IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SUSTAINABLE ENERGY, VOL. 4, NO.
3, JULY 2013
Analysis and Active-Impedance-Based Stabilization
of Voltage-Source-Rectifier Loads in Grid-Connected
and Isolated Microgrid Applications
Amr Ahmed A. Radwan, Student Member, IEEE, and Yasser Abdel-Rady I. Mohamed, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—This paper addresses the stability analysis and
active-impedance-based stabilization of pulsewidth modulated
voltage-source rectifier (VSR) loads in grid-connected and isolated
voltage-source inverter (VSI)-based microgrid systems. Using
small-signal analysis, detailed and coupled admittance-based
models of the VSR-interfaced load and the source side are
obtained in the rotating reference frame by considering all
control loops and phase-locked loop dynamics. Therefore, a
multi-input–multi-output (MIMO) impedance-admittance net-
work is yielded. Using the generalized Nyquist stability criterion,
it is shown that a VSR-interfaced load can negatively interact with
the source-side dynamics resulting in unstable voltage response
at the point of interconnection. To suppress these instabilities,
proposed active-impedance-based compensators are implemented
in the control structure of the VSR-interfaced load to satisfy the
generalized Nyquist stability criterion and provide seamless inte-
gration of VSRs into both grid-connected and isolated VSI-based
ac systems. A theoretical analysis, time-domain simulations, and
experimental results are presented to evaluate the effectiveness of
the proposed techniques.
Index Terms—Impedance matching, Nyquist stability criterion,
voltage-source rectifier (VSR).
I. INTRODUCTION
T HE energy sector is moving toward extensive use of
power electronic converters to interface distributed gen-
eration (DG) units and loads. It is expected that the penetration
level of converter-fed loads (high-efficiency motor drives,
lighting, heating, etc.) will increase to 80% in 2015 [1]. With
this progressive trend, voltage-source rectifiers (VSRs) are
gaining wide adoption as the main power electronic dc load-in-
terface to existing ac systems such as voltage-source inverter
(VSI)-based microgrids or conventional ac distribution system
[2].
In a cascaded power electronic system consisting of a
VSR-interfaced load and VSI-based ac microgrid, the system
stability at the interconnection point might be an issue. In power
electronic systems, the inherent stability and functionality of
Manuscript received April 27, 2012; revised September 10, 2012; accepted
October 29, 2012. Date of publication January 18, 2013; date of current version
June 17, 2013.
The authors are with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engi-
neering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2V4, Canada (e-mail:
aradwan@ieee.org; yasser_rady@ieee.org).
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/TSTE.2012.2227981
1949-3029/$31.00 © 2013 IEEE
563
individual converters is not sufficient to guarantee stable perfor-
mance if these entities (VSIs and VSRs) are connected together
[3]. Similar instabilities might be yielded in grid-connected
VSRs. Therefore, the term “interaction dynamics” is used in
this paper to refer to the destabilizing effect in these systems
not due to their inherent parameters or controllers but due to
their combination in one network. The degraded performance
in such systems is mainly attributed to: 1) The violation of
the admittance ratio or “Nyquist” criterion [2], [4], [5]. For
voltage source power electronic systems, with equivalent load
and source admittance around a common
point of investigation, the system stability is guaranteed if
the ratio is less than unity. This ratio must not
encircle the ( 1, 0) point on Nyquist contours. However, this
criterion is only valid for single-input–single-output (SISO)
systems. For multi-input–multi-output (MIMO) systems, the
generalized Nyquist criterion should be used. 2) The real part
of input/output impedance of a voltage source converter (VSC)
might appear as negative resistance in the low frequency range
due to the controllers parameters [2], [5], [6]. The equivalent
negative resistive behavior of VSCs reduces the damping of
the overall system.
In spite of the importance of the VSR as an interfacing device
in ac systems, most ac microgrid stability and dynamic interac-
tion studies are conducted for static loads only. For instance, a
generalized computational method is proposed in [7] to deter-
mine the overall system stability for an ac microgrid composed
of three VSIs. Linear resistive-inductive loads are considered in
[8] where a complete analysis and testing of an ac microgrid is
provided based on small-signal analysis and state space mod-
eling. The impact of dynamic line-start induction motors on the
ac microgrid stability is presented in [9]. In [10], the overall
system stability is investigated for two parallel-connected in-
verters supplying a common tightly-regulated converter-inter-
faced load in islanded mode. The load is generically modeled by
a negative resistance assuming constant power operation which
ignores the load dynamics and its interactions with the micro-
grid VSIs. A passive damping solution is used to enhance the
system stability [11]. However, this solution is not appreciated
due to the associated power losses. The work in [12] addresses
the interaction dynamics analysis and stabilization of an ac mi-
crogrid supplying multiple power electronic-interfaced loads.
Active stabilization techniques are implemented to enhance the
system stability from the VSI side (source). However, a neg-
ative resistance augmented model of the overall load-side is
considered.
564
Fig. 1. VSR-interfaced load connected to VSI-based microgrid or the utility grid.
In this paper, the interaction dynamics of the VSR-interfaced
loads are investigated in both grid-connected and isolated VSI-
based ac microgrid systems. Admittance-based models of the
source-load entities are obtained in the rotating reference frame
by considering all control loops and phase-locked loop (PLL)
dynamics. Therefore, a MIMO system is yielded. To investi-
gate the stability of the admittance-modeled MIMO systems,
two approaches can be followed. 1) Approximate approach in
which the diagonal or anti-diagonal elements of the ac source
or load admittance should be zero. Following this approach, the
MIMO system can be decomposed into four independent SISO
systems. Conventional Nyquist criterion can be applied to the
resultant SISO systems to check the system stability. Several
studies have applied the Nyquist stability criterion on SISO sys-
tems [2], [4], [13]–[15] for dc systems. For ac systems, a SISO
system has been assumed in [12] by ignoring the coupling terms
yielded from the direct-quadrature transformation. In
[16] and [17], space vectors are used to model the ac system
under study so that a SISO system is also yielded. 2) Exact ap-
proach in which the complete coupled 2 2 input–output ma-
trix impedances are obtained in the reference frame and
the resultant MIMO system is treated without simplifications.
In this case, the generalized Nyquist stability criterion has to be
used [18], [19]. Both approached are considered in this work.
The contributions of this paper are as follows:
1) Development of the complete coupled ac impedance
matrices of a VSR-interfaced load and VSI with power
sharing control functions in islanded microgrids in the
reference frame.
2) Investigation of possible interaction dynamics and insta-
bilities in a VSR-interfaced load in both grid-connected
and isolated VSI-based microgrids using the generalized
Nyquist stability criterion.
3) Based on the generalized Nyquist stability criterion, pro-
posed active-impedance reshaping loops are implemented
in the control structure of the VSR-interface to guarantee
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SUSTAINABLE ENERGY, VOL. 4, NO. 3, JULY 2013
sufficient stability conditions and hence seamless integra-
tion characteristics in both grid-connected and isolated mi-
crogrid applications.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. The
detailed admittance-based models of the VSR, VSI-based
microgrid, and the utility grid are derived in Section II. The
input admittance of the VSR-interfaced load is then inves-
tigated in Section III. The generalized Nyquist criterion is
applied in Section IV in order to address possible interaction
dynamics between the VSR-interfaced load and the source side.
The proposed active stabilization techniques are presented in
Section V so that the generalized Nyquist stability criterion
is actively satisfied. The influence of the proposed compen-
sators on the operation of the VSR is thoroughly addressed in
Section VI. Simulation and experimental results are provided
in Sections VII and VIII, respectively. Finally, the conclusion
is drawn in Section IX.
II. IMPEDANCE-BASED MODELING OF VSR-INTERFACED
LOAD IN ISLANDED AC MICROGRID AND
GRID-CONNECTED SYSTEMS
Fig. 1 shows the system under study where the VSR-inter-
faced load can be connected to the VSI-based micorgrid through
the circuit breaker-2 (Br-2). The utility grid can individually
supply the VSR load by closing Br-1 and opening Br-2. A resis-
tive load can be connected in parallel with the VSR-interfaced
load through the Br-3. As shown, VSIs in the ac microgrid are
terminated by an ac LC filter and are connected together via a
distribution feeder with an equivalent resistance and induc-
tance . System parameters are given in Appendix A.
In this paper, the analysis is based on small-signal lineariza-
tion in a synchronous coordination system to equiva-
lently obtain the overall source-load admittances including the
physical parameters and controller dynamics [20]. This method
yields a computationally efficient and modular modeling ap-
proach that is suitable for analyzing large networks at the cost of
RADWAN AND MOHAMED: ANALYSIS AND ACTIVE-IMPEDANCE-BASED STABILIZATION OF VSR LOADS 565

assuming balanced operation, which is a reasonable assumption The inner PI current controller synthesizes the
due to the small unbalance factor in typical distribution systems duty ratios in the frame which are used to generate the
[21]. controlled signals of the IGBT switches

A. Admittance Model of VSR-Interfaced Load (11)

As shown in Fig. 1, for vector-oriented control, a (12)
phase-locked-loop (PLL) is used to project the three-phase
space-phasor variables on the rotating frame. The relation The input ac impedance matrix of the VSR-interfaced load
between the capacitor voltage space-phasor and its can be obtained as follow. Apply small-signal perturbations on
components is described by (3) and (4) considering (2) to replace the perturbed angular fre-
quency by the PLL dynamics, yields
(1)

In (1), the angular speed of the frame is equal to the

angular speed of the space vector . The PLL lo- (13)
cally synchronizes the VSR with respect to its input ac voltage.
Therefore, the -component of the ac voltages is zero in
steady-state conditions which is achieved by the PLL propor- where all system matrices in (13) and forthcoming equations are
tional-and-integral (PI) controller as described in the defined in Appendix B.
following: Similarly, (9) is rearranged as in (14) whereas (15) is yielded
from (10)–(12):
(2)
(14)
Using the PLL to decompose all space-phasors into the two-
phase synchronous reference frame, the large-signal
model of VSR can be given by [22]
(15)
(3)
(4) In a similar manner, the small-signal model of (5), (6) and (7),
(8) gives
(5)
(6) (16)
(7)
(8) (17)

(9) Substitute (14) in both (13) and (15) to remove , and

solve the resultant two equations together
where and are the per phase equivalent resistance
and inductance of the distribution line and the input ac filter of (18)
the VSR whereas and are the ac side and the dc-link ca-
pacitor, respectively; is the terminated load at the dc side of
Using (18) in (17) to remove and solve the
the VSR and is assumed resistive with a dc-link voltage
resultant equation with (16) to remove , the ac
and input dc current ; are the components of
admittance matrix of the VSR-interfaced that relates
the rectifier input ac current ; are the compo-
to is given by
nents of ; while and are the compo-
nents of the ac voltages and , respectively; and are
the rectifier duty ratios in frame and are determined by the
control topology.
An outer PI dc voltage controller is used for dc
voltage tracking and regulation. The mathematical model for
the dc voltage controller is given by (10), where it generates (19)
the -axis component of the VSR reference current . The
quadrature component of the input ac current is set to zero
for unity power factor operation. Therefore, the
B. Source Impedance Model of Islanded AC Microgrid
steady-state value of the -component of the input ac current
Interface (VSI) and Utility-Grid System
is zero
As shown in Fig. 1, the current and voltage dynamics of the
(10) power circuits are modeled by (20)–(23) in the frame that
566 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SUSTAINABLE ENERGY, VOL. 4, NO. 3, JULY 2013

rotates synchronously with the inverter output voltage angular (27). The resultant two equations are arranged in a matrix form
speed [23] as follows:

(20) (34)
(21)
(22) Applying small perturbations on (24) and (25) yields
(23)

where , , , and are the inverter output voltages

and currents ; , , , and are the ac bus (35)
voltages and injected currents ; , , and are Similarly, (22) and (23) yield
the per-phase resistance, inductance, and capacitance of the
filter, respectively; and is the Laplace operator. The dynamics
of the voltage and current controllers can be described by
(36)
Applying small perturbation on the power sharing dynamics in
(24)
(28)–(33) yields
(25)
(26)
(37)
(27)

where is a feed-forward gain; and are the Solving (34) and (36) to remove yields an equa-
voltage and current PI controller functions with and tion in which (35) is used to substitute . Using
as proportional gains and and as integral gains, re- (37), the resultant equation that relates the output ac voltages
spectively; and and are the - and -components of to the injected ac currents is given
the generated control signal. The superscript “ ” denotes the ref- by
erence value. is usually set to zero.
The instantaneous active and reactive power delivered
to the ac common bus are given by

(38)
(28)
(29)

The average active and reactive powers that corre-
spond to the fundamental components are obtained by a low-
pass filter (LPF) with a cutoff frequency to achieve high
power quality injection; therefore,
(30)
(31)
Virtual droop characteristics are emulated in paralleled in-
verter systems to share the active and reactive power of the
common load. The following droop functions are adopted [23]:
(32)
(33)
where and are the static droop gains of the active and reac-
tive powers, respectively.
The source impedance of the VSI can be obtained by applying
small-signal linearization on (20) and (26) and solve together to
remove the coupling terms. A similar step is applied to (21) and
where is the output impedance of the VSI in is-
landed microgrid mode of operation.
Similar to the preceding analysis, an approximated source
impedance of the VSI in isolated microgrid mode can be ob-
tained but with the following assumptions:
1) Ignoring the effect of the outer power sharing loop by set-
ting both droop coefficients to zero. Therefore, and
in (37) are zero ( and ).
2) Ignoring the small-signal ac capacitor current as com-
pared to the injected ac current to the load .
By considering these two assumptions, the approximated
source impedance of the VSI can be obtained
in the form of (38) but with zero anti-diagonal elements
and equal diagonal elements
. The approximated source
admittance is defined in Appendix B.
It is shown in Fig. 1 that the VSR-interfaced load can be sup-
plied from the utility grid by closing the Br-1 and opening Br-2.
The source impedance of the utility-grid in the reference
frame is given as
(39)
RADWAN AND MOHAMED: ANALYSIS AND ACTIVE-IMPEDANCE-BASED STABILIZATION OF VSR LOADS 567

Fig. 3. Input admittance of VSR—Effect of drawn active power. (a) Frequency

response. (b) Real part.

Fig. 4. Input admittance of VSR—Effect of the PLL.

Fig. 2. Input admittance of VSR—Effect of the dc voltage controller. (a) Fre-

quency response. (b) Real part. Fig. 4 shows the influence of the PI controller of the PLL
on the real part of . The consideration of the
PLL dynamics in the model of is not significant. On the
III. ANALYSIS OF THE INPUT ADMITTANCE OF contrary, the magnitude of the real part of remarkably in-
VSR-INTERFACED LOAD creases when the PLL dynamics is considered as compared to
the case when the PLL is ignored. For , the magnitude of
The frequency response of the four channels of in (19) the real part with PLL is slightly higher than that without PLL
is shown in Fig. 2. A resonant peak appears in the high fre- in frequencies up to 200 Hz. Beyond this frequency, the real part
quency region due to the combination of the ac LC filter and of drifts to more negative value without the PLL whereas it
distribution feeder of the VSR as shown in Fig. 2(a). The tight drifts to be more positive when the PLL dynamics is considered.
regulation of the output dc voltage of the VSR has a significant Fig. 4 implies that the PLL dynamics is preferred to be included
influence on . As the proportional gain of the dc in the dynamics of the VSR model as it affects the electrical
voltage controller increases, goes further to higher negative damping of the VSR.
value as the phase angle approaches 180 . The same effect is no- The influence of parameter variations; mainly LCL combina-
tion values, is also investigated. As shown in Fig. 5(a) for ,
ticed on the frequency response of . Note that is slightly
, with higher values of , the resonant peak magnitude
influenced by the dc voltage controller as the voltage controller
increases whereas the resonant frequency decreases. Fig. 5(b)
is employed in the -channel only. For further investigation, the
shows the influence of the variation of VSR capacitor on
real part component of the four-channel input admittance of the
. It is shown that as increases from 0.8 to 1.2 p.u.,
VSR is shown in Fig. 2(b). The negative value of the real part the magnitude of the resonant peak of increases implying
increases with the increase of the dc voltage controller gain for less damping around the resonant frequency. Similar influence
both and . is yielded for and but on the whole frequency range of
The effect of the injected active power to the VSR is shown the input admittance. In Fig. 5, the response of is similar
in Fig. 3. With lower power level, the resonant peak magni- to . The influence of the value of on the input admit-
tude of decreases. is more negative as the in- tances of the VSR only appears around the resonant frequency
jected active power increases to 1.2 p.u. as shown in Fig. 3(b). of the equivalent LCL filter (not shown here). As increases,
Both anti-diagonal elements are not sensitive to the drawn ac- the magnitude of the resonant peak decreases. This effect is the
tive power. same for , , and whereas is not affected by .
568
Fig. 5. Input admittance of VSR—Effect of LCL parameters variations. (a)
(b) .
IV. INTERACTION DYNAMICS BETWEEN EQUIVALENT
SOURCE AND LOAD SIDES
In this section, the interaction dynamics between the VSR-
interfaced load and the source sides are investigated.
A. Using Approximated Modeling Approach for the Source
Side
Considering the approximated source impedance of the VSI-
microgrid and the obtained load admittance of the
VSR-interfaced load in (19), the source-load impedance-admit-
tance matrix is given as follows:
(40)
By considering the approximate source impedance of the
VSI, the impedance matrix ratio can
be easily decomposed into four independent transfer functions.
Therefore, the MIMO stability problem has been transformed
into an SISO problem on which the conventional Nyquist
stability criterion is applied.
The frequency response of the four subsystems in (40) is
shown in Fig. 6. For the first subsystem , the
resonant peak interacts with the output admittance of the VSI vi-
olating the Nyquist stability criterion. Moreover, in the mid-fre-
quency region, the stability margin is limited and subjects the
overall system to instabilities. For the high-frequency resonant
peak, a physical resistor can be added in series with the ac
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SUSTAINABLE ENERGY, VOL. 4, NO. 3, JULY 2013
Fig. 6. Input–output admittance mismatching using the approximated ap-
proach— : passive damping resistor in series with the ac capacitor .
filter capacitor of the VSR to be damped as shown for the
first subsystem in Fig. 6. However, the passive resistor locally
reshapes the input admittance of the VSR without any signifi-
cant improvement in the mid-frequency region. Moreover, the
incremental negative resistance characteristics at the low- and
. mid-frequency regions cannot be mitigated by this technique
(the phase angle of VSR-admittance ). More impor-
tantly, this passive solution is not preferred in DG applications
due to the associated power losses. It is also shown in Fig. 6
that the remaining subsystems in (40) do not contribute to the
violation of the Nyquist stability criterion (no magnitude inter-
sections).
For further investigation, Nyquist plots are utilized to eval-
uate the overall interaction dynamics between the equivalent
load and approximated source admittances. Fig. 7 shows the
Nyquist contours for the first subsystem in (40) as other sub-
systems are not significant to the system stability (as shown in
Fig. 6). Fig. 7(a) shows that the stability margin of the uncom-
pensated system is very low. In the same figure, the effect of
adding passive load in parallel with the VSR-interfaced load
is shown (close Br-3 in Fig. 1). The parallel combination of
the VSR and passive loads positively contributes to the overall
system stability. However, it might not be feasible to put restric-
tions on the amount or type of front-end loads that are supplied
from microgrids. This contradicts the visionary policy of fu-
ture grids that can accommodate different loads especially con-
verter-fed types which will be highly penetrated to future distri-
bution system at the expense of conventional passive loads [24].
The influence of cascading more than one VSR is shown in
Fig. 7(b) for the first subsystem in (40). As shown, the reduced
stability margin with one VSR unit is dramatically degraded
with two or three VSR units.
To study the interaction dynamics between the VSR-inter-
faced load and utility grid impedance, the approximate approach
can be adopted by neglecting the anti-diagonal coupling terms in
(39). However, the generalized Nyquist stability criterion can be
RADWAN AND MOHAMED: ANALYSIS AND ACTIVE-IMPEDANCE-BASED STABILIZATION OF VSR LOADS
Fig. 7. Nyquist admittance ratio criterion— . (a) Activating
Br-3 in Fig. 1 with different level of passive load (0.1, 0.2 p.u.). (b) Parallelism
of multiple VSR supplied from the common ac bus.
Fig. 8. Maximum and minimum singular values of the source and load sides
with the passive damping effect ( in series with C)—interactions dynamics
with the VSI-microgrid and the utility grid.
applied on the exact source impedance to investigate the system
stability.
B. Using Exact Modeling Approach for the Source Side
The preceding analysis in Section IV-A is restricted to the
condition of zero anti-diagonal (or diagonal) elements in the
source (or load) impedance matrices. Otherwise, the general-
ized Nyquist stability criterion should be used. According to
(41), for MIMO systems with 2 2 source-load impedance/ad-
mittance matrices, the system stability is guaranteed around the
point of connection if the maximum singular value of the source
impedance is less than the minimum singular value
of the load impedance [18], [19]
(41)
Fig. 8 shows the maximum and minimum singular values
of the complete load and source impedances. As previously
shown with the approximated analysis, the uncompensated load
impedance of the VSR intersects with the source impedance of
the VSI in the region 250–1000 Hz which clearly reflects the vi-
olation of the generalized Nyquist stability criterion. In the same
figure, the influence of the passive damping technique, which
569
Fig. 9. Proposed MFC and HFC for VSR-interfaced load. Similar structure is
applied for the -channel.
successfully mitigates the intersections and provides a consider-
able stability margin as compared to the unstable case, is shown.
Fig. 8 also shows the singular values of the VSR and utility grid
impedances. The uncompensated VSR system negatively inter-
acts with the grid impedance . As the grid impedance in-
creases, the frequency range of intersection increases implying
a remarkable reduction in the system damping with weak grids.
However, the passive damping resistance can im-
prove the system damping.
V. ACTIVE-IMPEDANCE-BASED STABILIZATION OF
VSR-INTERFACED LOADS
In this section, active-impedance-based compensators are
proposed for the VSR load to mitigate destabilizing effects
associated with impedance interactions between VSR loads and
source dynamics (e.g., VSI-based microgrid or utility grid).
A. Modified Control Structure of the VSR-Interfaced Load
Fig. 9 shows a schematic diagram of the modified control
loops of the VSR. As shown, two proposed compensators are
employed: a mid-frequency compensator (MFC) to actively re-
shape the input admittance of the VSR to avoid possible inter-
actions with the source-side at this region, and a high-frequency
compensator (HFC) to damp the resonant peak due to the LCL
ac filter of the VSR. The HFC is employed by feeding the -axis
component of the ac capacitor current through a con-
stant gain to mimic a virtual voltage drop that is sub-
tracted from the generated control signal [ in (44)]. A
similar modified structure is applied to the -channel of the con-
trol structure. For the mid-frequency compensation, is ap-
plied through a compensator function to generate the
active compensation signal that is added to the dc-link voltage
reference. As shown in (42), the selection of is based
on band-pass (BP) filter characteristics to allow admittance re-
shaping around the required frequency band
(42)
where is the damping factor, is the operating frequency,
and is the compensator gain.
The modified system dynamics due to proposed MFC and
HFC are described in (43) and (44), respectively,
(43)
(44)
570 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SUSTAINABLE ENERGY, VOL. 4, NO. 3, JULY 2013

Fig. 10. Influence of the MFC parameters on the input admittance of the VSR
( channel). (a) Effect of . (b) Effect of . (c) Effect of .

Following similar mathematical procedures, the compensated

small-signal input admittance ( of the VSR) is obtained
in the form of (45) and is detailed in Appendix B:

(45)
Fig. 11. Frequency response of the compensated input admittance of VSR
using the approximated approach— , rad/s,
To show the sole influence of the BP compensator , .
on the input admittance of the VSR, passive damping is con-
sidered with to neutralize the interactions due to
LCL resonance at high frequencies. The effect of the proposed
MFC on the first channel of is shown in
Fig. 10. The compensated input admittance of the VSR can be
actively reshaped to avoid possible interactions with the source
side. The compensated input admittance follows the dynamic
response of the BP filter. In Fig. 10(a), the operating frequency
of the proposed compensator is 50 rad/s with a unity Fig. 12. Influence of the proposed compensator on the real part of the admit-
tance of the VSR-interfaced load.
damping factor . With the increase of the compensator
gain , the magnitude of the input admittance decreases ac-
cordingly around the designed frequency. Fig. 10(b) shows the admittance of VSR, the objective of the high frequency com-
effect of changing the operating frequency of . The width pensator is to dampen the resonant peak of the VSR LCL filter.
of the resultant peak increases with the increase of the damping The objective of the medium frequency compensator is to: 1) de-
factor , as shown in Fig. 10(c). crease the magnitude of the input admittance of the VSR in the
medium frequency range, just before the ac filter resonant fre-
B. Active Compensation Effect Using Approximated Modeling quency; and 2) reshape the VSR phase response in the medium
Approach of the Source Side frequency range to mitigate the equivalent negative resistive be-
havior (shift the phase from 180 in mid-frequencies).
Fig. 11 shows the input–output admittance matching by con-
Both objectives can be achieved without accurate knowledge
sidering the compensated input admittance of VSR and the ap-
of the VSI (source) parameters. Similar to Fig. 11, any VSR can
proximated output admittance of the VSI [similar to (40)]. For
be compensated and to maximize the stable operation region.
the first subsystem , the HFC successfully
Fig. 13(a) shows the Nyquist contours of the first compen-
mitigates the resonant peak whereas the MFC results in higher
sated subsystem . The effect of the pro-
stability margin. Moreover, the 180 phase angle of the uncom-
posed active compensator is clearly reflected to the system sta-
pensated input admittance at low- and mid-frequency regions is
bility. As the MFC gain varies from 0.1 to 0.8, the stability
shifted to be more positive which increases the overall system
margin is significantly improved as compared to the uncompen-
damping.
sated case . The effect of multicascaded VSR with the
The effect of the proposed compensator on the real part of
proposed active compensator is investigated in Fig. 13(b). As
the VSR admittance can be clearly shown in Fig. 12. As com-
compared to Fig. 7(b), the stability is maintained with two and
pared to the uncompensated system in Fig. 2, the real part of the
three identical VSR units.
four-channel admittance becomes positive in the low- to mid-
frequency range implying more damping added to the system.
C. Active Compensation Effect Using Exact Modeling
Note that the previously shown passive damped system in Fig. 6
Approach of the Source Side
is not able to reshape the admittance to be more positive.
As shown in Fig. 11, the user may not need the VSI parame- Using the generalized Nyquist stability criterion, the in-
ters to design the load-side compensators. Regarding the input fluence of the proposed MFC and the HFC is shown in
RADWAN AND MOHAMED: ANALYSIS AND ACTIVE-IMPEDANCE-BASED STABILIZATION OF VSR LOADS
Fig. 13. Nyquist admittance ratio criterion—
rad/s, , . (a) Different values of . (b) Parallelism of
multiple VSR supplied from the common ac bus with .
Fig. 14. Maximum and minimum singular values of the source and load sides
with the proposed MFC and HFC. (a) Influence of the MFC. (b) Influence of
the HFC. (c) Combined effect of both MFC and HFC on the VSR impedance
( , , ).
Fig. 14(a) and (b), respectively. It is clear that each compen-
sator has an independent objective; MFC is responsible for
reshaping the input impedance in the mid-frequency range
whereas the HFC’s responsibility is to mitigate the resonant
peak at the relatively high frequency region. Both objectives
are successfully met to achieve better stability margin when the
VSR is plugged into the source side, as shown in Fig. 14(c). As
concluded earlier from the approximated analysis, the proposed
compensators provide sufficient stability margin on the overall
frequency range between the VSR and VSI-based microgrid.
In the same figure, the interaction dynamics between the VSR
and the utility grid is completely mitigated.
VI. INFLUENCE OF THE PROPOSED COMPENSATOR
VSR-DYNAMICS
This section investigates the associated possible negative ef-
fects of the proposed compensators on the operation of the VSR.
571
—
Fig. 15. Output dc voltage tracking of VSR— .
A. Effect on the DC Voltage Tracking
The transfer function is obtained in (46) using block
diagram reductions before and after employing the active com-
pensator to evaluate its effect on the dc voltage tracking of the
VSR. for the uncompensated system
(46)
Fig. 15 shows the frequency response of (46). As in-
creases from 0 to 0.8, the dc voltage controller bandwidth be-
comes 224, 212, 200, and 176 Hz, respectively. The uncom-
pensated dc voltage controller is designed with high bandwidth
for advanced power electronic rectifiers and tight regulated dc
voltage performance. The employed active compensator does
not deform the dc voltage controller significantly.
B. Sensitivity Against DC Voltage Controller Bandwidth
Using the approximated approach, the Nyquist admittance
ratio criterion for the first subsystem is in-
vestigated under variation of dc voltage controller bandwidth of
the VSR. As shown in Fig. 16(a), the encirclements with the real
axis at is ( 0.6382, 0) whereas it is ( 0.5563, 0) with
with a variation in damping by 0.0819 on the real
axis. On the other hand, the compensated system in Fig. 16(b)
encirclements the real axis at ( 0.222, 0) with and
( 0.19, 0) with with a difference of 0.025. The
compensated system is more robust against dc voltage controller
variations as compared to the uncompensated system.
VII. SIMULATION RESULTS: VSR-INTERFACED LOAD IN A
VSI-BASED MICROGRID
To verify the preceding analytical results, a complete
44-kW 208-V ac-microgrid system is implemented under
the Matlab/Simulink environment. As shown in Fig. 17, the
implemented system consists of two DG units interfaced by
two 22-kVA VSIs operating in the isolated microgrid mode
ON
of operation. The ac microgrid system is highly penetrated
by three converter-fed loads: VSR-1 is feeding a permanent
magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) drive rated at 10 hp and
resistive load at the dc-link side with power rating of 6.25 kW
572
Fig. 16. Nyquist criterion with different values of voltage controller propor-
tional gain . (a) Uncompensated. (b) Compensated case.
Fig. 17. Simulated ac microgrid.
Fig. 18. Load curve of the simulated ac microgrid.
that increases to 9.4 kW at time s then returns back to
6.25 kW at s; VSR-2 interfaces a resistive load rated
at 4.7 kW and instantly increases to 8.3 kW at s; and
VSR-3 is feeding a constant resistive load with power demand
of 15.6 kW. A load curve that describes the loading conditions
of the ac microgrid is shown in Fig. 18. The ac microgrid is
characterized by severe loading/unloading conditions to subject
the proposed compensators to the worst loading conditions.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SUSTAINABLE ENERGY, VOL. 4, NO. 3, JULY 2013
Fig. 19. Uncompensated response for the simulated ac microgrid excluding
VSR-3. (a) Common ac-voltage. (b) Total injected active power.
A. Test 1: Inherent Stability of VSR-Interfaced Loads
The ac microgrid in Fig. 17 is tested without active compen-
sation; the VSR-3 is disconnected in this test while the same
load disturbances in VSR-1 and -2 are applied. A damped dy-
namic response is obtained as shown in Fig. 19. It is clear that
both VSR-1 and -2 are inherently stable even with similar load
side disturbances at 0.3, 0.4, and 0.5 s. Moreover, VSR-3 is in-
herently stable as well when individually supplied (not shown
here). However, when these units are connected together, desta-
bilizing dynamics are yielded due to the violation of the admit-
tance ratio criterion as shown in test 2.
B. Test 2: Uncompensated System
Applying the loading/unloading scenario in Fig. 18, the un-
compensated system response is shown in Fig. 20. It is clear
that the response is unstable at the loading instant of VSR-1 at
s whereas a decayed response is yielded due to removing
the excessive loading at s. The system response builds
up again at s due to the increased load power of VSR-2.
The unstable response is reflected to the total injected active
power to the augmented converter-fed loads as shown in
Fig. 20(b). Although the loading/unloading disturbances are ap-
plied to VSR-1 and -2, the dc-link voltage of VSR-3
is completely degraded with unstable response, as shown in
Fig. 20(c). It is clear that the lightly damped modes of the un-
compensated system results in unstable response that interacts
with the whole entities of the ac microgrid system. As shown in
Fig. 20(d), the PMSM speed is also affected with a similar
trend.
C. Test 3: Actively Compensated VSR-Interfaced Load
The active compensation technique is investigated in this sub-
section under the same loading/unloading scenario shown in
Fig. 18. The design procedures of the proposed compensators
are similar to that presented in this paper. However, a large
system model is simulated to investigate the effectiveness of the
provided technique. Note that all entities in the simulated system
can be transferred to impedance-admittance-based models in-
cluding the PMSM drive [15]. However, the design process of
RADWAN AND MOHAMED: ANALYSIS AND ACTIVE-IMPEDANCE-BASED STABILIZATION OF VSR LOADS 573

Fig. 20. Uncompensated response for the simulated ac microgrid. (a) Common
ac-voltage. (b) Total injected active power. (c) DC-side voltage of VSR-3. Fig. 21. Actively compensated response for the simulated ac microgrid.
(d) PMSM speed. (a) Common ac-voltage. (b) Total injected active power. (c) DC-side voltage
of VSR-3. (d) PMSM speed.

the HFC mainly depends on damping the LCL filter resonant of

the VSR whereas the MFC can be designed to increase the sta-
VSR system, the laboratory setup shown in Fig. 22 is im-
bility margin just before the resonant frequency. Therefore, the
plemented. The system in Fig. 22 consists of a weak utility
knowledge of the complete system models is not necessary.
grid interfaced by an inductive ac filter, and a VSR with
Fig. 21(a) shows the common ac voltage response whereas
LC ac filter interfacing variable resistive load (eight resistors
the injected active power is shown in Fig. 21(b); all responses
connected in parallel). The experimental system parameters
are damped and remarkably improved as compared to Fig. 20.
are given in Appendix A.
This clearly implies that input–output admittance ratio criterion
A Semistack intelligent power module, which includes gate
is satisfied from the VSR-side by employing the proposed com-
drives, six insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs), and
pensators which validates the analytical results that obtained in
protection circuit is used as a VSR. The switching frequency
Figs. 11 and 14.
is 10 kHz, which indicates that the proposed compensator can
The obtained response in Fig. 21 is close to that in Fig. 19
be effectively implemented under high sampling frequency.
when VSR-3 is excluded. The proposed compensators reshape
The VSR-side inductor currents are measured by HASS-50-S
the input admittance of VSRs so that the ac microgrid can
current sensors (CS) whereas the voltage signals are mea-
accommodate a higher number of converter-interfaced loads
sured by LEM-V-25-400 voltage sensors (VS). The VSR
by introducing a higher stability margin to the system. The
control scheme, orientation and the PWM generation
converter-fed load performance is improved, as shown in
are implemented on the dSPACE1104 control card supported
Fig. 21(c), for of VSR-3 and the motor drive performance
with a TMS320F240-DSP coprocessor structure for PWM
as in Fig. 21(d).
generation. The dSPACE1104 interfacing board is equipped
with eight digital-to-analogue channels (DAC) and eight ana-
VIII. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS: VSR-INTERFACED LOAD logue-to-digital channels (ADC) to interface the measured
CONNECTED TO A WEAK GRID signals to/from the control system. The software code is gener-
To validate the effectiveness of the proposed active ated by the Real-Time-WorkShop under the Matlab/Simulink
damping technique in reshaping the input admittance of a environment.
574
Fig. 22. Experimental verification. (a) Schematic diagram. (b) Laboratory
setup.
Fig. 23. Uncompensated startup response of VSR at for: (a) -component of
the grid voltage and (b) dc link voltage. Uncompensated system response when
dc load increases at , decreases at for: (c) -component of the grid voltage,
(d) -component of the injected ac current, and (e) phase “a” modulation signal.
A. Uncompensated Response
The VSR is initially connected to the minimum dc load.
Fig. 23(a) and (b) show the system response when the VSR
is switched on at s. As shown, -component of the
PCC voltage suffers from relatively high oscillations for
more than 15 cycles. These oscillations are reflected to the dc
side with disturbed dc link voltage, as shown in Fig. 23(b).
However, the dc link voltage response is more damped due to
the relatively high dc-link capacitor of the VSR (2040 F).
The VSR is then kept working until a steady-state operating
point is reached. Under steady-state conditions, at , the
dc load is increased to eight times by successive addition of the
remaining seven resistors in the load box. At , the dc
load is reset back to the minimum load. As indicated earlier in
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SUSTAINABLE ENERGY, VOL. 4, NO. 3, JULY 2013
Fig. 24. Compensated startup response of VSR at for: (a) -component of
the grid voltage and (b) dc link voltage. Compensated system response when dc
load increases at for: (c) -component of the grid voltage, (d) -component
of the injected ac current, and (e) phase “a” modulation signal.
Fig. 3, the increased injected power to the VSR increases the
magnitude of the load admittance and hence reduces the stability
margin. Therefore, the system becomes unstable in the loading
period as shown in Fig. 23(c)–(e). Even in the grid-con-
nected operation mode, is unstable due to the impedance
mismatching. This behavior is reflected to the injected ac cur-
rent and converter’s duty ratio as shown in Fig. 23(d) and (e),
respectively.
B. Compensated Response
The same experimental setup is used to verify the effective-
ness of the proposed active impedance compensator. Similar to
the frequency response analysis in Figs. 11 and 14, the compen-
sator parameters are selected so that the load/source admittance
intersections are avoided (or minimized). The VSR is switched
on at . The -component of the PCC voltage and the resul-
tant dc-link voltage are shown in Fig. 24(a) and (b), respectively.
As compared to the uncompensated case in Fig. 23(a) and (b),
the proposed compensator shows excellent damped response
due to the stability margin added to the system.
Similar to the uncompensated scenario, the dc load is in-
creased at . However, the maximum dc load is kept to
challenge the compensated system and the system response is
shown in Fig. 24(c)–(e). Unlike the uncompensated case, the
system stability is maintained under maximum dc loading con-
ditions. Experimental results show that proposed admittance
reshaping technique has a robust performance, where destabi-
lizing interaction dynamics can be mitigated at different loading
conditions of the VSR.
IX. CONCLUSION
Analysis and active-impedance-based stabilization of VSR-
interfaced loads in grid-connected and isolated VSI-based mi-
crogrids have been presented in this paper. Using small-signal
analysis, coupled ac impedance-admittance-based models of the
VSR, VSI-based microgrid, and utility grid are obtained by con-
sidering all control loops and PLL dynamics. Therefore, the
overall system stability can be investigated using the general-
ized Nyquist stability criterion. It has been found that Nyquist
RADWAN AND MOHAMED: ANALYSIS AND ACTIVE-IMPEDANCE-BASED STABILIZATION OF VSR LOADS 575

stability criterion may be violated due to the interactions be- APPENDIX B

tween the VSR-interfaced load and the source side. Proposed
active impedance-based compensators from the VSR-side are A. Compensated Load Admittance of the VSR-Interfaced Load
presented to satisfy the generalized Nyquist stability criterion See the equation at the bottom of the page. (In , and
and to provide seamless integration of VSRs into power net- are zero for the uncompensated VSR.)
works under wide range of source characteristics. The proposed
compensators are easily implemented, and designed using linear B. Exact Source Impedance of VSI
tools, and do not require additional sensors or hardware. The
compensators have minimal influence on the dc voltage tracking
of the VSR and increase the robust stability margin against dc
voltage controller bandwidth variation. Several simulations and
experimental results are presented to validate the theoretical
analysis and the effectiveness of the proposed active-impedance
stabilization techniques.

APPENDIX A
Simulation Model:
VSR: H, , F,
F, 20 kW.
DC voltage controller s.
AC current controller s.
VSIs: mH, , F,
V, V, 60 Hz, 22 kVA.
AC voltage controller s.
AC current controller s.
PMSM: . mH, Flux linkage
V.s, inertia kg.m , pole pairs .
Speed controller s. Current controller
s.
Experimental Setup:
VSR: mH, , F,
F.
DC voltage controller s. C. Approximated Source Impedance of VSI
AC current controller s. Similar to the exact source impedance in (38) but with:
Source side: mH, . , , .
576
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Amr Ahmed A. Radwan (S’11) was born in Cairo,
Egypt, on December 27, 1984. He received the B.Sc.
degree (with honors) in electrical engineering from
Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt, in 2007, and the
M.Sc. degree in electrical and computer engineering
from University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada,
in 2012, where he is currently working toward the
Ph.D. degree.
His research interests are in the areas of smart
distribution systems and control of power electronic
converters.
Yasser Abdel-Rady I. Mohamed (M’06–SM’011)
was born in Cairo, Egypt, on November 25, 1977. He
received the B.Sc. (with honors) and M.Sc. degrees
in electrical engineering from Ain Shams University,
Cairo, in 2000 and 2004, respectively, and the Ph.D.
degree in electrical engineering from the University
of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada, in 2008.
He is currently with the Department of Electrical
and Computer Engineering, University of Alberta,
AB, Canada, as an Assistant Professor. His research
interests include dynamics and controls of power
converters; distributed and renewable generation; modeling, analysis, and
control of smart grids; and electric machines and motor drives.
Dr. Mohamed is an Associate Editor of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS
ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS. He is also a Guest Editor of the IEEE
TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS SPECIAL SECTION ON
DISTRIBUTED GENERATION AND MICROGRIDS. His biography is listed in
Marquis Who’s Who in the World.