This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been

fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TSG.2017.2749435, IEEE
Transactions on Smart Grid
1

Unified Power Flow Algorithm for Standalone

AC/DC Hybrid Microgrids
Ernauli Aprilia, Student Member, IEEE, Ke Meng, Member, IEEE,
Mohamed Al Hosani, Member, IEEE, H. H. Zeineldin, Senior Member, IEEE,
and Zhao Yang Dong, Fellow, IEEE
PI Proportional-integral
Abstract—Recent studies on power flow analysis of islanded
microgrids have become increasingly important and different B. Constants
solutions have been proposed. However, they are often limited to Coefficients of no-load loss, loss linearly and
only ac or only dc microgrids and hence, the power flow must be C0 , C1 , C2 quadratic proportional to the IC current mag-
solved separately. This paper proposes a straightforward and
efficient method to solve power flows of hybrid ac/dc microgrids nitude, respectively
simultaneously, based on the well-established Newton-Raphson Gkl Conductance between dc bus k and l
approach. It considers the lack of slack bus during islanded op- Nominal current of constant-current dc load
eration, the coupling of ac frequency and dc bus voltage, as well as I dc0 , k
model
the droop control of distributed generators. To achieve power
sharing between the ac and dc subgrids, this method incorporates k IC , c Droop constant of IC frequency-dc bus voltage
the interlinking converter droop constants in the equation. The gain
algorithm was tested on modified hybrid microgrids involving k pac ,i Droop constant of ac DG real power-frequency
multiple ac-dc subgrids. The results are compared against results gain
from time-domain simulations to validate the algorithm’s accu- Droop constant of dc DG real power-dc bus
racy. The proposed technique can be easily implemented to aid the k pdc , k
voltage gain
design and planning process of hybrid microgrids.
k pw,i , kqw,i Frequency-dependent constants of ac load real
Index Terms—Distributed generation, hybrid ac/dc microgrids, and reactive power, respectively
islanded microgrid, power flow analysis. kqac ,i Droop constant of DG reactive power-ac bus
voltage gain
kqIC , c Droop constant of IC reactive power-ac bus
NOMENCLATURE voltage gain
A. Abbreviations ω0 Nominal frequency of ac subgrid
Maximum and minimum allowable frequency
AC Alternating current ωmax , ωmin
of ac subgrid
DC Direct current 0 0
PGac , i , QGac , i Nominal real and reactive power of ac DGs
DG Distributed generation
max max
IC Interlinking converter PGac , i , QGac , i Maximum real and reactive power of ac DGs
HVDC High-voltage dc 0
PGdc ,k Nominal power of dc DGs
MTDC Multi-terminal HVDC max
PGdc ,k Maximum power of dc DGs
NR Newton-Raphson
0 0
NTR Newton-Trust-Region PLac , i , QLac , i Nominal real and reactive power of ac loads
0 Nominal power of constant-current dc load
P Ldc , k
Manuscript received February 25, 2017; revised June 21, 2017. This work model
was supported in part by the Indonesian Endowment Fund for Education
(LPDP), in part by the funding from Tyree foundation, and in part by the ARC PICmax
,c IC maximum real power
Discovery Grant (DP170103427). 0
QICac
E. Aprilia and K. Meng are with the School of Electrical and Information ,c IC nominal reactive power
Engineering, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia (e-mail: ernau- S IC lim, c IC capacity limit
li.aprilia@sydney.edu.au; kemeng@ieee.org).
M. Al Hosani is with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engi- Vac0 ,i Nominal voltage of bus i in ac subgrid
neering, Masdar Institute, Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi 54224, UAE (e-mail:
max min Maximum and minimum allowable voltage of
mohalhosani@masdar.ac.ae). V ac ,Vac
H. H. Zeineldin is with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engi- ac subgrid
neering, Masdar Institute, Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi 54224, UAE, cur- Maximum and minimum allowable voltage of
rently on leave from the Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University, Giza, 12316,
Vdcmax , Vdcmin
dc subgrid
Egypt (e-mail: hzainaldin@masdar.ac.ae). 0
Z.Y. Dong is with the School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommuni- VGac ,i Reference voltage of ac DG at bus i
cations, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia (e-mail: zy- 0
VGdc ,k Reference voltage of dc DG at bus k
dong@ieee.org).

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2

ZIP real power coefficients representing con- I. INTRODUCTION

Z p , I p , Pp stant-impedance, constant-current, and con-
stant-power model of ac loads, respectively
ZIP reactive power coefficients representing
M ODERN power systems have continued to witness
transformation in generation, transmission and distribu-
tion. Improving the resilience of electric distribution systems is
Z q , I q , Pq constant-impedance, constant-current, and
an urgent issue, not only to reduce power outage but also to
constant-power model of ac loads, respectively
facilitate the integration of renewable resources. Among the
C. Indices and Sets options, microgrid – a small-scale distribution network con-
c Index of IC buses taining a set of distributed generations (DGs) designed to sup-
ply electrical load to a small community – is an emerging and
i,j Indices of ac buses
promising paradigm. Microgrids offer several advantages in
k ,l Indices of dc buses comparison to the conventional grid, for example higher utili-
m Iteration number zation of on-site generation and increased grid resilience. Since
B ac Set of ac buses the main sources of electrical power would likely be photo-
B dc Set of dc buses voltaic panels, small-scale wind turbines and diesel generators,
with a significant renewable energy component, a microgrid is
B IC Set of IC buses
likely to experience rapid changes in power generation. Fur-
D. Variables and Matrices thermore, power electronic-based DGs and electrochemical
storage systems such as batteries are more efficient in dc sys-
δi Voltage angle of ac bus i tem [1], whereas bulk power system is still dominated by ac
δ Vector of voltage angles of ac buses sources. This promotes the development of hybrid ac/dc mi-
J Jacobian matrix crogrids where the advantages of ac and dc system are com-
ω Frequency of ac subgrid bined. A hybrid ac/dc microgrid usually consists of an ac net-
Pac ,i , Qac ,i Real and reactive power injected at any arbi- work (or subgrid), a dc network, and a power converter inter-
trary ac bus i, respectively linking these subgrids and controlling the power flow between
Pdc , k Power injected at any arbitrary dc bus k them [2].
Real and reactive power generated by ac DG Like the traditional ac microgrids, a hybrid microgrid can
PGac ,i , QGac ,i
at bus i, respectively operate in either grid-connected or islanded mode. When a fault
PGdc , k Power generated by dc DG at bus k occurs in the main grid or when the hybrid microgrid is
self-sufficient, it may operate in islanded mode where the mi-
PICac ,c , PICdc ,c Real power injected by IC at ac and dc sub-
crogrid is not attached to any utility grids. In grid-connected
grid, respectively
operation, the main grid maintains the frequency of the mi-
PLac ,i , QLac ,i Real and reactive power consumed by ac load
crogrid, but in islanded mode, the microgrid must autono-
at bus i, respectively
mously control its frequency and voltage. In addition, an is-
PLdc , k Power consumed by dc load at bus k landed hybrid microgrid should be able to autonomously
Pmis , ac ,i , Qmis , ac ,i Real and reactive power-balance equation for manage its DGs and loads to achieve power balance, to reach
any arbitrary ac bus i, respectively stability following a fault or transient disturbance, and to keep
Pmis , dc , k Power-balance equation for any arbitrary dc other power quality aspects within the permissible limits [3].
bus k While a lot of attention has been given to the design of control
Pmis , ac , Qmis , ac Vector of real and reactive power-balance system and interlinking converter (IC) [4], [5], only a few
equations of ac buses, respectively studies have been directed towards the power flow analysis of
Pmis , dc Vector of power-balance equations of dc hybrid ac/dc microgrids.
buses Operating a microgrid to achieve higher performance along
QICac , c Reactive power injected by IC at ac subgrid with greater reliability and security requires advances in mod-
QIC lim, c IC reactive power capacity limit eling and analysis. Power flow studies are fundamental in the
planning and design process of microgrids. As stated in the
θij Admittance angle between ac bus i and j IEEE Std. 1547.4, for islanded microgrids, a load-flow or
Vac ,i Voltage magnitude of ac bus i power-flow study of the island needs to be completed in order
Vac Vector of voltage magnitudes of ac buses to evaluate the match between generation and load [6]. Load
flow algorithms can be easily integrated in an optimal power
Vdc , k Voltage of dc bus k
flow framework (this is typically in conventional power sys-
Vdc Vector of voltages of dc buses tems) which is not achievable by software packages like
Yij Admittance magnitude between ac bus i and j PSCAD/EMTDC. Two well-known power flow analysis ap-
Yij proaches, including Gauss-Siedel and Newton-Raphson (NR)
Complex admittance between ac bus i and j
are widely used in ac power flow calculations [7]–[9]. Con-
ventional power flow methods generally classify the buses into
slack/swing bus, PV buses and PQ buses [10]. Slack/swing bus
is assumed to have unlimited capacity to keep the frequency

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Transactions on Smart Grid
constant and its voltage magnitude at 1 p.u.. PV buses are as-
sumed to keep its real power and voltage magnitude at its rating
whereas PQ buses are assumed to always demand or supply the
same amount of real and reactive power. However, islanded
microgrids do not have a single slack bus, as DGs are usually
insufficient to act as an infinite power source [11]–[14].
Therefore, islanded microgrids often deploy a droop mecha-
nism as a primary control in the load sharing among DGs [15].
Droop control adjusts the voltage and frequency reference
points depending on the real and reactive power output of the
DGs [16]. Thus, the frequency is not constant and is one of the
state variables to be solved for in the power flow.
Although significant work has been carried out to solve the
power flow of islanded microgrids, they are usually limited to
ac microgrids only [12]–[14], [17]–[21]. Different methods
have been proposed such as a branch-based method in [17] or
the backward-forward sweep in [18] which were designed
specifically for radial, distribution-level microgrid. In [19], a
power flow method using virtual impedance that was generic
enough to be applied on ac or dc subgrid was presented. To
solve three-phase power flow of an unbalanced microgrid, the
authors in [12] modelled the power balance equations as an
optimization problem to be solved using Newton-Trust-Region
(NTR). An optimization model was also deployed in [14] to
select the droop parameters. In [20], a load flow based approach
was proposed to achieve voltage security in ac islanded mi-
crogrids. Modifications on the well-known Newton-Raphson
method was the basis to solve the power flow in [13] and [21].
In [21], the proposed method efficiently incorporates the DGs
droop control in the Jacobian matrix to keep the matrix size and
computation time to minimum.
Only very few literatures proposed a method to solve ac/dc
power flow of islanded hybrid microgrids [22], [23]. Although
ac/dc power flow is not a new topic, to date it is only discussed
for HVDC systems [24]–[27]. In [22], the authors performed
the ac and dc power flow in sequence using NR whereas in
[23], the power flows were executed simultaneously using
NTR. In both methods, there is a coupling between ac subgrid
frequency and dc subgrid bus voltage. The coupling was in-
troduced as a way to achieve power balance between the ac and
dc subgrid. When one subgrid is loaded more than the other, the
other subgrid can transfer its power to support the overloaded
subgrid.
Building on the research results in [21]–[23], this paper
proposes an algorithm for islanded microgrids that solves the ac
and dc power flow simultaneously – which saves iteration and
computation time compared to separate or sequential methods.
Further, in contrast to [22] where the ac/dc coupling was set in a
way that the frequency always matches the dc voltage (thus,
always achieving equal power sharing between the ac and dc
subgrids), this paper deploys a droop mechanism to control the
amount of power transferred between the subgrids through the
IC droop gain. In this way, power system designers have more
flexibility in the control of the power transfer. It also enables
the connection of more than one ac or dc subgrids – which
makes the algorithm generic, regardless of the network con-
figuration. This is the main advantage of the proposed method,
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3
compared to existing power flow studies that have only con-
sidered the topology of one ac and one dc subgrid. The pro-
posed method takes into account all the unique characteristics
of an islanded hybrid microgrid: bidirectional power flow, the
absence of slack bus, and droop-controlled DGs. Lastly, the
algorithm is based on the well-known NR method which is
efficient and easy to implement.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section II de-
tails the modeling of the DGs and loads whereas Section III
details the IC model. Section IV explains the proposed power
flow algorithm. Section V shows the implementation and val-
idation of the algorithm. In section VI, the proposed method’s
advantages, computation time, and normalized frequency and
dc voltage are discussed. Section VII describes conclusions and
future avenues of study.
II. SYSTEM MODELING
The modeling of a microgrid, both ac and dc, is indispensa-
ble in power flow analysis. This section discusses the modeling
of ac microgrid line impedance as a function of frequency, ZIP
model of the ac loads and different dc load models, as well as
the modeling of both ac and dc DG droop characteristics.
A. Line Impedance Modeling
For an ac network with N buses, Ybus is a 𝑁 𝑥 𝑁 nodal ad-
mittance matrix for the network. Unlike a system with a stiff
grid, the frequency in islanded microgrids is not constant and
therefore neither is the line reactance, as it is a function of
frequency. When constructing the bus admittance matrix for the
calculation, this must be taken into account. Therefore, the
admittance matrix is also a function of frequency, as shown in
(1).
jθij (ω )
∑ j ≠ i Z ij−1 (ω ) ∀i =j

= Yij (ω ) Y=
ij ( ω ) e  (1)
 − Z ij (ω )
−1
 ∀i ≠ j
where Zij(ω) = Rij + jXij(ω) is the line impedance between buses
i and j.
B. Load Modeling
In general, an ac load can be represented using the composite
load model which has both static and dynamic load character-
istics. Static load model expresses the instantaneous real and
reactive powers as functions of frequency and the bus voltage
magnitude at that instant [28]. For steady-state power flow
study, static model is commonly used [29]. The ZIP or poly-
nomial load model represents ac loads as a combination of
constant impedance, constant current and constant power by
assigning the ZIP coefficients accordingly [30]. The sum of Zp,
Ip, Pp for each load bus must equal 1 and likewise for Zq, Iq, Pq.
The load might also be dependent on the frequency and this is
represented by the constants kpw and kqw, ranging from 0 to 2
and from -2 to 0, respectively [12], [21].
  Vac ,i 
2
V  
=PLac ,i PLac ,i  Z p ,i  0  + I p ,i  ac0 ,i  + Pp ,i 
0
     
  Vac ,i   Vac ,i   (2)
1 + k pw,i (ω − ω ) 
 0

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  
2
V   III. INTERLINKING CONVERTER (IC) MODELING
QLac ,i = 0
QLac  Z  Vac ,i  + I q ,i  ac0 ,i  + Pq ,i 
,i  q , i
 0     (3) An interlinking converter can act as a slack bus to ac subgrid
  Vac ,i   Vac ,i   to provide a stable frequency and voltage [2] or it may act as a
1 + k
 (
qw,i ω − ω
0 
 ) voltage source for the dc subgrid [15]. In hybrid microgrids
where neither the ac nor the dc subgrid is hierarchically higher
The dc loads can similarly be modeled with a constant re- than the other, the IC has the control over the power transferred
sistance, constant current or constant power model. Loads with between the subgrids to achieve balanced power sharing of the
constant resistance can be directly incorporated into the system system demands. In order to do so, there has to be a method
conductance matrix as shunt resistances. Most dc loads, how- correlating the loading in the ac and dc subgrids [32], [33].
ever, employ power electronic-based converters when they are
connected to the grid. These converters are normally regulated A. AC-DC Coupling
tightly, thus, the loads can be modeled as constant power loads The ac and dc subgrid can only exchange real power. As
[3], [31]. Loads with constant power and constant current are mentioned above, the ac real power is a function of frequency
modeled as follows: while the dc real power is a function of voltage. Because of the
P=
Ldc , k
0
PLdc , k + Vdc , k I dc , k
0
(4) different scales, ac frequency and dc bus voltage can be com-
When the load is not a function of voltage and frequency, it pared using the normalized values [22], [23], [32], [33]. The
draws its nominal power. For generalization purposes, every normalized ac frequency and dc bus voltage c ϵ BIC are calcu-
bus in the ac grid is assigned the term PLac,i and QLac,i or the term lated with (11) and (12). The governing equations are given
PLdc,k is utilized for the dc grid. When the bus is not connected below:
to a load, naturally these terms have zero values. ω − 0.5 (ωmax + ωmin )
ωˆ = (11)
0.5 (ωmax − ωmin )
C. Distributed Generation Modeling
In grid-connected ac microgrids, DGs are usually controlled Vdc , c − 0.5 (Vdcmax
, c + Vdc , c )
min

= Vˆdc , c , ∀c ∈ B IC (12)
as PV or PQ buses, instead of slack buses due to their relatively 0.5 (Vdcmax
, c − Vdc , c )
min

small size. In islanded operation, however, given that there is

no slack bus; DGs have a distributed control mechanism to The discrepancy between the normalized frequency and dc
bus voltage is ∆e = ω � −V � dc .
share the loads equally and to control the system frequency and
voltages [12]. With the droop mechanism, DG real and reactive B. Interlinking Converter Modeling
power references follow the changes in the frequency and Balanced power sharing between ac and dc subgrids can be
voltage magnitude. The representation of PV and PQ buses in achieved when the normalized frequency is equivalent to the
the power flow formulation is straightforward. In contrast, the normalized bus voltages [32]. However, in case of multiple
real and reactive power output of DGs can be represented as a subgrids, different IC buses have different bus voltages due to
function of frequency and voltage magnitude, respectively. the line impedances and parameter mismatches within the
The same principle applies to the DGs in the dc subgrids. subgrid. Hence, each subgrid (i.e. each IC) must have its own
They can operate in constant power mode or in droop mode. droop mechanism so that the direction and amount of the
Constant-power DGs can be represented as constant-power transferred power is proportional to each subgrid’s loading.
loads with a negative sign whereas droop-controlled DGs ac- Similar to DGs, the droop mechanism in ICs determines the
tive power can be represented as a function of voltage as shown direction and amount of power transferred between the sub-
in (7): grids based on the IC droop constant and the discrepancy be-
PGac ,i = PGac0
,i + k pac , i ω 0
(
− ω )
(5) tween the frequency and dc bus voltage. The real power trans-

( )
ferred through the IC is inversely proportional to the droop
QGac ,i = QGac0
, i + k qac , i VGac , i − Vac , i
0
(6) gain. IC droop gain represents the sensitivity of a subgrid to the

PGdc , k =+ 0
PGdc ,k k pdc , k VGdc 0
(, k − Vdc , k (7) )
changes in the bus voltage-and-frequency deviation, or in other
words, to the overloading or under-loading condition of the
When the DGs operate in PQ mode, their power equals to their other subgrids. The difference between the normalized fre-
nominal power. quency and the dc bus voltage, Δe, can be fed to a PI controller
The droop constants of the DGs can be chosen to keep the which will always try to minimize this difference. The amount
frequency and voltage within the limits [3], [22] and are ex- of power injected by the IC is given by the output of the PI
pressed as follows: controller and governed by (13). The IC droop constant, kIC, is
max
PGac the inverse of the proportional gain. It determines the amount of
k pac ,i = ,i
(8)
ωmax − ωmin power transferred between the ac and dc side based on the
max
difference between the normalized frequency on the ac side and
QGac
kqac ,i = max ,i
(9) dc voltage on the dc side. In Fig. 1 below, when ∆e is positive
Vac ,i − Vacmin ,i � is larger than V
(ω � dc ), power is transferred from ac grid to dc
P max grid, thus the real power injected by the IC to the dc grid, PICdc,
k pdc , k = maxGdc , k min (10) is positive.
V −Vdc , k dc , k

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Qac ,i Vac ,i ∑ j∈B Vac , j Yij sin ( δi − δ j − θij )

P=
ICdc , c
1
(
k IC , c
)
ωˆ − Vˆdc ,c , ∀c ∈ B IC (13)= ac
(19)
Similarly, in dc network, the power injected at bus k ϵ Bdc is
governed by:
Pdc , k = Vdc , k ∑ l∈B Vdc ,l Gkl (20)
dc

With Newton-Raphson method, the power flow starts with

calculating the power mismatch between the scheduled or
known power and the calculated or the unknown power. When
the iteration has converged, the mismatch should be negligible
(lower than a predefined threshold). The power-balance equa-
tions for any arbitrary bus i ϵ Bac and k ϵ Bdc are given below.
Pmis , ac ,i = PGac ,i + PICac ,i − PLac ,i − Pac ,i (21)
Qmis , ac ,i = QGac ,i + QICac ,i − QLac ,i − Qac ,i (22)
Pmis , dc , k = PGdc , k + PICdc , k − PLdc , k − Pdc , k (23)
Fig. 1. Droop modeling of the interlinking converter (IC).
The three equations above have the terms PICac,i, QICac,i, and
The real power injected into the ac grid from the IC, PICac, is PICdc,k for the purpose of generalization. Obviously buses that
the injected real power from the dc grid minus the IC real power are not connected to the ICs will have these terms as zero as
loss. When the real power flows to the ac subgrid, the IC can shown in (24) and (25).
also inject reactive power to support the ac subgrid. The in- = − PIC , c , i c = QIC , c , i c
jected reactive power can be regulated using droop = control as PICac ,i = and QICac ,i  (24)
 0, i≠c  0, i≠c
long as it does not exceed the IC capacity [3], [22]. The reactive
power injected by the IC at the ac grid can therefore be modeled P , k = c
PICdc , k =  IC , c (25)
by (14) and (15) as follows:  0, k≠c
=
QIC lim, c 2
S IC lim, c − PICac , c
2
(14) Neglecting the IC losses, the power-balance equations for the
IC buses at the ac side become
  1 
min 
QICac , c = 
(Vac0 , c − Vac , c ) + QICac
0
, c , QIC lim, c 

, PICac ,c > 0 (15) = Pmis , ac , c PGac , c − PIC , c − PLac , c − Pac , c , ∀c ∈ B IC (26)
 kqIC , c  Equation (26) shows the interdependency of the ac and dc
 0, PICac , c ≤ 0
 subgrids: the ac power-balance equation is determined by the
C. Interlinking Converter Losses power injected by the dc subgrid through the IC (PICdc ≅ PIC).
The inclusion of dc term in the ac power-balance equation
The losses of power converter for HVDC transmission lines
requires partial derivatives of the ac power-balance equations
have been studied in detail in [34] which results in a generic
with respect to the dc bus voltage.
formula of power converter losses as a function of converter
Because in an islanded ac microgrid the frequency is one of
current.
the unknown variables, the Jacobian matrix needs to be modi-
PICloss , c =+
C0 C1 I IC , c + C2 I IC
2
(16)
,c
fied to incorporate the partial derivatives of the power mis-
IIC,c is the current magnitude flowing through the IC and can be match equations with respect to the frequency. To accommo-
calculated from the converter power as follows [35]: date this, one of the voltage angles must be taken out of the
PIC2 , c + QIC
2
matrix and hence, the voltage angle of the first ac bus is taken as
= , ∀c ∈ B IC
,c
I IC , c (17) the reference (zero). The governing equations are given below:
Vac , c
 ∂Pmis , ac ∂Pmis , ac ∂Pmis ,ac ∂Pmis ,ac 
Thus, depending on the power transferred by the IC, the  
losses can be neglected or taken into account. Because cur-  ∂Vac ∂ω ∂δ ∂Vdc 
rently most microgrids are connected to the LV or MV grid and  ∂Qmis , ac ∂Qmis , ac ∂Qmis ,ac ∂Qmis ,ac 
J =  (27)
are relatively small in size, the IC losses can be neglected [3],
 ∂Vac ∂ω ∂δ ∂Vdc 
[36] or PICdc ≅ −PICac ≅ PIC.  ∂P ∂Pmis , dc ∂Pmis ,dc ∂Pmis ,dc 
 mis , dc 
IV. THE PROPOSED UNIFIED POWER FLOW ALGORITHM  ∂Vac ∂ω ∂δ ∂Vdc 
The Newton-Raphson method used in power flow analysis is Vac m +1  Vac m 
 m +1   m   Pmis,ac m 
based on the Taylor’s series expansion. To apply the New- ω
 =   ω −J Q
−1  m
ton-Raphson method to solve power flow, the bus voltage and  mis,ac  (28)
 δ m +1   δ m 
line admittances are normally expressed in polar form. For an  m +1   m   m 
 Pmis,dc 
ac grid with Bac set of buses, the real and reactive power in- Vdc  Vdc 
jected at arbitrary bus i ϵ Bac can be calculated from: The coupling between the ac system frequency and the dc
=Pac ,i Vac ,i ∑ j∈B Vac , j Yij cos ( δi − δ j − θij ) (18) bus voltage at the IC buses has been given in (13). Equations
ac
(27) and (28) represent the interdependency between the ac and

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dc grid and hence, are essential in solving the power flow. The
power-balance equations for the IC buses c ϵ BIC and the Jaco-
bian matrix are given in the Appendix.
In the initial calculation of the power mismatches, the IC real
and reactive power is taken as zero. After forming the Jacobian
matrices and solving (28), the ac and dc bus voltage magni-
tudes, ac system frequency, and bus voltage angles are updated.
With these updated variables, the injected power at each bus is
calculated as well as the normalized frequency and dc bus
voltage magnitudes. Lastly, the power mismatch equations are
updated. This process continues until the mismatch is smaller
than the predefined limit.
V. CASE STUDIES
A. Single Subgrids
To validate the proposed unified approach, a simulation
study was performed by comparing simulation results from the
implemented algorithm and steady-state values from a
time-domain simulation in PSCAD/EMTDC. The method was
applied on a hybrid microgrid consisting of a single ac and
single dc subgrid interlinked with one IC as given in Fig. 2. The
subgrids are a modification of the test systems used in [37] and
[38]. In both subgrids, there are droop-controlled DGs and
variable-controlled loads. The droop constant of the IC can be
calculated from
ωˆ − ωˆ
k IC , c = max max min (29)
PIC , c
where 𝜔�𝑚𝑎𝑥 and 𝜔 �𝑚𝑖𝑛 are the maximum and minimum nor-
malized frequency or 1 and -1, respectively. This results in kIC =
0.0015. In this test system, the IC maximum capacity equals to
the maximum capacity of the smallest DG, which is the ac DG.
The IC reactive power droop gain kqIC is chosen to be the in-
verse of the kqac of the ac DGs (9.1924 x 10-4 V/Var). The sys-
tem parameters are given in the Appendix A. Table I shows the
voltage magnitude, angle, active and reactive power flow of
each ac and dc bus. The base power is 1 kW. From Table I, it
can be seen that the simulation results of the unified approach
agree with the results obtained from time-domain simulation
using PSCAD/EMTDC.
Fig. 2. Single-subgrid test system.
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6
After the proposed method is validated, it can be applied to
various case studies to show its effectiveness and versatility.
B. Multi-DC Subgrids
This case study is used to demonstrate the power transfer
from dc to ac using the ac-dc coupling presented above and the
power sharing between two dc subgrids, controlled by the ICs.
In the multi-dc subgrids test system given in Fig. 3, two dc
subgrids with identical IC droop constants are connected to the
6-bus ac subgrid from Fig. 2. Identical IC droop constants were
chosen to display how the power sharing among the subgrids is
determined by the difference between the ac frequency and the
dc bus voltages. DC subgrid 1 is connected to ac bus 2 whereas
dc subgrid 2 is connected to ac bus 4. The loads in dc subgrid 1
are chosen arbitrarily to be half of those in dc subgrid 2. Since
the ac frequency and IC droop gains are identical for both dc
subgrids, the only difference between them is the bus voltage,
as shown in Table II.
Fig. 3. Multi-bus ac subgrid with two dc subgrids test system.
The power transferred from dc subgrid 1 to the ac subgrid is
larger than that from dc subgrid 2 despite the same frequency
and IC droop constant. This is because dc subgrid 1 has lower
demands which result in higher bus voltages. Table II shows
that the bus voltages in dc subgrid 1 are higher than those in dc
subgrid 2. The power outputs from the ac DGs are no longer
identical although the DGs are identical because ac bus 4 now
receives power from dc subgrid 2.
C. Multi-AC Subgrids
As a multi-terminal HVDC (MTDC) system can connect ac
grids with different frequencies, so can a multi-bus dc subgrid
connect several ac subgrids operating with different frequen-
cies [32]. Because each IC has its own droop curve, equilibrium
can then be achieved between each dc IC bus and its counter-
part ac subgrid. This is demonstrated by a test system consisting
of a 6-bus dc subgrid connecting two identical ac subgrids
based on Fig. 2 as shown in Fig. 4. Similar to the previous case
study, ac subgrids 1 and 2 are connected to dc bus 2 and 4,
respectively. The IC droop gain of ac subgrid 1 is chosen to be
three times that of ac subgrid 2. Although the ac subgrids are
identical, depending on the dc bus voltages and IC droop gains,
the two ac subgrids will reach different steady-state frequen-
cies, as shown in Table III.
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From Table III, it can be seen that the dc bus 2 and dc bus 4
have very similar voltages although bus 4 voltage is slightly
higher. However, due to IC 1’s lower droop constant, the power
transferred from ac subgrid 1 to dc subgrid is almost three times
higher than that from ac subgrid 2. This translates to higher
demand in ac subgrid 1 which results in lower frequency.
Fig. 4. Multi-bus dc subgrid with two ac subgrids test system.
The two case studies discussed above demonstrate the ge-
nericity of the proposed algorithm. It can easily be expanded to
larger systems consisting of several ac subgrids or several dc
subgrids or even both.
VI. DISCUSSION
A. Simultaneous Power Flow Calculation
The comparison with a time-domain simulation such as
PSCAD/EMTDC was performed to validate the accuracy of the
proposed method. However, commercial power flow packages
do not solve ac and dc power flow simultaneously. MatACDC
program, running in Matlab, does solve ac and dc power flow of
HVDC transmission system [39]. However, as discussed in the
introduction, it only considers unidirectional power flow from
dc sources to the ac grid. The proposed method can solve power
flow bidirectionally between the ac and dc subgrids. In
PSCAD/EMTDC simulation, the ac and dc subgrids are mod-
eled and calculated separately. To mimic what the proposed
method does, the IC is modeled as a frequency-dependent
voltage source to the ac subgrid and as a voltage-dependent
voltage source to the dc subgrid. The frequency and dc voltage
governing the voltage sources are taken from the proposed
method’s results. This is the main advantage of this method.
Load flow algorithms are essential for planning conventional
power systems and the same applies to islanded systems. IEEE
Std. 1547.4 states clearly that a load flow needs to be applied to
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7
islanded systems prior to implementing the project. Thus, this
paper contributes towards this. Furthermore, as opposed to
PSCAD, such load flow algorithms, can be easily integrated in
an optimal power flow framework for optimal planning and
operation of microgrids.
B. Computation Time
As shown in Table I, the proposed method can solve the
power flow in 0.16 s compared to 49.32 s in PSCAD/EMTDC.
The simulations were performed on a desktop running on In-
tel® Core i5-6600 3.30GHz processor with 8GB RAM. The
superiority of the proposed method’s computation time com-
pared to PSCAD is displayed for the other case studies too,
especially with multiple ac subgrids. It should be noted that the
case study with multiple ac subgrids doubled the computation
time in PSCAD but using the proposed algorithm, the compu-
tation time did not increase significantly.
The value of the IC droop constant kIC influences the amount
of power transfer between the ac and dc subgrids. It is worthy to
note that it can also impact the power flow algorithm conver-
gence time. The more power transferred between the subgrids,
the longer it takes for the algorithm to converge.
C. Normalized Frequency and DC Voltage
The IC power is determined by the difference between the
normalized frequency and dc voltage. A normalized value in
principle shows the location of a given value, relative to the
maximum and minimum values. In this case, to fairly compare
the normalized frequency and dc voltage, the range of allowa-
ble frequency and dc voltage should be similar. Otherwise, it
will create instability in the algorithm. This can be achieved by
using a per-unit value of the frequency and voltage. A variation
of ±2% in the frequency and ±5% in the voltage is considered
sensible and applied in the case studies presented here.
A case study where the ac loading is large enough such that
the normalized frequency is below the minimum frequency has
also been tested. With 𝜔 � < -1, the algorithm still reached con-
vergence with no instability or significant extra computation
time. The power transferred from dc to ac increased accord-
ingly but the increment is not straightforward. This is because
the more power demanded from dc subgrid, the lower the dc
voltages, including at the IC bus, become (in this case, the IC
acts as a load to the dc subgrid). In this way, the difference
between the normalized frequency and dc voltage will never be
significantly large because one subgrid will follow the change
in the other subgrid – which is precisely the goal of the power
sharing between ac and dc subgrids.
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8

TABLE I
VALIDATION RESULTS FOR SINGLE SUBGRIDS TEST SYSTEM
Proposed method PSCAD/EMTDC
Bus
Vac (pu) δ (rad) Vdc (pu) Pac (pu) Q (pu) Pdc (pu) Vac (pu) δ (rad) Vdc (pu) Pac (pu) Q (pu) Pdc (pu)
1 0.9908 0 0.9937 -1.6140 -1.0680 -10.0000 0.9907 0 0.9937 -1.6147 -1.0541 -10.0000
2 0.9936 -0.0002 0.9950 0.0492 0.8876 -0.0492 0.9934 -0.0002 0.9950 0.0513 0.9182 -0.0490
3 0.9884 -0.0061 0.9976 -2.1450 -1.5160 9.4685 0.9881 -0.0060 0.9976 -2.1468 -1.5189 9.4684
4 0.9987 0.0116 0.9962 1.2427 0.1782 15.2327 0.9986 0.0116 0.9962 1.2430 0.1755 15.2326
5 0.9980 0.0053 0.9953 1.2427 0.2746 -7.3000 0.9979 0.0054 0.9953 1.2430 0.2709 -7.3000
6 0.9907 -0.0054 0.9953 1.2427 1.2805 -7.3000 0.9904 -0.0052 0.9953 1.2429 1.3046 -7.3000
PIC (pu) 0.0492 0.0490
Comp. time 0.16 s 49.32 s

TABLE II
VALIDATION RESULTS FOR MULTI-DC SUBGRIDS TEST SYSTEM
Proposed method PSCAD/EMTDC
Bus AC subgrid DC subgrid 1 DC subgrid 2 AC subgrid DC subgrid 1 DC subgrid 2
Vac (pu) δ (rad) Vdc (pu) Vdc (pu) Vac (pu) δ (rad) Vdc (pu) Vdc (pu)
1 0.9910 0 0.9937 0.9968 0.9909 0 0.9937 0.9968
2 0.9937 -0.0003 0.9950 0.9975 0.9936 -0.0002 0.9950 0.9975
3 0.9884 -0.0064 0.9976 0.9988 0.9881 -0.0061 0.9976 0.9988
4 0.9993 0.0119 0.9962 0.9981 0.9992 0.0115 0.9962 0.9981
5 0.9980 0.0052 0.9953 0.9976 0.9979 0.0053 0.9953 0.9976
6 0.9907 -0.0056 0.9953 0.9977 0.9904 -0.0054 0.9953 0.9977
PIC (pu) 0.0478 0.0644 0.0478 0.0644
Comp. time 0.15 s 74.10 s

TABLE III
VALIDATION RESULTS FOR MULTI-AC SUBGRIDS TEST SYSTEM
Proposed method PSCAD/EMTDC
Bus DC AC subgrid 1 AC subgrid 2 DC AC subgrid 1 AC subgrid 2
Vdc (pu) Vac (pu) δ (rad) Vac (pu) δ (rad) Vdc (pu) Vac (pu) δ (rad) Vac (pu) δ (rad)
1 0.9937 0.9908 0 0.9909 0 0.9937 0.9907 0 0.9908 0
2 0.9950 0.9936 -0.0002 0.9937 -0.0001 0.9950 0.9934 -0.0002 0.9936 -0.0001
3 0.9976 0.9884 -0.0061 0.9883 -0.0063 0.9976 0.9881 -0.0060 0.9880 -0.0061
4 0.9962 0.9987 0.0116 0.9987 0.0111 0.9962 0.9986 0.0116 0.9985 0.0112
5 0.9952 0.9980 0.0053 0.9980 0.0053 0.9953 0.9979 0.0054 0.9979 0.0053
6 0.9953 0.9907 -0.0054 0.9907 -0.0056 0.9953 0.9904 -0.0052 0.9903 -0.0054
PIC (pu) 0.0491 0.1634 0.0533 0.1672
f (Hz) 49.9814 49.9820 49.9804 49.981
Comp. time 0.19 s 82.43 s

This is, however, very unlikely to happen because the IC
droop constant has been chosen to keep the frequency and the
dc voltage within the allowable range, and the power trans-
ferred by the IC is not to exceed its capacity, as shown by (29).
The algorithm checks for violation of DG and IC capacities and
when that happens, sets them as PQ buses with the output
power set equal to their minimum or maximum rating.
VII. CONCLUSION
In this paper, a unified ac/dc power flow algorithm for hybrid
microgrids with several ac/dc subgrids is proposed. The method
considers islanded operation of microgrids where a single slack
bus is absent and the control over the system frequency and
voltage level lies primarily on the DGs. The real and reactive
power droop mechanism of the DGs as functions of frequency
and voltage as well as the dependency of the load on the fre-
quency and voltage are presented. A major contribution of this
paper is the incorporation of the IC droop control which also
controls the power sharing of the system demand among the
subgrids. This is achieved through the coupling of normalized
ac frequency and dc voltage. The power flow calculation of the
ac and dc subgrids is solved simultaneously by Newton
Raphson method using a modified Jacobian matrix. The results
obtained from the proposed algorithm have been validated
using PSCAD/EMTDC. Case studies have been presented to
demonstrate that the proposed algorithm is effective in solving
ac/dc power flow of hybrid microgrids with several dc subgrids
or several ac subgrids.
APPENDIX A
The elements of the Jacobian matrix in (27) are tabulated
below. Each of the power balance equation is partially derived
with respect to the unknown variables, i.e. the ac and dc bus
voltage and the frequency denoted by ω. Index c is used for IC
buses, i for any ac buses (including IC buses, unless mentioned
otherwise) and k for any dc buses (including IC buses, unless
mentioned otherwise).

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(A.1)

(A.2)

(A.3)

(A.4)

(A.5)

(A.6)

(A.7)

(A.8)

∂Pmis , ac ,c ∂P ∂P ∀i ∈ B ac ≠ B IC
∂Pmis , ac ,i = 0=, mis , ac ,i 0= , mis , ac ,i 0 (A.14)
=−Vac ,iYij cos (δ i − δ j − θ ij ) , ∀j ∈ B ac ≠ i (A.9) ∂V dc , k ∂V dc , k ∂V dc , c
∀k ∈ B dc ≠ B IC
∂Vac , j
∂Qmis , ac ,i
=−Vac ,iYij sin (δ i − δ j − θ ij ) , ∀j ∈ B ac ≠ i (A.15)
∂Yij X ij 2 / ω ∂θ ij X ij / ω Rij ∂Vac , j
= − & = − (A.10)
∂ω ( ) ∂ω ( )
3/ 2 2
Rij 2 + X ij 2 1 + X ij / Rij ∂Qmis , ac ,i
∂δ i
= −Vac ,i ∑ j ≠ i Vac , j Yij cos δ i − δ j − θij , ∀i ∈ B ac ( ) (A.16)
∂Pmis , ac ,i
= Vac ,i ∑ j ≠ i Vac , j Yij sin δ i − δ j − θij
∂δ i
( )
(A.11)
∂Qmis , ac ,i
= Vac ,iVac , j Yij cos (δ i − δ j − θ ij ) , ∀j ∈ B ac ≠ i (A.17)
∂Pmis , ac ,i ∂δ j
= −Vac ,iVac , j Yij sin (δ i − δ j − θ ij ) (A.12)
∂δ j ∂Qmis , ac ,i ∀i ∈ B ac
=0 (A.18)
∂Pmis , ac ,c ∂Vdc , k ∀k ∈ B dc
2
=
( )
(A.13) ∂Pmis , dc , k ∀k ∈ B dc
∂Vdc ,c , c − Vdc , c
k IC ,c Vdcmax min
=0 (A.19)
∂Vac ,i ∀i ∈ B ac

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11

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simulation,” IEEE Trans. Power Syst., vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 1302–1313, IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid.
Aug. 1995.
[31] A. M. Rahimi and A. Emadi, “An Analytical Investigation of DC/DC Zhao Yang Dong (M’99-SM’06-F’17) obtained his Ph.D. degree from the
Power Electronic Converters With Constant Power Loads in Vehicular University of Sydney, Australia in 1999. He is now Professor of Energy Sys-
Power Systems,” IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol., vol. 58, no. 6, pp. 2689– tems with the School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications,
2702, Jul. 2009. University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. He was previously Ausgrid
[32] P. C. Loh, D. Li, Y. K. Chai, and F. Blaabjerg, “Autonomous Operation of Chair and Director of the Center for Intelligent Electricity Networks (CIEN),
Hybrid Microgrid With AC and DC Subgrids,” IEEE Trans. Power The University of Newcastle, Australia, and is now a conjoint professor there.
Electron., vol. 28, no. 5, pp. 2214–2223, May 2013. He also held academic and industrial positions with the The University of
[33] P. C. Loh, D. Li, Y. K. Chai, and F. Blaabjerg, “Autonomous operation of Sydney, Australia and Transend Networks (now TASNetworks), Tasmania,
ac–dc microgrids with minimised interlinking energy flow,” IET Power Australia. His research interest includes Smart Grid, power system planning,
Electron., vol. 6, no. 8, pp. 1650–1657, Sep. 2013. power system security, load modeling, electricity market, and computational
[34] G. Daelemans, “VSC HVDC in meshed networks,” Katholieke intelligence and its application in power engineering. Prof. Dong is Fellow of
Universiteit Leuven, 2008. IEEE and an editor of IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, IEEE Power Engi-
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“Minimization of steady-state losses in meshed networks using VSC
HVDC,” in 2009 IEEE Power and Energy Society General Meeting,
2009, pp. 1–5.
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Nonlinear-Disturbance-Observer-Based DC-Bus Voltage Control for a
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pp. 6162–6177, Nov. 2014.
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and accurate approach to solve the power flow for balanced islanded
microgrids,” in 2015 IEEE 15th International Conference on
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Jul. 2015.

Ernauli Aprilia (S’16) obtained M.Sc. degree in sustainable energy technol-

ogy from Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands in 2012. She
is currently pursuing her Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering at the School of
Electrical and Information Engineering, The University of Sydney, Australia
under the scholarship from the Indonesian Endowment Fund for Education
(LPDP). Her research interest includes power system power system planning,
integration of renewable energy sources, and microgrids.

Ke Meng (M’10) obtained Ph.D. from the University of Queensland, Australia

in 2009. He is currently with the School of Electrical and Information Engi-
neering, The University of Sydney, Australia. He is also a visiting Professor of
the Changsha University of Science and Technology. His research interest
includes power system stability analysis, power system planning, renewable
energy, and demand side management.

Mohamed Al Hosani (S’10-M’13) received the B.Sc. degree in electrical

engineering from the American University of Sharjah, UAE, in 2008 and the
M.Sc. and the Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of
Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA, in 2010 and 2013, respectively. Since 2014,
he has been with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at
Masdar Institute, Khalifa University Abu Dhabi, UAE, as an Assistant Pro-
fessor. He was a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA, for 8 months during 2015-2016. His
current interests include anti-islanding algorithm, distributed generation pro-
tection and control, modeling and stability analysis of micro-grid and smart
grid.

Hatem H. Zeineldin (M’06-SM’13) received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in

electrical engineering from Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt, in 1999 and 2002,
respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering from
the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada, in 2006.
He was with Smith and Andersen Electrical Engineering, Inc., North York, ON,
where he was involved in projects involving distribution system design, pro-
tection, and distributed generation. He was a Visiting Professor with the Mas-
sachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA. He is with the
Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University and is currently a Professor with the
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Masdar Institute, Kha-
lifa University Abu Dhabi, UAE. His current interests include distribution
system protection, distributed generation, and micro-grids. Dr. Zeineldin is

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