IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 56, NO.
3, MAY/JUNE 2020
Event-Driven Distributed Active and Reactive Power
Dispatch for CCVSI-Based Distributed
Generators in AC Microgrids
Jingang Lai , Senior Member, IEEE, Xiaoqing Lu , Senior Member, IEEE,
Antonello Monti , Senior Member, IEEE, and Rik W. De Doncker, Fellow, IEEE
Abstract—This article presents a novel distributed event-driven
control strategy that will dispatch and share the active and reac-
tive power outputs of massive current-controlled voltage source
inverter (CCVSI)-based distributed generators (DGs) in an ac mi-
crogird. The proposed distributed power sharing control strategy
is fully distributed and only driven at their own event time, which
effectively reduces the frequency of controller updates compared
with continuous-time feedback control. Moreover, each CCVSI-
based DG only requires the local voltage and current measurement
from its own and some nearest neighbors (but not all) for the
distributed power sharing control at the last event-driven time
by using low-bandwidth communication links and then, updates
the control inputs to restore the active and reactive powers to
desired values for further reducing the consumption of comput-
ing and communication resources to some extent. The Lyapunov
technique is employed to derive the stability and convergence
analysis of the proposed dynamic event-driven conditions. The
effectiveness of the proposed control strategy is verified under
various scenarios by a modified IEEE 34-bus test network in
MATLAB/SimPowerSystems.
Index Terms—Distributed cooperative control, event-driven
communication, islanded ac microgrid, power sharing.
NOMENCLATURE
N Number of CCVSI-based DGs in an ac microgrid.
vigd (vigq ) Direct and quadrature components of feeder bus
voltage vig .
Manuscript received October 21, 2019; revised December 31, 2019; accepted
January 28, 2020. Date of publication February 6, 2020; date of current version
April 24, 2020. This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China under Grant 61773158, in part by the Natural Science Foun-
dation of Hunan Province under Grant 2018JJ2051, in part by the Fundamental
Research Funds for the Central Universities under Grant 2042019kf0186, and in
part by the Humboldt Research Council of Germany under Grant HB1807005.
Paper 2019-IACC-1350.R1, presented at the 2019 IEEE Energy Conversion
Congress and Exposition, Baltimore, MD, USA, Sep. 29–Oct. 3, and approved
for publication in the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS by the
Industrial Automation and Control Committee of the IEEE Industry Applications
Society. (Corresponding author: Xiaoqing Lu.)
J. Lai, A. Monti, and R. W. De Doncker are with E.ON Energy Re-
search Center, RWTH Aachen University, 52074 Aachen, Germany (e-mail:
jinganglai@126.com; amonti@eonerc.rwth-aachen.de; post_erc@eonerc.rwth-
aachen.de).
X. Lu is with the School of Electrical Engineering and Automation, Wuhan
University, Wuhan 430072, China (e-mail: luxq@whu.edu.cn).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this article are available online
at https://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIA.2020.2971864
0093-9994 © 2020 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See https://www.ieee.org/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
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3125
igd gq
i (ii ) Direct and quadrature components of output current
igi from inverter.
Pi (Qi ) Measured active (reactive) power.
igd (i gq
iref iref ) Current references of output current igd gq
i (ii ).
iP iI
Ki (Ki ) Proportional-integral (PI) control coefficients of
output current i.
Li (Ri ) LR filter’s inductor (impedance) of DGi .
G(Ḡ) Communication network digraph among all DGs
(including the virtual leader DG).
A(L, D) Adjacency (Laplacian, degree) matrix of G.
B Leader adjacency matrix associated with Ḡ.
υiP (υiQ ) Active (reactive) power sharing controllers.
αi (βi ) Active (reactive) power output ratios.
Pimax Maximum capacity of Pi .
Qmax
i Maximum capacity of Qi .
I. INTRODUCTION
ITH the massive penetration of renewable distributed
W generators (DGs), the conventional power system is be-
coming increasingly complex in terms of operation and control.
As one promising solution, microgrids can integrate a large
number of DG units, loads, and storage systems using fast
acting power inverters [e.g., current-controlled voltage source
inverter (CCVSI) and voltage-controlled voltage source inverter
(VCVSI)] [1], [2]. The microgrid can enter the islanded op-
eration mode due to the preplanned scheduling or unplanned
disturbances; thus, some DGs must be exploited in the VCVSI
mode to provide fast voltage/frequency support [3]. CCVSIs
should provide active and reactive power supports for VCVSIs
by compensating a portion of the active and reactive power
required for the voltage and frequency restoration. This tradition
arises several technical challenges among which effective power
dispatched and controlled challenge among CCVSI-based DGs
[e.g., photovoltaic (PV) generators] is the most significant [4],
[5] to avoid overloading the DGs, as different types of gen-
erators may have different power generation capacities. Then,
appropriate power dispatching and sharing strategies should be
developed to adjust the power injections of generators to satisfy
the capacity constraint, building a desired distribution of the
power outputs to meet the load demand in the microgrid [6], [7].
Due to the distributed nature of the DGs, distributed control
strategies are required to improve the stability, scalability, and
3126
security of the system. Multiagent-based distributed control
strategy has become popular nowadays in controlling PV in-
verters [8], [9] due to its robustness to individual agent errors,
scalability with respect to increased number of agents, and
reduced computational load. A distributed cooperative control
strategy was proposed in [10] for power sharing of multiple
DGs, where the proportional power sharing can be realized by
employing the local communication. In order to regulate the
power flow of a large amount of DGs, in [11], a pinning-based
distributed communication scheme was presented for microgird
regulation under time delay communication conditions, which
is beneficial for the requirements of line switches and plug-
and-play operation for microgirds. For restoring the voltage and
frequency and maintaining the power sharing of a microgird, the
work in [12] presented a distributed control scheme for micro-
gird regulation under uncertain communication links. In [13],
a robust distributed control for voltage/frequency restoration
has been addressed to tolerate the coupling delays and slow
switching topologies. Furthermore, in [14], a novel distributed
noise-resilient control algorithm was presented, considering the
stochastic dynamic systems of microgirds, to achieve voltage
synchronization. A novel distributed resilient method for the
optimal secondary control of a VCVSI-based microgird has been
proposed considering the noise and limited-width communica-
tion in [15].
The ones mentioned above were based on an explicit as-
sumption that data communication among DGs is performed
either continually at every time instant or periodically at equidis-
tant sampling instants. However, the communication network
of a distribution microgrid system usually has limited band-
width; therefore, high data flows from information exchange
among neighbors may lead to detrimental consequences such as
high costs, traffic congestion, and limits on critical monitoring
and protection functions [16]–[18]. As a result, designing a
communication-saving strategy for distributed control schemes
of microgrids becomes an essential but challenging issue. In this
scenario, as a good digital control scheme, event-driven com-
munication can significantly reduce those unnecessary sample-
state transmissions and make effective use of the communi-
cation network [19]–[22]. Recently, this method has attracted
much interest from researchers in the field of power systems,
see, e.g. [23]–[26]. A self-triggered algorithm is proposed in
[22] to solve the voltage regulation problem for microgrids.
In [23], distributed reactive power sharing for inverter-based
microgrids with event-driven communication is investigated. To
fairly allocate total loads to different generators, a distributed
event-driven average consensus algorithm is introduced in [24],
where the initial values of the variables need to be imposed on
maximum capacity of generations and local load demands. But,
the algorithm in [25] is not involved with the issue of frequency
regulation. In [26], distributed secondary control considering
an event-driven communication strategy is proposed to achieve
frequency and voltage restoration, whereas the initial supply
and demand balance is required. A distributed event-driven
cooperative control framework is presented in [26] to realize
power sharing and voltage control in inverter-based dc mi-
crogrids. Moreover, the event-driven mechanisms in [24] and
[25] require monitoring and computing event-driven conditions
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 56, NO. 3, MAY/JUNE 2020
continuously, which results in much operational burden of
algorithm implementation. Based on the observation above, it
is, therefore, critical to design new event-driven communica-
tion mechanisms such that communication consumption can
be reduced significantly while accurate power sharing can be
maintained.
With mainly the aforementioned inspirations, in this article,
an event-driven distributed cooperative control scheme has been
proposed to save the limited network resource while preserving
the desired power flow control performance. Moreover, a novel
event-driven communication algorithm is developed to deter-
mine each DG’s event-driven time dynamically, and thus, sig-
nificantly decreasing the unnecessary utilization of limited com-
munication resources. Furthermore, the Lyapunov technique is
employed to devise the stability and convergence analysis of
the proposed dynamic event-driven conditions. Accordingly,
the requirement for precise real-time information transmission
among DGs is relaxed. There are three main features in this
article as follows.
1) Different from the existing distributed cooperative
schemes that achieve the power sharing among CCVSI-
based DGs through periodic communication [1], [4], [10]
and [22], the proposed fully distributed cooperative con-
trol strategy can achieve effective power sharing chal-
lenge by employing event-driven communication mech-
anism. The event-driven communication mechanism for
data transmission reduces the amount of communication
among DGs.
2) Due to the particular dynamic characteristics of CCVSI-
based DGs, the existing methods for VCVSI-based DGs in
ac microgrids [25], [26] or dc microgrids [23] are generally
difficult to be directly applied here, which makes the
current results essentially different from the event-based
control for VCVSI-based ac or dc microgrids. Moreover,
the proposed event-driven control algorithm can determine
each DG’s event-driven time in advance; it is not necessary
to monitor and compute event-driven conditions continu-
ously which results in much operational burden of algo-
rithm implementation. Therefore, the proposed algorithm
naturally reduces costly computing of local controllers
and communication resources to some extent, which is
different from the previous event-driven methods used in
[23]–[26]. The accurate active and reactive power sharing
will also be achieved by using the proposed distributed
cooperative control approach with the local controller de-
sign method; moreover, analysis on the transient stability
of overall microgrid is proposed.
3) Since all DGs merely need a partial and limited knowledge
of the control parameters from their neighbors and per-
form only local measurements, the proposed distributed
secondary scheme only needs to be implemented on local
DG controllers, which can be more reliable and more
robust. Compared with the traditional hierarchical con-
trol structure of microgrids [6], [7], [9], the designed
framework is a totally distributed implementation of pri-
mary and secondary control layers, which enhances the
redundancy and enables the plug-and-play function in
microgrids.
LAI et al.: EVENT-DRIVEN DISTRIBUTED ACTIVE AND REACTIVE POWER DISPATCH FOR CCVSI-BASED DISTRIBUTED GENERATORS 3127


+ KiiI (igd gd
iref − ii )dt

viAC∗q = vigq + ωicom Lfi igd iP gq gq

i + Ki (iiref − ii )

+ Ki iI
(igq gq
iref − ii ) dt (3)

where the PI control coefficients for output current i are KiiP

and KiiI , respectively.
We assume the inverter bridge produces the demanded voltage
Fig. 1. General configuration of CCVSI-based DGi unit connected to a viAC∗ = viAC (i.e., viAC∗d = viACd and viAC∗q = viAVq ), then the
microgrid. dynamics of the output RL filter are
digd
Lfi i
= − Rif igd
i + ωi
com f gq
Li ii + viACd − vigd
The remaining part of this article is organized as follows. dt
In Section II, we formulate the microgird control problem and digq
give some preliminaries. Section III proposes a novel distributed Lfi i = − Rif igq i − ωi
com f gd
Li ii + viACq − vigq . (4)
dt
event-driven control strategy which is employed for realizing
In light of equations (1)–(4), the large-signal dynamical model
power sharing for CCVSI-based DGs, and then, presents the sta-
of the CCVSI-based DGi unit can be written in the following
bility analysis of the closed-loop microgird system with a strict
form of generalized nonlinear systems:
Lyapunov function. Some simulation studies are performed in
Section IV to validate the effectiveness of our proposed scheme. ẋi = f (xi ) + d(xi )ui + γ(xi )Di
Conclusions are given in Section V.
yi = h(xi ) (5)
II. PROBLEM FORMULATION AND ANALYSIS where xi = [igd gq T
i , ii ] denotes the state vector of the DGi unit

A. Dynamic Model of CCVSI-Based DGs and Di = [ω com , vigd , vigq ] can be considered as a known distur-
bance quantity. The expressions of f (xi ), d(xi ), and γ(xi ) can
The d–q reference frame transformation is adopted, where the be extracted from equations (1)–(4) in detail.
d-axis and q-axis of the reference frame of each CCVSI-based
DG are rotating with the common reference frequency ω com B. Basic Concepts and Results on Algebra Graph Theory
as shown in Fig. 1. The phase-locked loop (PLL) is utilized
to synchronize the given phase angle strictly according to the In this article, a directed graph is employed to describe the
microgrid’s voltage requirement for the DG. In addition, Lfi communication topology of the ac microgrid consisting of N
and Rif represent the inductance and resistance of the output CCVSI-based DGs. The nodes in the digraph denote the DGs
filter between the DGi unit and the feeder bus, respectively. For and the edges represent the communication links among DGs.
the DGi unit, its local active power and reactive powers can be Let G(V, ε, A) denote a digraph with a nonempty finite set of N
expressed as [10] nodes V = {v1 , v2 , . . . , vN }, a set of edges ε ⊆ V × V, and the
corresponding adjacency matrix A = (aij )N ×N (i, j ∈ V) with
Pi = vigd igd gq gq gq gd gd gq
i + v i ii , Q i = v i ii − v i ii (1) aij meaning the connection weight. The arc (i, j) ∈ ε denotes
that node j can receive information from node i. The weight
where vigd and vigq are the direct and quadrature components of aij > 0 if and only if (i, j) ∈ ε. Otherwise, aii = 0. The set of
feeder bus voltage vig , igd gq
i and ii are the direct and quadrature neighbors of the ith DG is presented as Ni = {j ∈ V|(i, j) ∈ ε}.
components of output current igi from inverter, and Pi and Qi Define the in-degree matrix D = diag{d1 , . . . , dN } with di =
are the measured active and reactive powers, respectively. 
j∈Ni aij . Thus, the Laplacian matrix is given as L = D − A,
The local power control (1) of the DGi in d–q synchronous which has all row sums equal to zero, and satisfies L1N = 0
frame with the d-axis voltage aligning with the bus terminal with 1N = (1, . . . , 1)T ∈ RN . The digraph G is called balanced
voltage (i.e., vigd = vig and vigq = 0) can be abstracted as if its Laplacian matrix L meets 1TN L = 0. A digraph is said
to have a spanning tree if, there exists a node (called the
Pi = vigd igd gd gq
i , Qi = −vi ii . (2)
root) that has a directed path from this node to other nodes
From (2), we can see that the active and reactive powers Pi and in the digraph. The diagonal matrix B = diag{a10 , . . . , aN 0 }
Qi can be controlled by the currents igd gq
i and ii , respectively.
denotes the leader adjacency matrix associated with Ḡ, where
That is to say, as long as the currents ii and igq
gd ai0 > 0 if DG0 is a neighbor of the ith DG and ai0 = 0
i can track
the current references igd and i gq
, respectively, the active and otherwise.
iref iref
reactive powers Pi and Qi are able to be controlled.
Furthermore, the dynamics of the current controller can be III. EVENT-DRIVEN DISTRIBUTED POWER
expressed as SHARING CONTROL FRAMEWORK
  The control objectives of the event-driven distributed co-
viAC∗d = vigd − ωicom Lfi igq
i + Ki
iP
igd
iref − ii
gd
operative control strategy are to achieve accurate active and

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3128 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 56, NO. 3, MAY/JUNE 2020

reactive power sharing, that is, allocating the active and reactive For the above-mentioned purpose, recall the dynamic (2), it
power of CCVSI-based DGs based on their power ratings. As is clear that Pi and Qi can be, respectively, tuned by controlling
analyzed above, the distributed cooperative control problems the direct and quadrature terms of the output currents igd i and
in microgrid resemble the synchronous tracking problems of igq
i , while i gd
i and i gq
i can be controlled by the output current
multiagent systems. Thus, one leader needs to be decided in references igd gq
iref and iiref , respectively. Therefore, the output yi
the microgrid system to set references for other DGs. Then, and control input ui in nonlinear dynamics (5) can be set as
other DGs track the leader’s information by communicating yiP = P Pmax
i
and uP gd
i
i = iiref for the active power control, and
with its neighbors only. Accordingly, we will design event-
driven distributed cooperative control strategy to synchronize yiQ = QQmaxi
and uQ gq
i = iiref for the reactive power control.
i

active and reactive powers to their desired values, finally, al- In order to provide an implementation process in detail, by
locating proportionally the active and reactive powers among differentiating equation (2), we can obtain
DGs. Thus, it will benefit the utilization of the distributed Ṗi = v̇igd igd gd gd
Q̇i = −v̇igd igq gd gq
i + vi i̇i i − vi i̇i . (7)
energy resources, and enhance the power supply reliability and
flexibility. By substituting (3) and (4) to (7), the following dynamics of
the DGi unit can be obtained in eq. (8) shown at the bottom of
A. Event-Driven Distributed Power Sharing Control this page. For simplicity and readability, denote
 
In this subsection, how to realize the proportional load sharing v̇ gd gd
i v gd
R f
gq v gd
profile will be addressed, according to which all DGs in a ΠPi (xi ) =
i i
+ maxi
− f + ωicom ii − i f
i
Pimax Pi Li Li
microgrid are controlled to operate with the same active and
reactive power output ratios (i.e., all DGs share the total load 
vigd
proportionally according to their power ratings). Then, the ac- + max v gd + ωicom Lfi igq iP gd
i − k i ii
Pi Lfi i
tive and reactive power output ratios of the DGi unit can be   
written as
+ kiiI igd
i dt
Pi Qi
= αi = βi (6)
Pimax Qmax
i vigd
ΨP
i (xi ) = (9)
where αi and βi denote the output ratios of active and re- Pi Lfi
max

active powers, which imply the utilization percentages of the  

DGi unit, Pimax and Qmax v̇igd igq vigd Rif vigd
i denote the maximum capacities ΠQ
i (xi ) = − max + max − f + ωi ii − f
i com gd

of Pi and Qi , respectively. It is worth noting that the objec- Qi Qi Li Li

tive of interconnected DGs achieving proportional
N power shar- 
ing means to maintain αi = αj = N1 vigd
j=1 αj (0), βi = βj = + max v gd + ωicom Lfi igd iP gq
i − k i ii
N Qi Lfi i
j=1 βj (0) for all i = j ∈ {1, 2, . . . , N } in the steady state,
1
N 
where αj (0) and βj (0) denote the initial values of active and iI gq
+ ki (ii ) dt
reactive power output for jth DG, respectively.

 
Ṗi 1   1 v gd  
= v̇igd igd
i + vigd i̇gd
i = v̇igd igd
i + i f −Rif igd
i + ω com f gd
i L i
i i + v ACd
i − v gd
i
Pimax Pimax Pimax Li
     
v̇igd igd vigd Rif com gq vigd vigd gd com f gq iP gd
= max + max − f + ωi ii − f + max f vi + ωi Li ii − ki ii + ki
i iI
igd
i dt
Pi Pi Li Li P i Li

   
vigd iP gd iI gd
+ k i + k i iref dt
Pimax Lfi i iref i

 
Q̇i 1  gd gq gd gq
 1 gd gq vigd  f gq com f gd ACq gq

= max −v̇i ii − vi i̇i = max −v̇i ii − f −Ri ii + ωi Li ii + vi − vi
Qmax
i Qi Qi Li
   
v̇igd igq vigd Rif com gd vigd vigd gd com f gd iP gq gq
= − max + max − f + ωi ii − f + max
i
v + ω i L i
i i − k i
i i + k iI
i (i ) dt
Qi Qi Li Li Qi Lfi i i

 
vigd iP gq iI gq
+ max f ki iiref + ki (iiref ) dt (8)
Q i Li

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LAI et al.: EVENT-DRIVEN DISTRIBUTED ACTIVE AND REACTIVE POWER DISPATCH FOR CCVSI-BASED DISTRIBUTED GENERATORS 3129

vigd that each DG can only access its neighbors’ states. At time
ΨQ
i (xi ) = . (10) instant tiki , the DGi unit and its neighboring DGs measure
Qmax
i Lfi
their own active and reactive power outputs, respectively,
Accordingly, the compact form of (8) can be represented as denoted by Pi (tiki )/Qi (tiki ) and Pj (tiki )/Qj (tiki ) and take the
follows: measurements as their target points, which remain unchanged
Ṗi gd
until the next driving time instant tiki +1 comes. aij are the
= ΠP P
i (xi ) + Ψi (xi ) iiref factors of adjacency matrix. ai0 are the factors of virtual leader
Pimax
matrix.
Q̇i
= ΠQ Q gq
i (xi ) + Ψi (xi ) iiref . (11)
Qmax
i
B. Stability Analysis of the Closed-Loop System With a Strict
Lyapunov Function
Then, we define the active and reactive power sharing controllers
υiP and υiQ as follows: In the following, the Lyapunov technique is employed to
gd
present some stability criteria to guarantee the feasibility of the
υiP = ΠP P
i (xi ) + Ψi (xi ) iiref microgrid model. Taking the active power sharing control for
example, define the following two types of local state measure-
υiQ = ΠQ Q gq
i (xi ) + Ψi (xi ) iiref . (12)
ment errors ei (t) = αi (tiki ) − αi (t), eij (t) = αj (tiki ) − αi (t),
In light of (6), (11), and (12), the proportional power sharing j ∈ Ni for t ∈ [tiki , tiki +1 ). The local state measurement error
problem can be treated as the following consensus problem: represents the active power sharing deviation that the present
time states deviate from the last sample time states, and when
Ṗi
= α̇i (t) = υiP the local state measurement error of the DGi unit reaches a
Pimax time-varying threshold prescribed in the following, the event is
Q̇i driven, and then, the DGi unit transmits the measured state and
= β̇i (t) = υiQ . (13) begins to update its controllers.
Qmax
i
Now, the global neighborhood tracking error for the ac-
If we can design the power sharing controllers υiP and υiQ such tive powers can be defined as εi (t) = αi (t) − αref , for i =
that (11) is satisfied, then the control inputs igd gq
iref and iiref can be
1, . . . , N , from (2)–(4), we deduce the following error system:
calculated as ⎡ ⎤

P −1
P  
i  

igd υi −ΠP ε̇i (t) = aij eij tki − ⎣ aij + ai0 ⎦ ei tiki
iref = Ψi (xi ) i (xi )
 −1   j∈Ni j∈Ni

igq = Ψ Q
(x ) υ Q
−ΠQ
(x ) . (14) ⎡ ⎤
i i
iref i i i
 
It is easy to find that the conventional periodic communication + aij εj (t) − ⎣ aij + ai0 ⎦ εj (t). (16)
j∈Ni j∈Ni
methods are utilized for the proposed power sharing controllers
υiP and υiQ to achieve the power sharing synchronization, Let ε(t) = (ε1 (t), . . . , εN (t))T , e(t) = (e1 (t), . . . , eN (t))T ,
which may bring significant communication burden. Thus, the ẽi (t) = (ei1 (t), . . . , eiN (t))T , ẽ(t) = (ẽT1 (t), . . . , ẽTN (t))T .
proposed controllers υiP and υiQ will be developed based on
 = diag{a10 , . . . , aN 0 }, D =T diag{d
B 1 , . . . , dN } with di =
j∈Ni aij , α = (α1 , . . . , αN ) ∈ R , and α = αref 1N ∈
the distributed pinning control protocol employing event-driven N ref
communication mechanism to significantly reduce those unnec- N
R . Then, combining (16) and the fact that α̇ = 0, we can ref
essary sample-state transmissions. Herein, it is assumed that deduce the closed-loop error system of the whole dc microgrid
each DG only needs to communicate with its neighboring DGs in a compact matrix form as follows:
through a sparse communication network, and the reference
ratios αref and β ref are generated by a virtual leader DG0 , which ε̇(t) = Ãẽ(t) − (L + B)ε(t) − (D + B)e(t) (17)
where à = diag{A1 , . . . , AN } ∈ RN ×N with Ai = (ai1 , . . . ,
2
are available to a small part or even only one following DG.
With these assumptions, the proposed controllers υiP and υiQ aiN ) ∈ R1×N .
are designed as Consider that each DG can only obtain its neighbors’ mea-





 surements, the event is also computed only depending on local
υiP (t) = aij αj tiki − αi tiki + ai0 αref − αi tiki
information that is available to each DG. We propose the fol-
j∈Ni
 lowing event-driving threshold:





 
υiQ (t) = aij βj tiki − βi tiki + ai0 β ref − βi tiki 


j∈Ni |ei (t)| + ẽi (t) = κ αj ti − αi ti 2 (18)
j∈Niki ki
(15)
for constant κ > 0.
such that limt→+∞ |αi (t) − αref | = 0 and limt→+∞ In order to carry out the developed distributed power sharing
|βi (t) − β ref | = 0 for all i = 1, . . . , N , where t ∈ [tiki , tiki +1 ). controllers based on the event-driven mechanism, an event de-
Assume that 0 = ti0 < ti1 < · · · < tiki < · · · denote the control tector is employed for each DG to determine when the sampled
update time (driving time sequence) instances for DGi and local information should be utilized to update the control actions

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3130 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 56, NO. 3, MAY/JUNE 2020

of itself and its neighbors. The proposed event condition (18) can
guarantee that




|ei (t)| + ẽi (t) ≤ κ αj ti − αi ti 2 . (19)
j∈Ni ki ki

Then, we have the following derivation:

(|ei (t)| + ẽi (t))2



≤ κ2 αj tik − αi tik 2
i i
j∈Ni

= κ2 |εj (t) + eij (t) − εi (t) − ei (t)|2
j∈Ni
 
≤ 2κ2 |εj (t) − εi (t)|2 + |eij (t) − ei (t)|2
j∈Ni
 
≤ 2κ2 2N ε(t)2 + N (|ei (t)| + ẽi (t))2 .

Then,
 we obtain ei (t) + ẽi (t) ≤ ci ε(t), ci =
2κ N/(1 − 2N κ2 ). Thus, we yield
   
    Fig. 2. Overall closed-loop control structure of the proposed distributed power
à ẽi (t) ≤ ci à ε(t) sharing control implemented for the ith CCVSI-based DG in an islanded ac
microgird with a sparse communication topology spanned across the network.
D + B |ei (t)| ≤ ci D + B ε(t) .
Finally, we can get
  for all i = {1, . . . , N }. This is to say one can realize propor-
 
à ẽ(t) + D + B e(t) ≤ ϑ ε(t) (20) tional power sharing α1 = · · · = αN = αref among all DGs in
√ a microgrid. Accordingly, we can achieve DG’s output reactive
where ϑ = 2ci φ N and φ = max{Ã, (D + B)}. power synchronization to the desired reference states through
Let λi be an eigenvalue of matrix L + B. It is evident that replacing slightly α with β. Thus, the conclusion of the pro-
−λi + ϑμ is an eigenvalue of matrix −(L + B) + ϑμIN . If posed event-driven distributed power sharing controllers can be
the real part e (λi − ϑμ) > 0 holds for all i = 1, . . . , N , then, described in Theorem 1.
we can conclude that (L + B) − ϑμIN is an M -matrix [27] Theorem 1: Suppose that the communication digraph Ḡ is
and that there exists a positive definite diagonal matrix Ξ = always containing a spanning directed tree rooted at the virtual
diag{χ1 , . . . , χN } > 0 such that leader DG0 . If mini∈V e (λi (L + B)) > ϑμ, where L is the
[Ξ ((L + B) − ϑμIN )]s > 0 (21) Laplacian matrix of communication network Ḡ, and ϑ and μ
are, respectively, estimated in (20) and (22), then the distributed
where [Ξ((L + B) − ϑμIN )]s represents the symmetrical power sharing controllers (15) can, respectively, pin the output
part of [Ξ((L + B) − ϑμIN )], i.e., {[Ξ((L + B) − ϑμIN )] + ratios of active and reactive powers αi and βi of all DGs to
[Ξ((L + B) − ϑμIN )]T }/2. the reference ratios αref and β ref asymptotically. Finally, the
Consider a Lyapunov function as V (t) = 21 εT (t)Ξε(t), then, proportional active and reactive power sharing among all DGs
by comparing inequality (21), we have in a microgrid can be achieved.
  The overall control block diagram showing the realization of
V̇ (t) = εT (t)Ξ Ãẽ(t) − (L + B)ε(t) − (D + B)e(t) the proposed control scheme is given in Fig. 2 in detail. At each
sampling instant, through the cyber communication network,
≤ − εT (t) [Ξ(L + B)] ε(t) + ϑ Ξ εT (t)ε(t)
each DG broadcasts its state information (i.e., v g and ig ) to
Ξ T their neighbors and also receives their neighboring DGs’ state
≤ − εT (t) [Ξ(L + B)] ε(t) + ϑ ε (t)Ξε(t) information for computing by (2) and (6), which is employed
λmin (Ξ)
for event detection. If inequality (19) is satisfied, no further
= − εT (t)[Ξ(L + B) − ϑμIN ]s ε(t) (22) action is required for this DG; otherwise, this DGi unit will
Ξ update its control actions υiP and υiQ and notify its neighbors to,
where μ = λmin Ξ. respectively, update their control actions αj (t) and βj (t) (i.e.,
Then, from (17), (21), and (22), it can be proved that V̇ (t) < 0 Pj Qj g
P max and Qmax ) by using its current state information (i.e., vj
for all ε = 0. In this situation, we get V (t) → 0, i.e., the output j j

active power ratio αi converges to αref asymptotically by Lya- and igj ). According to the control actions υiP and υiQ , the current
punov stability theorem. Thus, we have limk→∞ αi (tiki ) = αref reference igd gq
iref and iiref are generated for the PI current loop.

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LAI et al.: EVENT-DRIVEN DISTRIBUTED ACTIVE AND REACTIVE POWER DISPATCH FOR CCVSI-BASED DISTRIBUTED GENERATORS 3131

Finally, the current errors are calculated and used to regulate the
outputs of the inverter by pulsewidth modulation (PWM) mode.
As seen in Fig. 2, each DG’s controllers are fully distributed
and only utilize the information of its local and neighboring
units, which can be more flexible and reliable. Additionally,
this distributed fashion makes the microgrid’s operation more
flexible and reliable due to its robustness to individual DG errors
and scalable with respect to the increasing number of DGs,
reduced computational load, and plug-and-paly properties. The
plug-and-play capability leads to the proposed control strategy
becoming robust to topological variations caused by cyber or Fig. 3. Single line diagram of the CCVSI-based DGs and local loads in a
modified IEEE 34-bus microgrid with a sparse communication topology Ḡ.
physical links, switches, or line failures, which is a benefit for
the scalability of the microgrid system (e.g., a new DG plug in TABLE I
or plug out the microgrid system). PARAMETERS FOR THE CCVSI-BASED MICROGRID SYSTEM
Remark 1: The proposed power sharing controllers (15) and
the corresponding event detector (19) are fully distributed. Each
DG does not need to own a global microgrid model and any
knowledge of its neighbors’ dynamics, but it is able to achieve
synchronization via sparsely communicating among them. This
means that in order to determine the updating and communicat-
ing instants, the DGi unit merely demands its local information
and that of its neighbors. Due to the updating of DGs’ control
actions and the communication between DGs arising merely at
certain event instants, the event-driven control can significantly
reduce those unnecessary sample-state transmissions among
DGs. Specifically, if (19) does not hold, an event of the DGi
unit arises. Then, the DGi unit will replace αi (tik ) and βi (tik ) active and reactive powers from the virtual leader DG0 . A
with the new state sampling of αi (t) and βi (t) to update its local communication network providing its required information
controllers (15). Furthermore, it will also transmit the new flows will be employed for the proposed event-driven distributed
sampled information to its neighboring DGs through a sparse power sharing controllers.
communication network. Simultaneously, if an event is driven This article studies the stability and performance of a micro-
by any of DGi ’s neighbors, the DGi unit will receive the sampled grid under various scenarios with a focus on the effectiveness
active and reactive power sharing deviation information from of the proposed event-driven distributed power sharing con-
them. Therefore, the DGi ’s controllers will be updated to a new trol strategy. The simulation studies cover the following five
level. Accordingly, the sample-state transmission will be thus scenarios:
reduced significantly. 1) performance evaluation with load changes;
Remark 2: This novel event-driven mechanism is totally dif- 2) comparison study;
ferent from the existing schemes in [24]–[26], in which DGi unit 3) complex-case operation ability;
executes driving only at its own individual event-driven time 4) communication failure.
instant tiki and then, updates its controllers by utilizing its active The communication topology of the microgrid is depicted in
and reactive power measurement outputs and its neighbors. Fig. 3, which is different from its physical topology. According
This means that DGi ’s controllers will maintain unchanged to Section II-B, we obtain the adjacency matrix of communica-
as a constant υiP (tiki ) and υiQ (tiki ) until its next driving time tion topology G as
instant tiki +1 comes during the time interval [tiki , tiki +1 ). Thus, ⎡ ⎤
0 0.8 0 0 0.8
the number of control updates and the communication among ⎢0.8 0 0 0
⎢ 0⎥⎥
different DGs can be significantly reduced. ⎢ ⎥
A=⎢ 0 0 0 0.8 0 ⎥
⎢ ⎥
⎣0 0 0 0 0.8⎦
IV. PERFORMANCE VALIDATION
0 0 0 0.8 0
To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed event-driven
and the corresponding leader adjacency matrix can be chosen as
distributed power sharing control strategy, the modified IEEE
B = diag{0.8, 0, 0, 0, 0} and take κ = 0.5 in the following.
34-bus [28] test microgrid with multiple CCVSI-based DGs
as shown in Fig. 3, is simulated in the MATLAB/Simulink
software environment for different scenarios. The parameters A. Load Change Performance Assessment
of the test microgrid system are summarized in Table I. Here, The proposed event-driven distributed control strategy is ac-
we assume that only DG1 can receive the desired values of tivated at t = 5 s through the communication network Ḡ shown

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3132 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 56, NO. 3, MAY/JUNE 2020

in Fig. 3, then, its control performance in the situation of load

change is tested here. The reference
 ratios of active andreactive
powers are set to αref = 1/5 5i=1 αi and β ref = 1/5 5i=1 βi ,
which can be merely sent to DG1 . The local loads, Load1 and
Load3 , are removed at t = 9 s, and then, Load1 is added at t =
12 s, according to which all the DGs can achieve proportional
power sharing through the cooperation among them as shown in
Fig. 4. As seen, the power output ratios of each CCVSI-based DG
vary with the change of local loads within the microgrid system;
however, the power sharing among DGs is always maintained, as
shown in Fig. 4(a) and (c). Each DG’s active and reactive power
controllers show that the active and reactive power is shared
successfully in proportion in Fig. 4(b) and (d), respectively.
The five DGs were divided into two categories due to DG1 ,
DG4 and DG2 , DG3 , DG5 owning identical physical characters,
respectively. The interaction during synchronization and load
change is smooth since CCVSI-based DG can respond quickly,
therefore, Fig. 4 illustrates that the proposed distributed power
sharing controllers have the ability to make DGs achieve the
steady state rapidly. However, the event-driven strategy exhibits
a little more oscillation. Additionally, due to the states updating
at the event-driven time, sawtooth waves can be observed in the
proposed distributed event-driven method.

B. Comparison Study
To demonstrate that the proposed event-driven distributed
control strategy can reduce the communication amount between
DGs, the event time instant for DGs under the load change
case is given in Fig. 5. Under the event-driven communication
mechanisms (15), the event instants and data release intervals of
DGs are illustrated in Fig. 5(a), showing clearly that the number
of DG control updates is sporadic rather than at every time
instant. During the 10-s simulation period with the proposed
controllers activated, the communication numbers of DG1 –DG5
generated by these event-driven communication mechanisms
are 366, 469, 390, 295, and 480, respectively. The number
of data transmissions through the communication network is
2000, which implies that only 40% (2000/5000) sampled-data
exchange is needed. Correspondingly, the comparison of data
transmissions under the periodic and event-driven communica-
tion is depicted in Fig. 5(b). It can be seen that the number
of DG control updates is sporadic rather than at every time
instant. It is clearly shown that event-driven communication
mechanisms lead to less consumption of communication than
traditional periodic ones.
The relevant existing results on distributed control for CCVSI-
based microgrids are usually based on periodical communication Fig. 4. Performance of the proposed distributed power sharing control in a
[4], [10], [21]. Therefore, a comparison between the proposed case of load change with the total time steps: (a) active power ratio α; (b) active
power; (c) reactive power ratio β; and (d) reactive power.
event-driven control scheme and the traditional periodical con-
trol ones, using the same control gains, is made here. We repeat
the simulation scenario of Section IV-A. Taking DG5 as an
example, the simulation results under the load change case are scheme. However, the event-driven control method exhibits a
given in Fig. 6. As seen, although using a limited communication little more oscillation. In addition, due to the state updating
bandwidth, the proposed event-driven manner still enables a at the event-driven time instants, sawtooth waves can be ob-
similar settling time with that of the traditional control way. served in the event-driven way as shown the zoomed version in
This further proves the effectiveness of the proposed control Fig. 6. Furthermore, Fig. 6 shows he corresponding transients

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LAI et al.: EVENT-DRIVEN DISTRIBUTED ACTIVE AND REACTIVE POWER DISPATCH FOR CCVSI-BASED DISTRIBUTED GENERATORS 3133

Fig. 5. Event-driven broadcast periods of the proposed distributed power

sharing controllers activated at the time instant [5 s, 15 s].

of the microgrid system with respect to load variation. As seen,

the proposed strategy can autonomously adjust itself to achieve
the prescribed proportional utilization among DGs. Meanwhile,
the power outputs of DG5 and its power output ratio increase
due to load shedding.

C. Complex-Case Operation Ability

In reality, a complex-case operation situation (i.e., communi-
cation failure, load change, and plug-and-play at the same time)
can occur in the microgrid. Thus, in this case, we add comparison
simulation to highlight the reliability of the proposed control
algorithm for the complex-case operation situation. Initially,
the operation conditions of the whole system are the same
as that of the above-mentioned load change case. Then, the
proposed event-driven distributed control strategy is activated
at t = 5 s, according to which all DGs can achieve proportional
power sharing in Fig. 7. Further the plug-and-play property in
the DG level of the proposed event-driven distributed control
scheme is studied, where DG3 is physically plugged out and
then, plugged back to the microgrid system at t = 10 s and at
t = 15 s, respectively. Meanwhile, at t = 10 s, Load1 and Load3 ,
respectively, increase active power 20 and 30 kW, furthermore,
at t = 15 s, Load2 and Load4 , respectively, increase active power
demands 17 and 17 kW. In turn, at t = 10 s, Load1 and Load3 ,
respectively, increase reactive power demands 35 and 17 kVar,
furthermore, at t = 15 s, Load2 and Load4 , respectively, increase
reactive power demands 24 and 24 kVar.
As seen in Fig. 7, when DG3 fails at t = 10 s and Load1 and
Load3 increase power demands, the proposed controllers can
render the dynamic changes caused by the effect of complex-
case operation property and maintain transient stability of mi-
crogrid; then, the distributed power sharing control will operate
to increase the output powers of DGs to their prespecified
reference values for power balances. The proposed controllers Fig. 6. Comparison between the proposed event-triggered control scheme and
also readjust the proportional load sharing among the remaining the traditional periodical communication manner of DG5 : (a) active power ratio
DGs. It should be noted that a DG plug out also implies loss α; (b) active power; (c) reactive power ratio β; and (d) reactive power.
of all communication links connected to that particular DGs.
Accordingly, when DG3 plugs out, it automatically renders the generation, the power outputs of DGs as shown in Fig. 7 are
links DG3 -DG4 . However, the remaining links still contain in full load state. If the loads continue to increase, in order to
a spanning tree. Then, DG3 with communication link estab- ensure the operation safety of the whole system, it has to take the
lishment is plugged back at t = 15 s, meanwhile, Load2 and load-shedding measure. As seen, the controllers have properly
Load4 increase power demands. Since the power demand of the updated the load sharing after DG3 is plugged back at the steady
loads slightly exceeds the maximum installed capacity of DG state. It is worth noting that although DG3 is unplugged instantly,

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3134 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 56, NO. 3, MAY/JUNE 2020

Fig. 7. Performance of the proposed distributed power sharing control in a case Fig. 8. Performance of the proposed distributed power sharing control in
of complex-case operation ability: (a) active power ratio α; (b) active power; a case of communication failure: (a) active power ratio α; (b) active power;
(c) reactive power ratio β; and (d) reactive power. (c) reactive power ratio β; and (d) reactive power.

the power measurements exponentially decay to zero due to the

existing low-pass filters. Excellent power sharing can also be
achieved during this experiment in Fig. 7. As the switching of
DG3 and DG4 in the physical circuit position is closer than
that of other DGs, this leads to the larger transient fluctuation
of DG3 .
D. Communication Failure
In this case study, initially, all DGs connect with the same load
as in the above-mentioned load change case. As shown in Fig. 8,
all DGs were coordinated so as to achieve proportional power
sharing through the proposed event-driven distributed control

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LAI et al.: EVENT-DRIVEN DISTRIBUTED ACTIVE AND REACTIVE POWER DISPATCH FOR CCVSI-BASED DISTRIBUTED GENERATORS
strategy activated at t = 5 s. At t = 10 s, the communication
link between DG3 and DG4 was disconnected, which results in
DG3 being unable to exchange information with the rest of the
system. The proposed control strategy fails to regulate DG3 in
cyber aspect, thus, DG3 operates autonomously to merely feed
its local load. It was observed that since the communication
links for DG3 were no longer connected, accurate active and
reactive power sharing was not achieved for it as shown in Fig. 8.
Thus, the output power of DG3 was restored to its initial state
invalid for the proposed control algorithm, while the remaining
DGs achieve new proportional power sharing by exchanging the
neighbor’s shared information. When the communication link
between DG3 and DG4 was restored at t = 15 s, DG3 receives
its neighbor’s shared information and controller action ensued
to achieve proportional power sharing. Finally, the proposed
controllers achieve a proportional current sharing among the
DGs of the whole system as shown in Fig. 8.
V. CONCLUSION
A novel distributed power sharing control strategy imple-
mented in CCVSI-based DG system has been proposed by
employing event-driven communication mechanism in this ar-
ticle. The proposed controllers guarantee that the microgrid
network can autonomously adjust itself to achieve the prescribed
proportional utilization among DGs. The proposed event-driven
controllers require only intermittent information sharing among
neighboring generators and topologies of local communication
networks, which dramatically reduce the number of control
updates and the communication among different DGs, and
significantly release communication bandwidth. This further
significantly reduces the occupancy of limited communica-
tion bandwidth and prevents communication bottleneck. As
long as the communication networks meet the minimum in-
formation exchange requirement, the proposed controls can
ensure the system convergence. In addition, the performance
of the proposed control strategy has been validated via MAT-
LAB/SimPowerSystems. In our further work, we will focus on
an extension of the proposed event-triggered control scheme for
both CCVSI- and VCVSI-based microgrid systems.
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3136 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 56, NO. 3, MAY/JUNE 2020
Jingang Lai (Senior Member, IEEE) received the
Ph.D. degree in control science and engineering from
Wuhan University, Wuhan, China, in 2016.
In 2015, he was a Joint Ph.D. Student with the
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia. He is
currently a Humboldt Research Fellow with the E.ON
Energy Research Center, RWTH Aachen University,
Aachen, Germany. His research interests include dis-
tributed intelligence for ac/dc microgirds, distributed
renewable energy system applications of multiagent
systems, and cyber-physical networked control systems.
Dr. Lai was the recipient of the Finally List Paper Certificate for IEEE ICIEA
in 2017. He is currently an Associate Editor for the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON
INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS and IET Generation, Transmission and Distribution.
Xiaoqing Lu (Senior Member, IEEE) received the
Ph.D. degree in applied mathematics from Wuhan
University, Wuhan, China, in 2012.
From 2015 to 2019, she was a Postdoctoral Fel-
low with the School of Engineering, RMIT Univer-
sity, Melbourne, VIC, Australia. She is currently a
Professor with the School of Electrical Engineering
and Automation, Wuhan University. Her research
interests include distributed control, monitoring, and
security in cyber-physical systems; and cooperation
and optimization in smart microgrids and multi-robot
systems.
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Antonello Monti (Senior Member, IEEE) received
the M.Sc. (summa cum laude) and Ph.D. degrees in
electrical engineering from the Politecnico di Milano,
Milan, Italy, in 1989 and 1994, respectively.
He started his career with Ansaldo Industria, Milan,
and then moved to the Politecnico di Milano, in 1995,
as an Assistant Professor. In 2000, he joined the
Department of Electrical Engineering, University of
South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA, as an Associate
Professor and then a Full Professor. Since 2008, he
has been the Director of the E.ON Energy Research
Center, Institute for Automation of Complex Power System, RWTH Aachen
University, Aachen, Germany. He has authored or coauthored more than 300 peer
reviewed papers in international journals and in the proceedings of international
conferences.
Dr. Monti was a recipient of the 2017 IEEE Innovation in Societal Infrastruc-
ture Award. He is currently an Associate Editor for the IEEE SYSTEMS JOURNAL
and the IEEE Electrification Magazine. He is a Member of the Editorial Board
of Sustainable Energy, Grids and Networks (Elsevier) and the Founding Board
of Energy Informatics (Springer).
Rik W. De Doncker (Fellow, IEEE) received
the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, in
1986.
In 1987, he joined the University of Wisconsin,
Madison, Madison, WI, USA, as a Visiting Asso-
ciate Professor. After a short stay as an Adjunct
Researcher with the Interuniversity Microelectronics
Centre, Leuven, Belgium, he joined, in 1989, the Cor-
porate Research and Development Center, General
Electric Company, Schenectady, NY, USA. In 1994,
he joined Silicon Power Corporation, a former division of General Electric, Inc.,
as the Vice President of Technology. In 1996, he became a Professor with RWTH
Aachen University, Aachen, Germany, where he currently leads the Institute for
Power Electronics and Electrical Drives. Since 2006, he has been the Director
of the E.ON Energy Research Center, RWTH Aachen University.
Dr. De Doncker was the recipient of the IEEE IAS Outstanding Achievement
Award in 2002, the IEEE PES Nari Hingorani Custom Power Award in 2008,
an Honorary Doctor Degree of TU Riga, Riga, Latvia, in 2010, and the IEEE
William E. Newell Power Electronics Award in 2013. In 2009, he led a VDE/ETG
Task Force on Electric Vehicles. He was the President of the IEEE Power Elec-
tronics Society (PELS) in 2005 and 2006. He was also the Founding Chairman
of the German IEEE Industry Applications Society PELS Joint Chapter.