A Stability Enhancement Method for Inverter-Based

Distributed Generation Systems

Jian Xiong, Shichao Liu, Xiaoyu Shouzhen Zhu, Jinghong Zheng Kun Meng
Wang Department of Electrical Electric Power Research Institute
Department of Electronics Engineering China Southern Power Grid Corp.
Carleton University Tsinghua University Guangzhou, China
Ottawa, Canada Beijing, China Email: menkun@gmail.com
Email: xiaoyuw@carleton.ca Email: zsz@tsinghua.edu.cn,
jhzheng@tsinghua.edu.cn

Abstract—Large-scale integration of distributed generations inverter-based DGs. The improvement of the DG system
(DGs) may degrade the stability of the power distribution system. stability can be realized through the feedback gain tuning of
This paper proposes a control method to improve the system the control loop. Analytical and simulation results are
stability of grid-connected inverter-based distributed generation presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed
(DG) systems. The proposed method is to add a stabilizer inside
control method.
the inverter interface controller of a DG unit to supply auxiliary
current reference signal for the inverter current controller and II. PROPOSED CONTROL SCHEME
thus improve the stability performance. The input signal of the
stabilizer is the grid frequency. A series of small-signal analysis The single-line diagram of a grid-connected DG system is
and time-domain simulations have been conducted to verify the shown in Fig. 1. The main building blocks of the DG system
effectiveness of the proposed stabilizer. The oscillations of the DG are a DC source, a pulse-width modulated voltage source
system are greatly damped with the stabilizer. inverter (PWM-VSI) and a three-phase interface filter. The
DC source could be photovoltaic, fuel cell, battery or other
Keywords—Frequency feedback; grid-connected inverter;
types of renewable generations. Without loss of generality, it
distributed generation; power system stability
is represented using an ideal DC source in this letter. The Ls
represents the inductance of the inverter filter, whereas R and
I. INTRODUCTION L are the resistance and inductance of the power system line,
Large-scale inverter-based distributed generators have been respectively. The output power of the DG system is P+jQ. The
more and more connected to sub-transmission or distribution transformer at the point of common coupling (PCC)
power systems in recent years. The system stability issue has transforms the distribution line voltage to a level suitable for
always been a concern for the interconnection of distributed the DG system.
generation (DG) systems [1]-[3]. High penetration level of
DGs, especially DGs with renewable-energy sources, will Output Inverter DC Source
cause reduced stability margin for the interconnected DG Grid PCC Terminal Terminal
systems [4]. The impacts of increasing penetrations of
Photovoltaic (PV) generations on power system stability have
L R Ls
attracted a great research effort [5], [6]. It has been found that Distribution Line Filter
large-scale integration of PV could hurt the power distribution
system, sometime detrimentally, due to the fluctuation of P + jQ PWM-VSI
random solar conditions. Power system stabilizers (PSSs) have Fig. 1. Single-line schematic diagram of a grid-connected DG system.
been designed for the increasing integration of wind DGs [7],
[8]. Given the fact that inverter-based DG systems are
connected to the network through grid-tie inverters, ω sTw Δω
discussions on the inverter interface controls have been paid
v abc PLL
1 + sTw
K
v d − iqω Ls
more attention for the DG system stability analysis [9], [10]. P Washout Filter θf i *
id
The objective of this paper is to propose a control method Pref +
-
idref - dref
+
-
+
+ vsd
+
for the stability enhancement of three-phase, grid-connected PI iqref PI
and inverter-based DG systems. The proposed scheme utilizes
the grid frequency to form a negative feedback control loop
Qref +
- + + vsq
Q - iq +
which is embedded into the inverter interface controller. Being v q + id ω Ls
different from traditional PSS, lead-lag blocks are not used in
Fig. 2. Frequency-based negative feedback control scheme for DG inverters.
the inverter stabilizer, due to the negligible inertias of the

978-1-4673-8040-9/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE

 The proposed scheme is a negative feedback method that
uses the deviation of grid frequency from the normal value as
a feedback signal to influence the operation of the inverter.
The block diagram of the scheme is shown in Fig. 2 where the
inverter output terminal voltages are denoted as vabc. The grid
frequency signal acquired by a three-phase phase-locked loop
(PLL) is initially processed through a washout filter with the
time constant Tw to eliminate any control contribution under
steady conditions. The model of PLL is described by the
following three equations.
⎛ kiPLL ⎞
ω = ⎜ k pPLL + ⎟vq + ωo (1)
⎝ s ⎠
δ&PLL = ω − ωo (2)
θ PLL = ω ∫ (3)
where ω is the voltage angular frequency, θ PLL is the
measured voltage angle from PLL, δ PLL is unknown variable
whose derivative is the voltage frequency change,
k pPLL , kiPLL are the controller gains.
III. MODAL ANALYSIS AND SIMULATION RESULTS
The DG system shown in Fig. 1 is used to demonstrate the
effectiveness of the proposed inverter stabilizer. The analysis
and simulation results are as follows.
A. Small-Signal Analysis
The small-signal model of the DG system is obtained by
employing the average inverter model in which the pulse
width-modulated (PWM) signal generator, DC source and
switching power electronic devices are replaced by controlled
voltage sources. More details of the grid-connected inverter
small-signal model can be found in reference [4]. The
eigenvalues that are closer to the imaginary axis are plotted
when the stabilizer is not installed in the power system, shown
in Fig. 3. From this figure, we can see λ1 and λ2 are critical
eigenvalues and their damping ratio is 0.8% which is weakly
damped.
300
200 λ λ
3 1

The constant power and current controllers have the 100

following forms. Imag(rad/s)
⎛ kip ⎞
( )
0
idref = Pref − P ⎜⎜ k pp + ⎟ (4)
⎝ s ⎟⎠ -100
⎛ kip ⎞
(
iqref = Qref − Q ⎜⎜ k pp + ) ⎟
s ⎟⎠
(5) -200 λ
4
λ
2

( ⎛
)k ⎞ -300
vsd = idref − id ⎜ k pi + ii ⎟ + vd − ωLsiq (6)
⎝ s ⎠ -20 -15 -10 -5 0
Real(1/s)

( ⎛
)k ⎞
vsq = iqref − iq ⎜ k pi + ii ⎟ + vq − ωLsid
s ⎠
(7)
Fig. 3. Zoom in of the eigenvalues of the system without the stabilizer
⎝
Then, the stabilizer shown in Fig. 2 is added in the power
P = vd id + vqiq (8)
system. In the analysis, the grid voltage level is 6.6kV and the
Q = vd iq − vqid (9) system frequency is 60Hz. The 3MVA, 6.6/0.48kV
where k pp , kip are constant power control gains, respectively, transformer has the leakage inductance of 0.1 p.u.. The
distribution line impedance is 1+j0.6 Ω. The inductance of the
k pi , kii are constant current control gains, respectively, inverter filter is 1.2mH. The inverter control parameter
v sd , v sd are output voltages of the inverter filter. The grid settings can be found in [4]. The Pref+jQref of the inverter are
set at 1+j0 p.u. with the base value of 2MVA. Fig. 4 shows the
voltages and currents are described as:
root loci of the DG system critical eigenvalues when the gain
K is varied from 0 to 0.1. As it can be seen from Fig. 4, the λ1
vd = Rid + Li&d − ωLiq + ed (10) and λ2 are moving away from the imaginary axis (leftwards) in
v = Ri + Li& + ωLi + e (11) the negative half-plane when K is increased. This indicates
q q q d q
that the system stability margin is improved by introducing the
where ed and eq are grid side voltages, vd, vq and id, iq are the proposed inverter stabilizer.
dq-frame output terminal voltages and the inverter output The effect of the distribution line impedance on the stability
currents, respectively. of this grid-connected DG system is also analyzed. The root
In the proposed stabilizer, the frequency feedback signal θf locus of the DG system with the stabilizer gain K=0.01 is
is superimposed on idref to get i*dref which is set as the new shown in Fig. 5 when the line impedance R varies. Fig. 5
current reference in the constant current controller. It is shows that the stability margin of the system becomes smaller
written as as the line impedance increases. It tells that the effect of the
sTω DG one the grid stability is more negative when the
θf = Kω (12)
1 + sTω connection between the grid and DG is stronger.
Furthermore, the influence of the inductance of the inverter
filter on the system stability is investigated. The root locus of The active power level injected to the grid by the DG could
the system when the inverter filter inductance varies from 1.0 also affect the stability of the whole power system. Therefore,
mH to 1.5 mH is shown in Fig. 6. It can be noted that the the system stability is investigated when the active power Pref
system turns to be unstable when the inductance is greater for the inverter is increased from 0.5 p.u. to 1.2 p. u. The
than 1.3 mH. Also, it can be concluded that the stability result is shown in Fig. 7.
margin decreases when the inverter filter inductance increases.
400 300
λ λ
3 1
200
λ λ
200 K increasing 3 1
K increasing 100

Imag(rad/s)
Imag 1/second)

0
0
-100
K increasing
-200 K increasing λ
λ 2
-200
4
λ λ
4 2
-300
-400 -9 -8 -7 -6 -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0
-20 -15 -10 -5 0
Real (1/s) Real(1/s)
Fig. 4. Root locus of the critical eigenvalues of the DG system when K varies. Fig. 7. Root locus of the critical eigenvalues of the DG system when Pref
varies (Arrows direct the increasing Ls ).

300
λ
3 λ B. Simulation Test Results
1
200 Fig. 8 and Fig. 9 display the DG system responses for a step
change of Pref with and without the inverter stabilizer. In the
100
time domain transient simulations, Pref is stepped from 1.0 p.u.
Imag(rad/s)

0
to 1.3 p.u. at t=5s. It can be seen from Fig. 8 that the inverter
output power P will experience a long time oscillation under
-100 this disturbance when the inverter stabilizer is not switched on.
On the contrary, in the scenario of K=0.1, the oscillation is
-200 greatly suppressed and P reaches the new steady state quickly.
λ
λ 2 In other words, the system oscillation is well damped by the
4
-300
proposed frequency-based stabilizer. The same conclusion
-10 -8 -4 -2 -6 0 could also be made for the frequency response from the results
Real(1/s) shown in Fig. 9.
Fig. 5. Root locus of the DG system when line impedance varies (Arrows
direct the increasing impedance) 1.4
Inverter Output Active Power P (p.u.)

1.3
300 λ
1
λ
3
1.2
200
K=0
K=0.1
100 1.1
Imag(rad/s)

0
1

-100
0.9
5.2 5.44.8 5 5.6 5.8
-200 Time (second)
λ Fig. 8. Active power change of the DG system.
4
-300 λ
2
-10 -5 0 5 Fig. 10 and Fig. 11 show the simulation results for the case
Real(1/s) where a temporary three-phase-to-ground fault is applied at the
PCC in Fig. 1. The fault begins at 3s and is cleared at 3.1s. It
Fig. 6. Root locus of the critical eigenvalues of the DG system when Ls varies
can be seen from Fig. 10 that the DG system experiences a long
(Arrows direct the increasing Ls ). time power oscillation when K=0 after the fault and the inverter
stabilizer with higher gain setting has a better improvement IV. CONCLUSION
performance. The same conclusion can also be made for the A frequency-based inverter stabilizer has been designed to
frequency response in view of the results shown in Fig. 11. It is improve the capability of damping oscillations for grid-
worth noting that the gain has an upper limit which depends on connected DG systems in this paper. The small-signal stability
operation conditions of the DG system. of the power system has been analyzed by considering the
378.5 effects of line impedances, inverter filter inductance and the
stabilizer gains. Time-domain simulation results have verified
that the proposed control method is effective to improve the
378 small-signal and transient stability of the grid-connected DG
K=0
system. Future research may include the studies on the tuning
Frequency ω (rad/s)

K=0.1
method of the stabilizer and the interactions among multiple
377.5
inverters within large-scale DG systems.
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Frequency ω (rad/s)

380

375

370

365

360

355
2.6 2.8 3 3.2 3.4 3.6 3.8 4 4.2
Time(second)
Fig. 11. Frequency change fault of the DG system with the phase-to-ground.