the hybrid microgrid
is tested under islanding and pulsed load conditions. The is-
landing experiment was realized by opening the circuit breaker
of PMU2, shown in Fig. 1. Fig. 10 illustrates the islanding
transition of the microgrid and the corresponding primary and
secondary controls. Primary control is the immediate response
of the synchronous generator, and the grid-tie inverter arrests
deviations in power system frequency. Secondary control ad-
justs the dispatchable assets shortly after frequency and voltage
deviations to restore the system to nominal operating conditions.
1) Islanding of a Hybrid AC/DC Microgrid: The objective
of this experiment is to present proper centrally coordinated
actions to reinstate frequency to its nominal value. In a con-
ventional power system operation approach, if an uncontrolled
islanding is formed due to emergency conditions, the primary
control responds rapidly according to droop adjustments of the
generators inside the island. Droop-based primary control de-
viates the frequency from the nominal value, according to the
system loading conditions. Upon separation, it may be neces-
sary to shed some of the predetermined loads in the islanded
area in order to balance generation and load. The measurements
are taken from synchrophasors deployed on the ac side of the
microgrid [20]. During the synchronized operation, the islanded
power system was importing power from the remote power sys-
tem. When the islanding situation takes place at t = 130 s, the
imported power becomes zero
ΔP (t) = PGen(t) − PLoad(t) − Pim p ort(t) . (8)
As per (9), the power imbalance inside the microgrid results
in a frequency drift in the islanded area
2Htot dfs
ΔP (t) = (Pgen (t) − Pload (t)) = . (9)
fn dt
MA et al.: CONTROL OF A HYBRID AC/DC MICROGRID INVOLVING ENERGY STORAGE AND PULSED LOADS 573

Fig. 10. Islanding of a hybrid ac/dc microgrid.

The active power imbalance introduces frequency deviation swing. Specifically, the microgrid buses are assumed as a two-
in islanded microgrid (9), where Htot is the total inertia, fn is machine system implementing swing equation to determine the
the nominal frequency, and fs is the system frequency [21]. The out-of-step condition in the two-area system.
phase angle difference between the two areas increases. The The classical generator dynamics are defined as
figure shows the oscillation of the phase angle of the system . dωi
generators during primary control. Between t = 130 s and at δ i = ω i Hi = Pm i − Pe i (12)
dt
t = 147 s, the primary control is established. The generation in
the islanded area increases and the frequency settles in a stable
region. At t = 181 s, the system frequency reaches the minimal
value. Automatic generation control (AGC)-based secondary
control is used to restore system frequency to nominal value.
A common way to enable the AGC in power systems is to
implement a PI controller. An area control error in a power
system is given as (10), where B is the frequency bias factor,
ΔPT is the deviation of the active power balance in area, and
ΔPAGC is the control command to be sent to the grid-tie inverter.
β 1 and β 2 are the PI control coefficients
ACE = ΔPT + BΔf
ΔPAGC = − β1 ACE − β2 ∫ ACEdt. (10)
In real-time applications, angular stability is measured by the
difference in generator voltage angles of the two points and
compared with a predefined threshold angle during pulsed load
ΔθPM U 1 − ΔθPM U 2 ≤ ε (11)
where ε is defined as the tolerance in degrees. The tolerance
in this study is selected to be 10°. When the angular separation
between two PMU measurements is exceeded, the instability
should check whether the system is in a stable or unstable

n
Pe i = Ei2 Yii cos θii + Ei Ej Yij cos(δi − δj −θij ) (13)
j=1
j = 1
where Hi is the inertia constant of ith generator, δi is the internal
voltage angle of ith generator, ωi is the rotor speed of the ith
generator, Pe i /Pm i are the electrical/mechanical output powers
of the ith generator, Ei , Ej are the voltages behind transient
reactance, and Y is the admittance matrix reduced at the internal
generator node.
2) Performance During Pulsed Loads: To further verify the
proposed control algorithm for a hybrid ac–dc power system
operation with pulse load mitigation, a hardware experiment is
demonstrated. PMUs are connected to synchronous generator
and grid-tie inverter buses. System frequency and voltage varia-
tions, phase angle displacement, and pulsed loading are shown in
Fig. 11. A 4-kW pulsed load is applied three consecutive times.
It is noticed that the system frequency experiences an oscillation
during the transition, which eventually settles to the reference
value. The terminal voltage experiences temporary spikes dur-
ing transition as well, and it settled within limits due to reactive
power control inside the island. The phase angle displacement
between microgrid buses is kept under 10° threshold. From the
results, it can be seen that during the pulse load duration, the
574 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 53, NO. 1, JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017
Fig. 11. Consecutive pulsed loads and system disturbance.
dc microgrid can inject power to help the system regulate the
frequency, and the frequency only dropped to around 57.5 Hz.
The voltage dropped to around 115 V. The proposed coordi-
nated converter control was able to perfectly mitigate frequency
and voltage dips according to pulsed loading. The islanded low-
inertia hybrid microgrid was able to withstand the pulsed loading
conditions.
V. CONCLUSION
In this paper, a coordinated power flow control method of
multipower electronic devices is proposed for a hybrid ac/dc
microgrid operated in both grid connected and islanded modes.
The microgrid consists of a PV module, a battery bank, and
a synchronous generator that supply energy to its dc and ac
side. Battery banks are connected to the dc bus through bidi-
rectional dc/dc converter. The ac side and dc side are linked by
the bidirectional ac/dc inverter. The control algorithms are tested
with the harsh influence of pulse loads and islanding conditions.
The simulation and experimental results show that the proposed
microgrid with the control algorithm can greatly increase the
system stability and robustness.
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Tan Ma (M’16) received the B.Eng. degree in au-
tomation and the M.E. degree in control theory and
control engineering from Huazhong University of
Science and Technology, Wuhan, China, in 2007 and
2009, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical
and computer engineering from Florida International
University, Miami, FL, USA, in 2015.
He is currently a post-doc Researcher at the Florida
International University. His research interests in-
clude power system operations, control and protec-
tion, artificial intelligence applications to power sys-
tems, energy conservation and alternate energy sources, and smart grid power
systems design and optimization.
MA et al.: CONTROL OF A HYBRID AC/DC MICROGRID INVOLVING ENERGY STORAGE AND PULSED LOADS
Mehmet Hazar Cintuglu (S’12) received the B.S.
and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Gazi
University, Ankara, Turkey, in 2008 and 2011, re-
spectively. He is currently working toward the Ph.D.
degree at the Energy Systems Research Laboratory,
Electrical and Computer Engineering Department,
College of Engineering and Computing, Florida In-
ternational University, Miami, FL, USA.
From 2009 to 2011, he was a Power Systems
Project Engineer with an electric utility company in
Turkey. His current research interests include multia-
gent systems, distributed control, cyber-physical systems for active distribution
networks, and microgrids.
575
Osama A. Mohammed (F’94) received the Master’s
and Doctoral degrees in electrical engineering from
Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA, in 1981 and
1983, respectively.
He is currently a Professor of electrical engineer-
ing and the Director of the Energy Systems Research
Laboratory, Florida International University, Miami,
FL, USA. He is a world renowned leader in the elec-
trical energy systems. His research interests include
power and energy systems in addition to design op-
timization and physics passed modeling in electric
drive systems and other low-frequency environments, electromagnetic signa-
ture, widebandgap devices and switching, and ship power systems modeling
and analysis. His current active research projects for several Federal agencies
deal with; power system analysis and operation, smart grid distributed control
and interoperability, cyber-physical systems, and codesign of cyber and physical
components for future energy systems applications.