Electric Power Components and Systems

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Operation of the Microgrid with Improved Droop

Control Strategy and an Effective Islanding
Detection Technique for Automatic Mode
Switching

Shreeram V Kulkarni, Dattatraya N Gaonkar & Josep M Guerrero

To cite this article: Shreeram V Kulkarni, Dattatraya N Gaonkar & Josep M Guerrero (2021):
Operation of the Microgrid with Improved Droop Control Strategy and an Effective Islanding
Detection Technique for Automatic Mode Switching, Electric Power Components and Systems,
DOI: 10.1080/15325008.2021.1970289

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/15325008.2021.1970289

Published online: 13 Sep 2021.

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Electric Power Components and Systems, 0(0): 1–15, 2021
# 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1532-5008 print / 1532-5016 online
DOI: 10.1080/15325008.2021.1970289
Operation of the Microgrid with Improved Droop
Control Strategy and an Effective Islanding
Detection Technique for Automatic Mode Switching
Shreeram V Kulkarni ,1 Dattatraya N Gaonkar,1 and Josep M Guerrero
1
Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department, National Institute of Technology Karnataka, Surathkal, India
2
Department of Energy Technology, Aalborg University, Denmark
CONTENTS
1. Introduction
2. The Microgrid System
3. The Control Strategy for Grid-Connected and Stand-Alone
Operation Modes
4. Islanding Detection and Automatic Mode Switching
5. Experimental Results and Analysis
6. Conclusion
References
Keywords: distributed generation sources, microgrid, stand-alone
operation mode, grid-connected operation mode, droop control, phase lock
loop, grid failure detection, islanding, automatic mode switch, hardware
in loop
Received 26 December 2020; accepted 27 July 2021
Address correspondence to Shreeram V Kulkarni, Electrical and
Electronics Engineering Department, National Institute of Technology
Karnataka, Surathkal, India. E-mail: vshreeramk@gmail.com
2
Abstract—This paper presents the islanding detection and
automatic mode switching for inverter-based distributed generation
sources (DGs) in the microgrid with an improved droop controlled
scheme. The modification in the conventional droop among the
DGs is contrived to share the load proportionate to their power
capacity. And to reduce the circulating currents and to improve
reactive power-sharing the virtual impedance is implemented for
the microgrid in the stand-alone mode operation. Also, the
modified Park synchronous reference frame based phase-locked
loop (PSRF-PLL) is implemented for the operation of the
microgrid in the grid-connected mode. The islanding detection and
automatic mode switching depend on the PSRF-PLL, which uses
the input obtained from the stationary reference frame. The
proposed PLL implemented in this work is simple in construction
and keeps the phase locking error to near zero, thus leading to
proper locking with reduced complexity. The control scheme's
performance in the microgrid is validated using the real time
hardware in the loop platform. The performance of PSRF-PLL
based islanding detection scheme is analyzed considering the
various grid disturbances, and the comparative study with the
other PLL based scheme is also presented in this paper to show
the improved performance of the proposed PSRF-PLL scheme.
1. INTRODUCTION
The microgrid is viewed as the future trend of organizing
the power grid, and is generally formed of various
inverter-based distributed generation sources (DGs), energy
storage systems and critical loads. The microgrid should be
able to operate both in the grid-connected and stand-alone
modes of operation. The DG sources such as photovoltaic
systems, wind farms, micro-turbine, fuel cells, geothermal,
micro-hydro, biomass and tidal generally integrated and
operated in microgrid with energy storage devices and
loads. The control and operation of the DGs in the form
microgrid in the power distribution network makes the
overall system performance flexible and efficient in terms
of potential benefits [1,2].
1
2 Electric Power Components and Systems, Vol. 0 (2021), No. 0

NOMENCLATURE
Vd,Vq, Id, Iq quadrature voltage and cur- Pmax, Qmax maximum allowable power ratings
rent quantities of DG1,2
Vvd,Vvq d- and q-axis set-points of the virtual PLoad, QLoad real and reactive power demand
complex impedance of load
Vodq, iodq inverter output d-axis voltage fo resonance frequency
and currents Qf quality factor
Va, Vb and Vc three phase grid voltage quantities F feed-forward gain
VPCC voltage at point of common coupling kpv, kiv, kpi, kii proportional and integral gains of
ig, iDG output currents of grid and DG the PI controller
x
, V
, xn , Vdn reference and nominal frequency sv , si time constants of voltage and cur-
and voltage rent controller
mp, nq frequency and voltage droop gains d, q Rotating reference frame quantities
x0 grid nominal frequency a, b Stationary orthogonal reference
xg grid synchronization frequency frame quantities
xc low-pass filter cutoff frequency h Rotational angle
xL , VL lower limit of frequency and c, hGC Grid and the DGs phase angles
voltage in droop De=sinðc  hÞ PLL Phase error
characteristics/curve [T] Transformation matrix
xmin , xmax , Vmax , and Vmin minimum and maximum allowable RV, LV Resistance and inductance of virtual
frequency and voltage ranges impedance controller
P1, P2, Pg, Q1, Q2, Qg real and reactive power output of Ri, Rg, Li, Lg Inverter and grid side resistance
DG1,2 and grid and inductance
P
, Q
reference active and reactive power Cf Filter capacitance
ratings of DG1,2 RLoad, LLoad, CLoad Resistance, inductance, and capaci-
~p , ~q instantaneous active and reactive tance of load
power ratings of DG1,2

Amongst the micro sources, the photovoltaic and wind
plants are prominent and suitable for integration through
power electronic converters, as these DGs can potentially
connect to any point in the power distribution network and
are more feasible to be integrated into the microgrid [3,4].
There are several power electronic topologies available
such as the DC-DC, AC-AC, DC-AC, and the AC-DC-AC
converters to integrate the DG sources in the microgrid.
Among these, AC-DC-AC topology considering back-to-
back converters is generally considered in many cases [5].
The microgrid sources are controlled to provide constant
voltage and constant frequency operation while operating
in the stand-alone mode. In the grid connected mode they
are required to operate with active and reactive power con-
trol mode. This requires separate control strategies for the
grid-connected and standalone modes of operation. Also
effective islanding detection and re-closure scheme is
required to ensure seamless transition between the grid-
connected and the stand-alone modes of operation.
A detailed microgrid system modeling with small signal
stability analysis and droop control for stand-alone mode
of operation is presented in [6,7]. The droop control
scheme of the parallel connected inverter based DGs use
the locally measured information and there is no loss of
data due to the communication means [8–10]. Meanwhile,
in the grid-connected operation mode of inverter based DG
system, constant current control scheme with the phase-
locked loop (PLL) controller are employed [11,12]. The
PLL is used to synchronize the DGs with the grid in the
grid-connected power systems [13–16]. When disturbances
occur in the grid-connected microgrid system, the DGs
must disconnect automatically from the grid to ensure
secure operation. The IEEE 1574 standards address the
standardized interconnection of the micro sources to the
grid [16,17]. Several strategies have already been proposed
to improve the control performance during operation mode
transfer [12, 18].
A comprehensive review of the islanding methods has
been presented in [19–21]. The PLL based grid failure
detection for 11 kW wind turbine is discussed, wherein the
PLL controller shows slow response during the islanding
detection period to limit the current rise. In [22], an anti-
islanding detection method based on the phase PLL per-
turbation is presented in the presence of transients or noise
in the measurement, wherein a false islanding detection
can occur. Most of the PLL algorithms are very sensitive
to faults and result in sudden phase angle changes during
fault conditions. During unplanned events of power quality
variations such as sag, swell, harmonics, unbalance, and
faults, a proper control strategy needs to be developed for
 Kulkarni et al.: Operation of the Microgrid with Improved Droop Control Strategy and an Effective Islanding Detection Technique
FIGURE 1. Schematic diagram of (a) The microgrid system model, and (b) Hardware in loop implementation.
seamless and automatic mode transition. An appropriate
modeling and consistent behavior of the control strategy
will bring back the system into stable operating region.
In this regard, the Park synchronous reference frame
PLL (PSRF-PLL) has been proposed in this paper to detect
the islanding effectively with very less detection time dur-
ing grid disturbances and to switch the modes of operation
of the microgrid. In the stand-alone mode of operation, an
improved droop control technique has been proposed for
parallel connected inverter based DGs. The proposed droop
control can reduce the disparity in frequency and power
significantly to support the automatic mode switching. The
two inverter based microgrid study system is implemented
using Typhon HIL (hard ware in loop) tool along with all
control schemes in this paper. The performance of the
PSRF-PLL based islanding detection scheme is compared
with the other PLL based schemes reported in literature.
The microgrid system model considered in the present
paper is discussed in Section 2. In Section 3, the stand-alone
and grid-connected control schemes are explained, while in
3
Section 4, islanding detection and automatic mode switching
based on the proposed PLL is illustrated. Section 5 demon-
strates real-time hardware in the loop results of the proposed
schemes. Finally, Section 6 presents the conclusion.
2. THE MICROGRID SYSTEM
The microgrid system model considered for the present
study implemented in HIL tool is shown in Figure. 1. This
model is able to operate both in the grid connected and in
the stand-alone modes of operation. In this microgrid
model two three-phase voltage source inverters, (VSIs)
based DGs are connected to a balanced 230 V 50 Hz grid
supply with constant DC voltage source, a breaking chop-
per, LCL filter, distribution lines, parallel RLC load, circuit
breaker (CB). The microgrid system model is connected to
a balanced grid at the point of common coupling (PCC)
through the LCL filters and the R-L modeled distribution
lines. The design methodology of the LCL filter for grid-
interconnected inverters is referred from [23].
4 Electric Power Components and Systems, Vol. 0 (2021), No. 0

Parameter Value Parameter Value

Rs 0.01 X kpv 0.005

Cdc 8e-4 F kpi 19.26
Lf 9.26e-3 H kiv 26.8125
Cf 5.26e-5 F kii 1100
Rc 0.1 X Rf 1X
Lc 0.01 H Rv 1 X
Lv 0.01 H fdroop 2.4e-4
fs 8e3 Hz Vdroop 1.33e-3
xn 314.2 rad xc 31.42 rad FIGURE 3. Control scheme for grid connected mode.
Vdn 381 sv 10e-3 s
rline/km 0.2485 X si 1e-3 s
lline/km 0.0023 H DG::distance 100m:200m is the quality factor. VPCC equals to grid voltage in the grid-
Pmax 8e3 W Qmax 6e3Var
connected operation mode and VPCC becomes DG voltage in
Rload1/phase 25 X Lload3/phase 1e-3 H
Rload2/phase 25 X Rload3/phase 20 X the stand-alone operation mode, L is load inductance in
Henry, C is load capacitance in Farad, and is the angular fre-
TABLE 1. Test Microgrid System Parameters.
quency of the microgrid system. The microgrid system model
parameters are given in Table 1. The bode plots of the LCL
filter and of the parallel RLC load is shown in Figure. 2. A
peak response is seen at 11.7 dB, 15.9 dB magnitude, and
1.24e3 Hz. This shows good system dynamics under steady-
state and transient conditions. The filter is selected around
180 phase margin for effectiveness around high frequen-
cies. However, a small equivalent resistance in series with the
capacitor and inductor eliminates the voltage and current
spikes in the responses.

3. THE CONTROL STRATEGY FOR GRID-

CONNECTED AND STAND-ALONE
OPERATION MODES
In the grid-connected mode of operation, the microgrid sys-
FIGURE 2. Bode plots for LCL filter and parallel tem operates with constant current control strategy, and the
RLC load. controller is designed in the d-q reference frame. The grid-
connected mode control scheme is shown in Figure. 3. The
equations pertaining to the rotating reference frame are
The parallel RLC load is considered as a general struc- given in (3) and (4).
ture of the local load. According to the IEEE 1547.1 test
set-up, a parallel RLC load is connected between the

did
inverter-based DGs and the grid for anti-islanding detection Vgd ¼ Vid  ½Li þ Lg  þ ½Ri þ Rgd  þ xLi iq
dt
[16]. According to the standards for islanding detection,
(3)
the parallel RLC load has been considered for the present

diq
paper. The modeling equations are given in (1) and (2). Vgq ¼ Viq  ½Li þ Lg  þ ½Ri þ Rgq  þ xLi id (4)

 dt
v2PCC 1
PLoad ¼ ; QLoad ¼  xc (1) To avoid coupling between both the d and q current
R xL
rffiffiffiffi components,xðLi þ LgÞ is included in the control structure.
1 C
fo ¼ p ffiffiffiffiffiffi
ffi ; Qf ¼ R (2) Thus, independent control of the current components is
2P LC L
achieved. The grid currents and voltages are regulated
where PLoad is the active power in kW, QLoad is the reactive using standard PI controllers in the inner and outer control
power in kVAr, fo is the resonance frequency in Hz, and Q f loops, respectively. The q-axis reference current is set to
 Kulkarni et al.: Operation of the Microgrid with Improved Droop Control Strategy and an Effective Islanding Detection Technique 5

zero to achieve zero phase angle difference between the increased to the DG1 capacity, point D moves toward point
voltage and the current in the inner current control loop. B and point C reaches point A. Thus, the new equilibrium
Moreover, to compensate the coupling due to the LCL fil- point is reached at A with xn1 and Vdn1. To limit the fre-
ters in the system, a decoupling is implemented in the quency a variation within the prescribed limits, the equilib-
outer control loop. Then, the control signals for the inver- rium point is selected between xn1 and xL with this
ters are generated by using the standard PWM technique. modification. We can easily set an equilibrium point with-
The generated hGC from the PLL is used to synchronize out any complex modification in subsequent stages. The equa-
between the DGs and the grid. tions, including the proposed modification in the conventional
droop with DG capacity, are given in (8) and (9).



Stand-Alone Control Mode P
x
¼ xn  m p
xn (8)
The stand-alone mode of operation includes a power con- Pmax



troller, a voltage controller, and a current controller. In Q
V
¼ Vdn  nq
Vdn (9)
addition to the above controllers, virtual complex imped- Qmax
ance is further added to reduce the circulating currents and where Pmax and Qmax are the maximum allowable power rat-
to improve the reactive power sharing among the parallel ings of the inverters, mp and nq are the droop gains and P

connected inverter based DGs in the microgrid. The volt- and Q
are the reference active and reactive power ratings of
age and currents controllers are designed to eliminate high- the inverters. The comparison between the conventional
frequency disturbances and resonance caused due to the droop control and the improved droop control is shown in
passive filters. The frequency and the phase are set by the Figure. 5. For a given range of frequency, voltage, and power
droop controller in the outer power control loop. The over- magnitude, the droop gains mp and nq are calculated as:
all control scheme is shown in Figure. 4a, wherein the
xmax  xmin Vmax  Vmin
instantaneous active and reactive power is calculated with mp ¼ ; nq ¼ (10)
Pmax Qmax
inverter output d-axis voltage and currents, given by (5).
~
p ¼ Vod iod þ Voq ioq ; ~q ¼ Voq iod  Voq iod (5) Where xmin , xmax , Vmax, and Vmin are the minimum
and maximum allowable range of variations in the fre-
After filtering out the instantaneous components, the funda- quency and voltage. Equation (11) shows the droop coeffi-
mental power components are obtained as (6). cients for equal power ratings of the inverter based DGs
xc xc
P¼ ~p ; Q ¼ ~q (6) mp1 ¼ mp2 ; nq1 ¼ nq2 (11)
s þ xc s þ xc
where mp1 and nq1 are for inverter 1 and mp2 and nq2 are
Where, xc is the low pass filter cutoff frequency. After
for inverter 2. The microgrid system model is shown in
obtaining the fundamental power components, an artificial
Figure. 1. Wherein DG1 has maximum power rating of
droop is introduced in the power controller, and the droop
10kVA and DG2 of 5kVA. The droop coefficients for both
equations are modified as (7).
the DGs are given in (12) and (13).
x
¼ xn  mp P; V
¼ Vdn  nq Q (7)
mp1 ¼ 2
mp2 (12)
Where, x
and V
are the reference frequency and voltage nq1 ¼ 2
nq2 (13)
of the droop controller, and P and Q are the output active
and reactive powers of the inverters. The d-q reference frame stand-alone voltage controller
The parallel connected inverter based DGs should share equations are written as (14) and (15).
the load proportionate to their power capacity. To modify i
id ¼ Fiod  xn Cf Voq þ kpv ðVod


 Vod  Vvd Þ
the conventional P-f and Q-V over the load variations, it is

dðVod  Vod  Vvd Þ
preferable to shift the operating point of the DGs according þ kpv (14)
dt
to their rated capacity. The slope of the droop curve is pro- i
iq ¼ Fioq

 xn Cf Vod þ kpv ðVoq  Voq  Vvq Þ
portional to the capacity of the DGs, so the capacity should

be included in the droop calculation. Thus, it can limit the dðVoq  Voq  Vvq Þ
þ kpv (15)
frequency of the DGs and voltage within the xL and VL dt
as shown in Figure. 4b. AB and CD are the droop slopes where F is the feed-forward gain, kpv and kiv are the pro-
for DG1 and DG2, respectively. If the DG2 capacity is portional and integral gains of the PI controller,
6 Electric Power Components and Systems, Vol. 0 (2021), No. 0

FIGURE 4. (a) Control scheme for stand-alone mode, and (b) P-f and Q-V droop characteristics of the DGs.

respectively, and Vvd and Vvq are the d and q axis set- The stand-alone current controller equations are written as
points of the virtual complex impedances. The equations (17).
for Vvd and Vvq are given in (16).
Vd
¼ kpi ði
id  iid Þ þ kii  xn Li iiq
(17)
dIiq Vq
¼ kpi ði
iq  iiq Þ þ kii þ xn Li iid


Vvd ¼ Iid
Rv   Lv
dt (16) The voltages and currents are regulated using the stand-

dIid
Vvq ¼ Iiq
Rv   Lv ard PI controllers, and decoupling is implemented in the
dt control structure due to the LCL filters in the system.
 Kulkarni et al.: Operation of the Microgrid with Improved Droop Control Strategy and an Effective Islanding Detection Technique 7

The output DC-link voltage control is activated only
when the reference voltage is more than the DC-link
voltage. The operation of this control is to maintain the
reference voltage to its standard reference. Then the con-
trol signals for the inverter are generated using the PWM
technique [5,6].
voltage quantities Va, Vb and Vc. In Figure. 7, the PSRF-
PLL phasor diagram is shown, where a, b, and c are the
three-phase quantities with 120 phase shift between each
phase, d and q are the rotating reference frame quantities
with h as the rotational angle, a and b are the stationary
orthogonal reference frame quantities, and the formulation
of the proposed PSRF-PLL is:

4. ISLANDING DETECTION AND AUTOMATIC Va ¼ Va (18)

MODE SWITCHING 1
Va ¼ pffiffiffi ðVa þ 2Vb Þ (19)
3
The inverter based DGs are synchronized with the grid by
the PLL. In the present paper, a modified Park synchronous where Va is superimposed with Va and VaþVbþVc¼0 and
0
reference frame phase locked loop (PSRF-PLL) based Vb is the output obtained from the filtered dq quadrature
islanding detection and automatic mode switching has been signals after the Park transformation. The Vd and Vq quad-
proposed for parallel connected multi-DG systems. rature signal equations are:
Figure 6. shows a detailed structure of the PSRF-PLL, Vd ¼ Va cos h þ Vb sin h (20)
where the input voltages to the PLL are the grid side
Vq ¼ Vb cos h  Va sin h (21)
The equations are written in the matrix form as:

FIGURE 5. (a) Active power: conventional droop v/s

improved droop, and (b) Frequency: conventional droop v/ FIGURE 7. Phasor diagram (Reference Frame
s improved droop. Transformation) of the PSRF-PLL controller.

FIGURE 6. Detailed block diagram of the PSRF-PLL controller.

8 Electric Power Components and Systems, Vol. 0 (2021), No. 0

FIGURE 8. PSRF-PLL controller (a) bode plot, and (b)

root locus.
FIGURE 10. Islanding detection flow diagram.

FIGURE 9. Output frequency response of proposed PSRF-

FIGURE 11. Grid and DG voltages and currents dur-
PLL and conventional PLL.
ing transition.
 Kulkarni et al.: Operation of the Microgrid with Improved Droop Control Strategy and an Effective Islanding Detection Technique 9

" # " #" #

Vd cos h sin h Va (LPF) with xc as the cutoff frequency. Equation (25) is re-
¼ (22) written as:
Vq cos h  sin h Vb
 0   0 
" # Vab ¼ ½T1 Vdq (26)
cos h sin h
Where, is the transformation matrix 0 0
cos h  sin h Where, Va and Vb are:
h i
[T]. The equation is re-written as: ½V 0a  ¼ Vd0 cos h  Vq0 sin h (27)
 0  0 
½Vdq  ¼ ½T½Vab  (23) V b ¼ Vq cos h þ Vd0 sin h (28)
1
½Vab  ¼ ½T ½Vdq  (24) where c and hGC are the grid and the DGs phase angles.
0 The orthogonal stationary frame grid voltages are input
Then the equation for Vab are as follows:
to the angle generator. The angle c and hGC must be
 0   xc  interlocked, thereby reducing the PLL phase error (De)
Vab ¼
½T1
½T½Vab  (25)
s þ xc to zero. Then, the (De) is passed through the PI control-
ler to get the frequency of the DGs. To improve the
where the 1st term in (25) is first order low pass filter
starting dynamic response and to reduce the control
effort, the grid nominal frequency of x0 is feed-for-
warded, and thus, the phase tracking is accomplished
more quickly. Then, the grid synchronization frequency
xg is integrated to generate the measured angle of the
DG voltages. Thus, the proposed PSRF-PLL is simple to
implement with less computational burden and shows
reliable performance under various grid disturb-
ance conditions.
To design and select appropriate gains for the proposed
PSRF-PLL controller, the bode plot and root locus study
were carried out. Figure. 8. shows the bode plot and root
locus of the proposed PSRF-PLL controller. The bandwidth
of the controller must be within 120 Hz, so it was designed
for bandwidth of 110 Hz and 28.1 phase. It was observed
FIGURE 12. Responses of the active powers of DG12 v/s
frequencies of DG12 during transition. from the root locus plot that with increasing gain values
beyond kp¼0.2 and ki¼160, the controller falls into the
unstable region and may lead to a false islanding detection
during the disturbances of the microgrid system in the
grid-connected mode of operation. The circle indicates the
appropriate values to be chosen while designing the pro-
posed PSRF-PLL controller. The results of test (voltage
sag) are shown in Figure. 9. As shown in the figure, the
response of the proposed PSRF-PLL is able to generate
steady response comparatively with the conventional PLL.
The islanding detection and mode switching operations are
based on the PSRF-PLL controller phase error De=sinðc 
hÞ, the detailed islanding detection flow diagram is shown
in Figure 10.

5. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS AND ANALYSIS

FIGURE 13. Total harmonic distortion in PCC voltage for The microgrid system model is shown in Figure 1. is
unbalance, harmonics, sag, swell, and faults. tested experimentally on the real-time hardware in the
10 Electric Power Components and Systems, Vol. 0 (2021), No. 0
FIGURE 14. PLL controller responses under full- load and no-load conditions.
loop (HIL) platform [24]. Figure. 1a and (b) shows the
schematic diagram of the setup and general connection
diagram of the HIL implementation, where Typhoon 402
and HIL DSP 100 are used, and all the responses are cap-
tured in the 4 channel 200 MHz DSO. The proposed con-
trol schemes were analyzed in detail in the present
section for stand-alone mode, grid-connected mode,
islanding detection, and also for automatic mode switch-
ing under grid disturbances.
Figure. 11. shows the grid and DG phase A voltages
and currents. A fault is introduced at 2.0 s, and the PLL
responds immediately and switches to the stand-alone
mode at 2.01 s. The voltage and current variation due to
the mode switching operation can be observed. After
mode switches to the stand-alone mode, the grid currents
ig becomes zero and the iDG continues to supply the
microgrid critical loads. After the fault clearance at
3.004 sec, the proposed PSRF-PLL again switches to the
grid-connected mode of operation.
In Figure. 12. the responses of the active power versus
frequency of both the DGs are shown; the frequency of the
DGs predominately depends on its active powers. Figure.
13. shows the total harmonic distortion (THD) in phase A
voltage at the PCC. The THD for all the five test cases
under normal conditions in the grid-connected mode of
operation for the proposed PSRF-PLL is shown. From the
THD of phase A, it can be observed that there is minimum
THD value and not much voltage distortion in the wave-
form due to unbalance, sag, and swell. But the distortion
due to grid voltage harmonics and three phase to ground
fault is about 0.2% to 2%. According to the IEEE-1547
series of standards, total THD should not exceed 5% of the
fundamental frequency. It can be observed from Fig. 12
that PCC voltage THD is less than 2% for all the
test cases.
To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed PSRF-
PLL method with power mismatch conditions, the micro-
grid system with PLL controller for islanding detection and
Kulkarni et al.: Operation of the Microgrid with Improved Droop Control Strategy and an Effective Islanding Detection Technique
FIGURE 15. Performance of microgrid system model in
grid-connected to stand-alone and stand-alone to grid-con-
nected mode transition: (a) Active powers of DGs, grid,
and load, (b) Reactive powers of DGs, grid, and load, and
(c) Grid phase angle c, DG phase angle h, phase error De,
and frequency at the PCC during transition.
automatic mode switching was tested and the responses
were plotted. Fig. 14. shows the responses for load and
no-load conditions. At 2.0 s, the disturbance was
11
introduced and removed after 2.5 s. For all the load condi-
tions, the controller worked perfectly, but for the no-load
condition with disturbance, it’s showed repetitive vari-
ation (oscillatory behavior). For no-load condition, the
mode switch signal repeatedly switches between grid-con-
nected and stand-alone modes. The no-load
condition does not come into the picture, and during the
disturbance, the controller detects the islanding and
switches the respective modes as per the load conditions.
From Figure. 14. it can be concluded that there is no
NDZ for loaded conditions using the proposed PSRF-
PLL method.
In Figure 15a and b, the active powers P1, P2, Pg, and
Pload and the reactive powers Q1, Q2, Qg, and Qload are
shown. At no load, the generated power is exported to the
grid, and when the load switches at 0.5 s, the load is sup-
plied by the DGs and the grid. At 2.010 s, the mode
switches to the stand-alone mode and the power generated
by DGs is supplied to the load demand. The power
exchange by the DGs, grid, and the load is summarized in
Table 2 and depicted in Figure 16a and b. In Figure 15c.
when the disturbance occurs, the sin (c  h) exceeds the
threshold value, and within 10 ms, the PLL detects the
islanding and switches to stand-alone mode. The fault is
introduced between 2.0 s to 2.5 s, but the system continues
in the stand-alone operation mode up to 3.004 s, after
fault clearance. At 3.004 s, the grid voltage settles down
to normal value, and the mode switches the operating
mode to the grid-connected mode. The variation of the
PCC frequency is shown in Figure 15 (50.4 to 49.6) dur-
ing the mode switching operation and is within the IEEE
standard limits.
The analysis of the proposed PSRF-PLL controller for
its effectiveness under various power quality test cases
such as voltage unbalance, harmonics, voltage sag, and
voltage swell (10% to 20%) and faults (1/, 1/-G, L-L, L-
L-G, 3/, and 3/-G) is shown in Figure 17. The disturb-
ance is introduced at 2.0 s, so the window of 2.0 s to 2.05 s
is considered for an unobstructed view of the variations. In
Figure 17a) Vabc of 260 V, 210 V, and 230 V were consid-
ered as a unbalance in the grid voltages, and it was
observed that the grid voltage unbalance did not affect the
phase locking between the DGs and the grid. Both the grid
and the DG angles had interlocked perfectly in case of the
proposed PSRF-PLL compared with the other PLL
controllers.
In Figure 17b. the 2nd, 5th, and 11th harmonics were
added to the grid voltages at 2.0 s; there was harmonic con-
tent in the phase error and phase angles, but the zero
12 Electric Power Components and Systems, Vol. 0 (2021), No. 0

Time 0.0-0.5 s 0.5-1.5 s 1.5-2.0 s 2.0-3.0 s 3.0-5.0 s

Power P Q P Q P Q P Q P Q
Unit (kW) (kVAr) (kW) (kVAr) (kW) (kVAr) (kW) (kVAr) (kW) (kVAr)
Load – – 8.0 0.2 20.0 0.7 15.0 0.5 20.0 0.7
Grid 6.0 0.75 1.0 0.02 12.5 0.3 – – 12.5 0.3
DG1 4.0 0.5 4.6 0.15 5.0 0.25 9.8 0.3 5.0 0.25
DG2 2.0 0.25 2.3 0.07 2.5 0.12 4.9 0.12 2.5 0.12
TABLE 2. Test results for transition between grid-connected-stand-alone-grid-connected modes.

cause permanent damage. To avoid this, the detection of

the islanding should be fast and the modes switched
accordingly.
Table 3 shows a comparison of the various islanding
detection methods with the proposed PSRF-PLL islanding
detection method. The proposed PSRF-PLL method
presents negligible non-detection zone and high islanding
detection efficiency with less detection time compared with
the other methods presented in the literature [12, 26–30],
shown in Figure 18.

FIGURE 16. (a) Active powers of DGs, grid, and load,
(b) Reactive powers of DGs, grid, and load.
crossing of the proposed PSRF-PLL was not affected and
showed better harmonic immunity. However, the IPT
and SOGI PLL subjected to harmonics in the grid voltages
and zero-crossing were affected.
Figure 17 (c) and (d) show the variations in phase
error and phase angles for the grid voltage sag and swell.
When compared with the other PLL controllers, the pro-
posed PSRF-PLL shows better dynamics. In Figure 17
(e). the three-phase to ground fault was introduced at
2.0 s at the grid side, and the grid phase angle is no
more in phase with the DG phase angle. All the PLL
controllers show variations in the phase error response
when there is a three-phase fault at the grid side.
However, less distortion was observed in the proposed
PSRF-PLL and E-PLL. These three-phase faults directly
propagate to the inverters connected to the grid and
6. CONCLUSION
In this paper, the islanding detection for automatic mode
switching of a microgrid with parallel-connected inverter-
based DG systems with an improved droop control strat-
egy is presented. The microgrid system with all its control
schemes is implemented in real-time hardware in loop
(HIL) tool. The modified droop control scheme with vir-
tual impedance for the standalone operation mode is pre-
sented. A PSRF-PLL has been proposed in this paper for
effective detection of islanding and automatic operation
mode switching of the microgrid even under grid disturb-
ance condition. The performance result of the microgrid
operation under various test conditions are presented and
analyzed. A good performance in terms of power-sharing
was achieved between the DG systems to supply the com-
mon load with the presented droop control scheme. The
islanding detection and automatic mode switching were
done by the PLL phase error measurement, which showed
a quick response and proved capable of providing syn-
chronization and re-synchronization effectively. The pro-
posed PSRF-PLL controller performance provided good
harmonic immunity and attained nearly zero phase-lock-
ing error in comparison with various other PLL designs.
The experimental responses were plotted for three-phase
fault, and it was noted that the PSRF-PLL could detect
islanding within 10 ms. The result obtained from the HIL
tool shows that the proposed control schemes for grid-
Kulkarni et al.: Operation of the Microgrid with Improved Droop Control Strategy and an Effective Islanding Detection Technique 13

FIGURE 17. Grid-connected operation mode-PLL phase error and phase angle responses for the proposed PSRF-PLL and popular
PLLs in the literature [21]. For various case studies-(a) unbalance, (b) harmonics, (c) sag, (d) swell, and (e) faults.

connected and stand-alone operation modes exhibited FUNDING

good performance for parallel-connected inverter-based
This work is supported by the Ministry of power,
DGs in the microgrid. The proposed controllers for
Government of India through CPRI Bangalore, Karnataka
improved droop and islanding detection schemes can be
and Central Power Research Institute under project scheme
expandable to the multiple distributed generation systems
(project code: RSOP/2015/DG/2/15122015, sanction date:
in the microgrid.
2/07/2016).
14 Electric Power Components and Systems, Vol. 0 (2021), No. 0

demand response,” Appl. Energy, vol. 210, pp. 1321–1335,

Detection
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BIOGRAPHIES
Shreeram V Kulkarni received M.Tech. degree in Electric
Power System Engineering from Shri Dharmasthala
Manjunatheshwara College of Engineering and Technology
(SDMCET), Dhavalagiri Dharwad., India in the year, 2016.
He pursuing his Ph.D. degree in Power Systems from
National Institute of Technology Karnataka (NITK),
Surathkal, India. He is currently a faculty member in Nitte
Meenakshi Institute of Technology (NMIT), Bangalore.,
India. His research interests are power system analysis and
control, microgrid operation, droop control for parallel con-
nected DGs, power quality and islanding detection.
Dattatraya N Gaonkar received his M.Tech. degree in
Power and Energy Systems from National Institute of
Technology Karnataka, Surathkal, India in the year, 2003.
He obtained his Ph. D. degree in Power Systems in the
year, 2008 from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT),
Roorkee, India. He was a visiting scholar at the University
of Saskatchewan Canada. He has edited and written a
chapter in the book titled DISTRIBUTED GENERATION,
which is published by INTECH publication Austria. He is
the Fellow of IE (India), life member of ISTE and SSI.
Presently, he is a faculty member in the Department of
Electrical and Electronics Engineering NITK Surathkal.
His main research interests are in the area of power system
operation and control, distributed generation systems and
power electronics.
Josep M Guerrero received the B.S. degree in telecom-
munications engineering, the M.S. degree in electronics
engineering, and the Ph.D. degree in power electronics
from the Technical University of Catalonia, Barcelona, in
1997, 2000 and 2003, respectively. In 2004, he was
responsible for the Renewable Energy Laboratory, Escola
Industrial de Barcelona. Since 2011, he has been a Full
Professor with the Department of Energy Technology,
Aalborg University, Aalborg East, Denmark, where he is
responsible for the microgrid research program. His
research interests is oriented to different microgrid aspects,
including power electronics, distributed energy-storage sys-
tems, hierarchical and cooperative control, energy manage-
ment systems, and optimization of microgrids and
islanded minigrids.