2246
5, MAY 2013
Distribution Voltage Control for DC Microgrids
Using Fuzzy Control and Gain-Scheduling Technique
Hiroaki Kakigano, Member, IEEE, Yushi Miura, Member, IEEE, and Toshifumi Ise, Member, IEEE
Abstract—Installation of many distributed generations (DGs)
could be detrimental to the power quality of utility grids. Micro-
grids facilitate effortless installation of DGs in conventional power
systems. In recent years, dc microgrids have gained popularity be-
cause dc output sources such as photovoltaic systems, fuel cells, and
batteries can be interconnected without ac/dc conversion, which
contributes to total system efficiency. Moreover, high-quality power
can be supplied continuously when voltage sags or blackouts occur
in utility grids. We had already proposed a “low-voltage bipolar-
type dc microgrid” and described its configuration, operation, and
control scheme, through experiments. In the experiments, we used
one energy storage unit with a dc/dc converter to maintain the
dc-bus voltage under intentional islanding operation. However, dc
microgrids should have two or more energy storage units for system
redundancy. Therefore, we modified the system by adding another
energy storage unit to our experimental system. Several kinds of
droop controls have been proposed for parallel operations, some
of which were applied for ac or dc microgrids. If a gain-scheduling
control scheme is adopted to share the storage unit outputs, the
storage energy would become unbalanced. This paper therefore
presents a new voltage control that combines fuzzy control with
gain-scheduling techniques to accomplish both power sharing and
energy management. The experimental results show that the dc
distribution voltages were within 340 V ± 5%, and the ratios of
the stored energy were approximately equal, which implies that
dc voltage regulation and stored energy balancing control can be
realized simultaneously.
Index Terms—DC power systems, fuzzy control, gain-scheduling
control, microgrids.
I. INTRODUCTION
NSTALLATION of distributed generations (DGs) has re-
I markably increased in recent years because of the reduction
in greenhouse gases and depletion of fossil fuels. After the
2011, Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, the trends have accel-
erated even more in Japan. As it is well known, installation of
many DGs could be detrimental to the power quality of util-
ity grids; therefore, microgrids have been studied as one of the
candidates to support smooth installation of DGs [1]–[6]. In
particular, dc distribution microgrids have been studied for a
few years [7]–[12]. Apart from a reduction in ac/dc conver-
sions losses, dc microgrids can supply continuous high-quality
power when voltage sags or blackouts occur in utility grids. For
Manuscript received April 28, 2012; revised July 4, 2012; accepted August
27, 2012. Date of current version November 22, 2012. Recommended for pub-
lication by Associate Editor L. Chang.
The authors are with the Division of Electrical, Electronic, and In-
formation Engineering, Osaka University, Osaka 565-0871, Japan (e-mail:
kakigano@eei.eng.osaka-u.ac.jp; miura@eei.eng.osaka-u.ac.jp; ise@eei.eng.
osaka-u.ac.jp).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPEL.2012.2217353
0885-8993/$31.00 © 2012 IEEE
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 28, NO.
instance, dc power supplies are commonly used in telecommu-
nication buildings and internet data centers where high-quality
power is needed [13].
We previously proposed a “low-voltage bipolar-type dc mi-
crogrid,” and described the configuration, operation, and con-
trol scheme, which were demonstrated through experimental
results [14], [15]. In the experiment, we used one energy stor-
age unit with a dc/dc converter to sustain dc-bus voltage when
the system was in intentional islanding operation. However, it is
desired that the system should have two or more energy storage
units for redundancy. Several types of droop controls have been
proposed for the parallel operations among, which some were
applied for ac/dc microgrids [16]–[21]. Therefore, we added an-
other energy storage unit in the experimental system and adopted
gain-scheduling control technique as the droop controls for shar-
ing the outputs. In this case, although output power sharing of
two energy storage units was achieved, it was found that the
storage energy control was necessary for the system operation
proposed in [14], [15].
In this paper, we propose a new voltage control method that
combines fuzzy control with gain-scheduling control technique
in order to accomplish both power sharing and energy manage-
ment simultaneously. Some researches proposed to apply fuzzy
controls to microgrid operations. A fuzzy-based controller was
applied to all DGs in the microgrids, and the system perfor-
mance was analyzed by numerical simulations [22]. A fuzzy
control in addition to a PI controller was used to stabilize the
rate of a diesel generation [23]. A fuzzy control was applied to
maximum power point tracking control of a photovoltaic sys-
tem in an isolated microgrid to improve the response against
rapidly changing weather conditions [24]. In this paper, we fo-
cus on application of fuzzy control to gain-scheduling control
and demonstrate the validity of the proposed control through
experiments.
In our experimental system, electric-double-layer capacitors
(EDLC) were used as the energy storage unit, and each dc/dc
converter of EDLC controlled the dc distribution voltage when
the system was operated under an intentional islanding mode.
The experimental results show that the dc distribution voltages
were within 340 V ± 5%, and the energy ratios of the stor-
age units were approximately equal, implying that dc voltage
regulation and stored energy balancing control can be realized
simultaneously by applying the proposed control.
II. DC MICROGRID FOR A RESIDENTIAL COMPLEX
A. System Configuration
We proposed a dc microgrid for a residential complex, as
shown in Fig. 1 [15]. There are around 50–100 houses in the
KAKIGANO et al.: DISTRIBUTION VOLTAGE CONTROL FOR DC MICROGRIDS USING FUZZY CONTROL AND GAIN-SCHEDULING TECHNIQUE 2247

Fig. 2. Interconnected operation.

Fig. 1. System configuration of the dc microgrid for a residential complex.

system, each having a micro combined heat and power unit

(micro-CHP unit) such as a gas engine or a fuel cell. The micro-
CHP units are connected to a dc distribution line (three wire,
±170 V), and the electric power is shared among the houses.
Cogenerated hot water is either used by individual house or
shared between adjacent houses. The utility grid is connected
to the system by a rectifier. At the load side, various forms of
electric power (such as ac 100 V and dc 48 V) can be obtained
from the converters. EDLCs are used as the main energy storage
unit because of their advantages such as fast response, safety
(especially compared with Li-ion batteries), easy measurement
of the stored energy, and no toxicity of the constituent materials.
In a verification test of energy storage system using an EDLC
unit, the voltage, and maximum energy were 500 V and 5 MJ,
respectively [25]. From this, EDLC is considered viable as an
Fig. 3. Intentional islanding operation.
energy storage system in a small grid. The capital cost per
kilowatthour (kWh) for EDLC is 300–2000 dollars, while that
for lead-acid and Li-ion batteries is 200–400 and 600–2500
micro-CHP units such that the power from the utility grid is
dollars, respectively [26]. In addition, EDLCs can handle many
within the contract demand. In addition, the supervisor computer
charge–discharge cycles, and therefore has a low-cost per cycle
decides the order of the operation of the micro-CHP units so as
considering its long life. The capital cost per kWh-per cycle
to meet the heat commitment.
for EDLC is 2–4 cents, while that for lead-acid and Li-ion
When the system is disconnected from the utility grid, the sur-
batteries is 20–100 and 15–100 cents, respectively [26]. The
plus, or deficient power is compensated by the EDLC as shown
disadvantage of EDLC is its low-energy density. If a large energy
in Fig. 3. In intentional islanding operation, the EDLC converter
capacity is needed for a microgrid, a relatively large EDLC
controls the dc distribution voltage, and the number of the op-
is required. However, a large-energy capacity is not necessary
erating micro-CHP units is determined by not only the load
for the proposed dc microgrid because the micro-CHP units
consumption, but also the stored energy of the EDLCs. When
are operated to prevent over charge/discharge of the EDLCs as
the stored energy exceeds a maximum limit, the system stops
described in the following section.
one of the operating micro-CHP units. Then, the total output
of the micro-CHP units becomes less than the load consump-
B. System Operation
tion, and the EDLC discharges until the stored energy becomes
The total output power of micro-CHP units can be controlled less than the minimum limit. On the contrary, when the stored
by changing the number of running micro-CHP units. When energy falls under the minimum limit, the system starts a micro-
the system is connected to the utility grid, any deficiency in the CHP unit. Then, the total output of micro-CHP units becomes
power supplied by the microgrid is compensated by the power more than the load consumption, and the EDLC charges until
from the utility grid as shown in Fig. 2. In the interconnected the stored energy exceeds the maximum limit. These two modes
operation, the rectifier controls the dc distribution voltage, and are repeated alternately in intentional islanding operation. The
the supervisor computer changes the number of the running heat commitment is not fundamentally considered in intentional
2248 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 28, NO. 5, MAY 2013

Fig. 4. Configuration of the experimental system in the laboratory.

islanding operation because continuous electricity supply is a

priority during the operation. Fig. 5. Control for dc/dc converter for energy storage.
The energy storage unit does not need a large capacity, if this
system chooses the suitable micro-CHP units that can start up
in a few minutes. For instance, one of the commercial micro
gas engine cogeneration (GEC) systems can start up in about
5 min. Most of the heat in the starting-up period is utilized in
heating the catalyst for the exhaust gas. Therefore, it is feasible
that the GEC system will be able to start in a few minutes every
time, after improving the exhauster for quick start up. In this
case, we assumed the energy of the storage system to be less
than 10 kWh and the charging/discharging time to be less than
1/2 h, although the parameters depend on the specification of
each system in practice. Therefore, EDLC can be a candidate of Fig. 6. Droop control feature.
the main energy storage unit in this system [27].
Fig. 4 shows a configuration of the experimental system used
in our laboratory. It is assumed that there are three households,
and each house has a dc power source such as a fuel cell. The more energy storage units and those converters can be operated
feature of the dc system is to adopt a three-wire dc distribution, in parallel, it contributes to the voltage regulation and system
which consists of a +170-V line, a neutral line, and a −170-V redundancy. Droop control is a well-known method for voltage
line. In a three-wire composition, the voltage relative to ground control when two or more converters are used. In general, the
becomes low compared with that in two-wire system, where droop controller detects the output power or current as a feed-
one of the wires is grounded, and when half bridge inverters are back parameter, and the deviation of dc voltage is controlled
adopted for it, one of the single-phase 100-V output lines can in proportion to the output power. However, if the converters
also become a grounded neutral line as long as abiding to the connect to energy storage units, the controller should consider
Japanese standard [15]. In addition, load side dc/dc converters not only the output power balance, but also the stored energy.
can choose the source voltage from +340, +170, or −170 V. A In particular, stored energy balance is important to carry out
rectifier connected to the utility grid is controlled to maintain the the operation described in the previous section because micro-
dc voltage constant (340 V) in the interconnected operation. To CHP units have to start or stop frequently under an unbalanced
balance the positive voltage (+170 V) with a negative voltage condition of the stored energy. Therefore, we propose a novel
(−170 V), a voltage balancer is connected at the dc side of control method combining gain scheduling and fuzzy control,
the rectifier. Two EDLC banks are connected through a dc/dc which accomplishes good voltage regulation, load sharing, and
converter as energy storage. energy balance simultaneously.

C. DC Voltage Control
As mentioned in the previous section, the dc distribution volt-
age is normally controlled by a grid connected rectifier in the
interconnected operation. The dc/dc converters of the storage
systems are controlled to maintain the dc distribution voltage
within a specified range [15]. In intentional islanding operation,
the dc/dc converters of the storage systems need to maintain the
dc distribution voltage. Therefore, if the dc microgrid has two or
III. CONTROL STRATEGY OF CONVERTER FOR ENERGY
STORAGE UNIT
Fig. 5 shows the circuit and proposed control diagram of
a dc/dc converter for EDLC banks. We designed the circuit
to be symmetric with respect to the neutral line, because the
converter is supposed to function as a voltage balancer under
the appropriate control.
KAKIGANO et al.: DISTRIBUTION VOLTAGE CONTROL FOR DC MICROGRIDS USING FUZZY CONTROL AND GAIN-SCHEDULING TECHNIQUE 2249

Fig. 7. Circuit and control diagrams to obtain the relation between the steady-
state error and the gain K c .

TABLE I
PARAMETERS

A. Gain-Scheduling Control for Output Power Sharing

Fig. 8. Gain-dc/dc converter output power characteristics. (Voltage variation
When dc voltage is controlled by several converters, it is dif- 2%).
ficult to achieve good voltage regulation and sharing at the same
time. As illustrated in Fig. 6, better voltage regulation requires
a higher dc gain, but it can decrease load sharing. Therefore,
we adopt a gain-scheduling control that changes the gain Kc
according to the output power in order to obtain better voltage
regulation and load sharing simultaneously [16].
We examined the steady-state dc voltage error when the gain
Kc or the output power was changed by numerical simulations.
Fig. 7 and Table I show the circuit, control diagram, and param-
eters for the simulation. The rated output voltage and capacity
were 340 V and 3 kW, respectively. Fig. 8 shows the results,
which indicated that the steady-state error of the dc voltage be-
comes larger when the load is heavier or the gain Kc is smaller.
When the variation in the dc voltage is permitted within 2%, we
can obtain the relation between the gain Kc and output power
(p.u.) as shown in Fig. 8. The gain Kc can be expressed by a
linear function of the output power. Similarly, we can obtain
the relation between the gain and input power when the voltage
variation is permitted within 2%. Fig. 9 shows the results, ex-
pressing it with a linear function. From the results, the equation
between the output power (p.u.) Pout and the gain Kc can be
obtained as follows:

Kc = max(1.3 |Pout | , 0.1) (1) Fig. 9. Gain-dc/dc converter input power characteristics. (Voltage variation
2%).

where the input power is expressed by a negative number, and the

minimum value of Kc is determined as 0.1. This gain-scheduling
control allows better load sharing and voltage regulation simul-
taneously. However, a stored energy control is also needed for
the converter energy storage unit device to prevent a surplus or
deficient of stored energy.
B. Proposed Control for Stored Energy Balancing
We propose a dc-voltage control that incorporates a fuzzy
control that changes the dc voltage reference to balance the
stored energy. Fig. 10 shows the membership functions of fuzzy
control. The input Xk is the ratio of the stored energy and the
2250 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 28, NO. 5, MAY 2013

Fig. 11. Simulation circuit.

Fig. 10. Control rule of fuzzy control.
TABLE II
MAIN PARAMETERS
average of all stored energies as shown
Wk
Xk =  n  (2)
1
n −1 ×( i=1 Wi − W k )

Wk is the charged energy of the kth EDLC bank, which is

described as follows:

2 Ck vk − 2 Ck Vm in
1 2 1 2
Wk =
2 Ck Vm ax − 2 Ck Vm in
1 2 1 2

vk2 − Vm2 in
= (3)
Vm2 ax − Vm2 in
where the value n refers to the total number of EDLC banks. Ck
and vk are the capacitance and voltage of the kth EDLC bank,
respectively. Vm ax and Vm in are the maximum and minimum
operation voltage of EDLC banks, respectively.
∗
To obtain the dc voltage reference Vdc , Xk is initially calcu-
lated from (2) and (3). Then, a membership value is calculated
from the membership function of PB, PS, Z, NS, and NB. Fi-
Fig. 12. Events of the simulation (initial condition W 2 /W 1 ≈ 2).
nally, the dc voltage reference is obtained from the resulting
membership function. For example, if X1 is 1.7, the values of
PS and PB in the antecedent membership function are 0.4 and
∗
0.6, respectively. Then, Vdc of EDLC1 is given from the conse-
quent membership function as follows:
∗
Vdc = 345 × 0.4 + 350 × 0.6 = 348 [V]. (4)
We assumed that the dc-distribution voltage has a tolerance
of ±5% with reference to ac systems. In this case, the upper Fig. 13. Droop control to obtain the voltage reference.
and lower reference should be within 3% because the gain-
scheduling control includes a tolerance of ±2%. Therefore, the
demonstrated through simulations and experiments described in
upper and lower limit was selected 350 and 330 V in the mem-
the following sections.
bership function of consequent, respectively. An isosceles tri-
angle is usually used as a membership function. However, to
IV. SIMULATION
realize a good voltage regulation, the peaks of PS and NS in
the antecedent are shifted to 1.1 and 0.9, respectively. We first To confirm the performance of the proposed method, simula-
obtained this membership from computer numerical simulation tions were conducted using PSCAD/EMTDC. The circuit and
and then applied it to experiments. Although this fuzzy rule the main parameters are shown in Fig. 11 and Table II, espec-
was determined on the basis of experience, its effectiveness was tively. The configuration and the parameters are based on the
KAKIGANO et al.: DISTRIBUTION VOLTAGE CONTROL FOR DC MICROGRIDS USING FUZZY CONTROL AND GAIN-SCHEDULING TECHNIQUE
Fig. 14. Simulation results (gain-scheduling control only) (Initial condition
W 2 /W 1 ≈ 2).
experimental system shown in Fig. 4. Resistances and current
sources were used as the loads and the DGs, respectively. The
resistances were set to 115.6 Ω, which consumed 1 kW at 340 V.
The output power of the current source was changed gradually
from 0 to 1 kW or from 1 to 0 kW for 1 s.
Two EDLCs were connected through dc/dc converters:
EDLC1 (rated voltage 160 V, and rated capacitance 18 F) and
EDLC2 (rated voltage 216 V, and rated capacitance 18.75 F).
The minimum voltage of both EDLCs was set to be 100 V.
Therefore, EDLC1 and EDLC2 can store about 140 kJ and
344 kJ, respectively.
Fig. 12 shows the ON/OFF events of the loads and DGs in
the simulation. All loads and DGs were turned ON in the first
half, and the loads and DGs were turned OFF in the last half.
The initial voltages of EDLC1 and EDLC2 were 125 and 200 V,
respectively. Therefore, the initial stored energy ratio (W2 /W1 )
was about 2.
2251
Fig. 15. Simulation results (gain-scheduling control and fuzzy control) (Initial
condition W 2 /W 1 ≈ 2).
Although the fuzzy control was chosen for the stored energy
management in this paper, the other control could be a candidate
∗
to obtain the voltage reference Vdc . For example, a simple droop
control can be illustrated in Fig. 13. The control diagram is
simpler than the proposed fuzzy control, and the only gain Kv
is needed as the control parameter. In other words, it has only
one degree of freedom to adjust the control performance.
A. Simulation Results of Proposed Method
Fig. 14 shows the simulation results (the dc distribution volt-
age, the stored energy ratio, the current from EDLC, and the
terminal voltage of EDLC) when only the gain-scheduling con-
trol technique was used. The maximum voltage of Vdc (EDLC1)
and Vdc (EDLC2) was 346.7 V which was about 340 V + 2%,
and the minimum voltage of them was 332.9 V which was about
340 V – 2%. Therefore, the distribution voltages at the output
converter of the EDLCs were within 340 V ± 2%. However, the
2252
Fig. 16. Simulation results (gain-scheduling control and droop control,
K v = 10) (Initial condition W 2 /W 1 ≈ 2).
stored energy of EDLCs was not balanced, and the maximum
of the ratio (W2 /W1 ) reached 4.2.
Fig. 15 shows the simulation results when the proposed con-
trol was used. The stored energy ratio tended to be 1. The fea-
tures of EDLC currents were different from those in Fig. 14 be-
cause EDLC2 had 1.3 times energy at the initial state. EDLC2
initially discharged its power, and then the energies of both
EDLCs balanced at around 80 s. The reason for the difference
in the EDLC terminal voltages, VEDLC1 and VEDLC2 , despite an
almost unity ratio of EDLC charge (W2 /W1 ), is the difference
in the maximum voltages of EDLC1 and EDLC2. Regarding the
distribution voltages at the output converters of the EDLCs, the
maximum and the minimum were 349.9 and 331.7 V, respec-
tively. Although the range of the voltage was a little wider than
the previous results, the range was within 340 V ± 3%, which
was satisfied with the assumed specification (340 V ± 5%)
described in Section III-B.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 28, NO. 5, MAY 2013
Fig. 17. Simulation results (gain-scheduling control and droop control,
K v = 50) (Initial condition W 2 /W 1 ≈ 2).
B. Simulation Results of Droop Control
To compare the proposed fuzzy control described in the previ-
ous section and the droop control shown in Fig. 13, simulations
of the droop control were conducted in the same condition.
Fig. 16 shows the simulation results when the droop control
was used, and Kv was set to 10. Although the stored energy
ratio tended to be about 1, it took about 160 s, which was twice
as the result of the fuzzy control. Fig. 17 shows the simulation
results when Kv was set to 50. The stored energy ratio also
tended to be 1, and it took about 80 s, which was almost the
same as the result of the fuzzy control shown in Fig. 15. In this
case, the maximum and minimum voltage of the output convert-
ers of the EDLCs was 349.9 and 331.6 V, respectively. From the
result, it seems that the proposed fuzzy control can be replaced
by the simple droop control. To confirm the advantage of the
proposed fuzzy control, another simulation was conducted in
the following section.
KAKIGANO et al.: DISTRIBUTION VOLTAGE CONTROL FOR DC MICROGRIDS USING FUZZY CONTROL AND GAIN-SCHEDULING TECHNIQUE
Fig. 18. Simulation results (gain-scheduling control and droop control,
K v = 50) (Initial condition W 2 /W 1 ≈ 0.5).
C. Comparison Between Fuzzy Control and Droop Control
In this simulation, the configuration, parameters and events
were the same as the previous simulation. The only difference
was that the all parameters of EDLC1 and EDLC2 were ex-
changed: EDLC1 (rated voltage, 216 V and rated capacitance
18.75 F) and EDLC2 (rated voltage 160 V and rated capaci-
tance, 18 F). The minimum voltage of both EDLCs was also set
to be 100 V, and the initial voltages of EDLC1 and EDLC2 were
200 and 125 V, respectively. Therefore, the initial stored energy
ratio (W2 /W1 ) was about 0.5.
Fig. 18 shows the simulation results when the droop control
(Kv = 50) was used. Although the stored energy ratio tended
to be 1, it exceeded up to 1.05 around 75 s. After the stored
energy ratio returned to 1, it dropped to 0.95 around 180 s.
Fig. 19 shows the simulation results when the fuzzy control was
used. Although there was no overshoot like the results of the
2253
Fig. 19. Simulation results (gain-scheduling control and fuzzy control) (Initial
condition W 2 /W 1 ≈ 0.5).
droop control, the results after 120 s were almost the same as
the previous droop control.
Fig. 20 shows that the relation between input Xk and the
∗
output Vdc in each control. The fuzzy control changes the slope
in the range of Xk between 0.5 and 2.0. On the contrary, the
droop control has one slope in the shorter range of Xk between
∗
0.8 and 1.2, and the Vdc was fixed on the minimum (330 V) or
the maximum (350 V) in the other area.
The characteristics of the two controls can be seen from the
results in Figs. 18 and 19. Because the initial value of Xk was
set to 0.5 in each case, the power from EDLC1 was supplied
to EDLC2 in order to balance the stored energy. In Fig. 18,
the current from the converter of EDLC1 and EDLC2 (IEDLC1
and IEDLC2 ) were constant from 0 to 20 s because Xk was
lower than 0.8, and the voltage references Vdc (EDLC1)∗ of
and Vdc (EDLC2)∗ were fixed to the upper and lower limit, re-
spectively. On the other hand, the absolute value of IEDLC1
2254
Fig. 20. Relations between input X k and voltage reference V d∗c .
Fig. 21. Integral of the square of the current (IE D L C 1 and IE D L C 2 ).
and IEDLC2 in Fig. 19 were decreasing during the same period,
which contributed to reduce the losses due to the line resistances
(Rline1 and Rline2 ) and the inner resistances of both EDLCs.
Fig. 21 shows the integral of the square of IEDLC1 and IEDLC2
in each case. In case of the fuzzy control, the integral numbers of
the square of IEDLC1 at 250 s was 20.1% lower than the results
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 28, NO. 5, MAY 2013
Fig. 22. Circuit of experimental system.
of the droop control, while the integral numbers of the square
of IEDLC2 at 250 s was almost the same. It indicates that the
loss in case of the fuzzy control is lower than that of the droop
control. Therefore, this paper proposes the fuzzy control as the
energy balance control.
V. EXPERIMENT
Two experiments were conducted to confirm the performance
of the proposed method practically. The circuit and the main
parameters are shown in Fig. 22 and Table III, respectively. The
system configuration and parameters are almost the same as
the simulation circuit. In house3, we used a commercial GEC,
and the rated capacity was 1 kW. The generator outputs ac
340 V, 307.5 Hz, and the ac power was converted into a dc 390–
400 V by a thyristor-diode rectifier. In general, the dc power
is converted to a single-phase ac 200 V and is supplied to the
utility grid, but we modified it to accept the dc power directly. In
the other two houses, we substituted the dc power supply for the
real GEC, which outputs 400-V dc constantly. Buck choppers
were connected between GECs and the dc distribution lines
because the dc voltage of the gas engine was different from the
distribution voltage. The output power was changed gradually
from 0 to 1 kW or from 1 to 0 kW for 1 s. The ratings of the two
EDLCs were the same as the simulation: EDLC1 (rated voltage
160 V, and rated capacitance 18 F) and EDLC2 (rated voltage
216 V and rated capacitance 18.75 F). The minimum voltage of
both EDLCs was also set to be 100 V. For the dc loads, we used
three electronic loads under constant resistance mode, each with
a rated capacity of 1 kW.
A. Case (a)
The ON/OFF events of the loads and DGs in case (a) were
the same as the previous simulation shown in Fig. 12. The
initial voltages of EDLC1 and EDLC2 were 125 and 200 V,
respectively. Then, the initial stored energy ratio (W2 /W1 ) was
about 2. Fig. 23 shows the experimental results when only the
KAKIGANO et al.: DISTRIBUTION VOLTAGE CONTROL FOR DC MICROGRIDS USING FUZZY CONTROL AND GAIN-SCHEDULING TECHNIQUE
TABLE III
MAIN EXPERIMENT PARAMETERS
Fig. 23. Experimental results of case (a) (gain-scheduling control only).
gain-scheduling control technique was used. The dc distribu-
tion voltage was controlled within 340 V ± 5%, but the stored
energy of EDLCs was not balanced and the peak ratio was
around 3.5. Fig. 24 shows the experimental results when the pro-
posed control was used. The energies of both EDLCs balanced
at around 100 s. The both experimental results were almost the
2255
Fig. 24. Experimental results of case (a) (gain-scheduling control and fuzzy
control).
same as the simulation results. However, the distribution volt-
age Vdc (EDLC2) and the current IEDLC2 in Fig. 23 were higher
than the simulation results in Fig. 14 during the first 120 s. The
reason is conjectured that the feedback value of Vdc (EDLC2)
were a little lower than the real values in the experiment, which
phenomenon was confirmed by numerical simulations. Apart
from it, the experimental results demonstrated that the validity
of the proposed methods. Regarding the performance during the
change of loads/sources, there were no disturbances or instabil-
ities due to the gain-scheduling control or the fuzzy control. In
case of the fuzzy control, the sign of IEDLC1 and IEDLC2 were
opposite at first to balance their energy. Then, the envelopes of
IEDLC1 and IEDLC2 were gradually close each other during the
change of loads/sources.
2256
Fig. 25. Experimental results of case (b) (gain-scheduling control only).
B. Case (b)
In this experiment, Load1 and the output of DG3 were turned
ON from 0 to 1 kW at 5 s. Other loads and DGs were turned
OFF through the experiment. The initial voltage of EDLC1 and
EDLC2 were 130 and 180 V, respectively. Therefore, the initial
stored energy ratio (W2 /W1 ) was about 1.3.
Fig. 25 shows the experimental result when only the gain-
scheduling control technique was used. If there had been no line
resistances between house1 and house3, the distribution voltage
Vdc (house1) would have been the same as Vdc (EDLC2) after
the event. In this case, the output power of DG3 would have
been supplied to the Load1 directly, and the both EDLCs would
have not outputted their power ideally. However, there were line
resistances R2 (1 Ω × 2) between house1 and house3 in the
experimental system, and the distribution voltage Vdc (house1)
and Vdc (EDLC1) became lower than Vdc (EDLC2). To keep the
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 28, NO. 5, MAY 2013
Fig. 26. Experimental results of case (b) (gain-scheduling control and fuzzy
control).
distribution voltage, EDLC1 supplied Load1 with electricity,
and EDLC2 was charged with power from DG3. Therefore, the
stored energy ratio was increasing.
Fig. 26 shows the experimental results when the proposed
control was used. The stored energy ratio (W2 /W1 ) approaches
1, and the energy ratios of each EDLC became equal. The volt-
ages of EDLC1 and EDLC2 decreased slightly because of the
presence of switching losses of the converters and the line resis-
tance. From this result, we confirmed that the stored energy ratio
converged by the proposed control. The response took around
150 s in this case, which is satisfactory for the dc microgrids as-
sumed in this paper. If there is a case where the faster response
is needed, the member ship function of antecedent has to be
shrunk horizontally centering on X = 1.
KAKIGANO et al.: DISTRIBUTION VOLTAGE CONTROL FOR DC MICROGRIDS USING FUZZY CONTROL AND GAIN-SCHEDULING TECHNIQUE
VI. CONCLUSION
This paper presented a new dc distribution voltage control for
dc/dc converters with an energy storage unit. The proposed con-
trol combines a gain-scheduling technique with fuzzy control.
The experimental results show that the dc distribution voltage
was within 340 V ± 5%, and the ratios of the storage units were
approximately equal. This indicates that dc voltage regulation
and stored energy balancing control are realized simultaneously.
The main advantage of the proposed control is presented for
the cases where the model is unknown or is mathematically
complex. Therefore, the proposed control is relatively easy to
introduce to real-life projects compared with the modern control
theories that utilize the time-domain state space representation.
However, for this purpose, trial and error methods might be
adopted to adjust the membership functions in practice, which
is a time consuming process. Our future study will attempt to
establish the design procedure of the membership functions.
In actual application, if a dc microgrid is extended and another
energy storage system is included, it would require a communi-
cation line to obtain state information and detect faults. In this
case, equation (2) must be updated such that the new input Xk
can be calculated. Although the membership functions appear
to be the same as shown in Fig. 10 from the simulation analysis,
we will address this in another study after the accomplishment
of design procedure for the membership functions.
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Hiroaki Kakigano (M’06) was born in 1976. He
received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in nuclear engi-
neering from Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan, in
1999 and 2001, respectively. He received the Ph.D.
degree in electrical engineering from Osaka Univer-
sity, Osaka, Japan, in 2009.
After he worked at an Electric Company, he joined
Osaka University in 2004 for a doctorate course,
where he is currently an Assistant Professor. From
August 2011 to March 2012, he was a Visiting Profes-
sor with KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium. His research
interests include power electronics, microgrids, and dc distribution systems.
2258
Yushi Miura (M’06) received the Doctorate de-
gree in electrical and electronic engineering from the
Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan, in 1995.
From 1995 to 2004, he was at Japan Atomic
Energy Research Institute as a Researcher where
he developed power supplies and superconducting
coils for nuclear fusion reactors. Since 2004, he has
been an Associate Professor in the Division of Elec-
trical, Electronic, and Information Engineering at
Osaka University, Osaka, Japan. His research inter-
ests include applications of power electronics and
superconducting technology. Currently he is interested in control of distributed
generations and energy storages in the power systems.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 28, NO. 5, MAY 2013
Toshifumi Ise (M’87) was born in 1957. He received
the Bachelor, Master, and Doctor of Engineering de-
grees in electrical engineering from Osaka Univer-
sity, Osaka, Japan, in 1980, 1982, and 1986, respec-
tively.
He joined , Osaka University in 1990, where he
is currently a Professor in the Division of Electrical,
Electronic, and Information Engineering, Faculty of
Engineering. From 1986 to 1990, he was at the Nara
National College of Technology, Nara, Japan. His re-
search interests include the areas of power electronics
and applied superconductivity including superconducting magnetic energy stor-
ages and new distribution systems.
Dr. Ise is a Member of the Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan and the
Japan Society for Power Electronics.