IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 55, NO.
5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2019
Dual Operation Mode of a Transformerless H-Bridge
Inverter in Low-Voltage Microgrid
Qusay Salem , Libo Liu, and Jian Xie
Abstract—This paper presents the bilateral operation of a
transformer-less H-bridge inverter as a power flow controller
and fault current limiter in low-voltage distribution network.
A novel control strategy has been developed to initiate and ac-
tivate the H-bridge inverter to control the power flow at point
of common coupling (PCC). On the other hand, the H-bridge
inverter operation like a short-circuit current limiter during grid
disturbance event and its smooth reinsertion after fault clearance
have also been clarified. Besides, an island mode control strategy
incorporating synchronization controller, and proper coordination
with flip flops have been implemented in order to synchronize the
microgrid with the main grid before reclosing the circuit breaker.
The results confirm: The effectiveness and feasibility of the novel
control methodology in activating the real power flow; the inverter
capability of minimizing the short-circuit current during fault and
the successful resynchronization of the microgrid voltage source
inverter (VSI) and the H-bridge inverter to the main grid.
Index Terms—Fault current limiter, microgrid, power flow con-
troller, resynchronization, transformer-less H-bridge inverter.
I. INTRODUCTION
OWER flow controllers-based power electronics are form-
P ing the core of most flexible ac transmission systems
(FACTS) devices applications in power systems [1], [2]. These
FACTS devices employ voltage source converters (VSCs) to
perform the real or reactive power support according to system
needs [3]. One of the most common topologies of the VSCs is
the H-bridge either if the switches employ insulated-gate bipo-
lar transistors (IGBTs) or MOSFETs. Moreover, the H-bridge as a
VSC has been extensively utilized in the design of the static syn-
chronous series compensator (SSSC) for power flow and voltage
regulation purposes especially in high and medium voltage net-
works [4]–[6]. In distribution networks, the H-bridge inverter has
been rarely used to control the power flow transfer between two
networks. In [7], the authors introduced the H-bridge inverter
Manuscript received December 27, 2018; revised March 8, 2019 and April
14, 2019; accepted May 15, 2019. Date of publication May 19, 2019; date of
current version August 14, 2019. Paper 2018-IACC-1398.R2, presented at the
2018 IEEE International Conference on Environment and Electrical Engineer-
ing and 2018 IEEE Industrial and Commercial Power Systems Europe, Palermo,
Italy, Jun. 12–15, and approved for publication in the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON
INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS by the Industrial Automation and Control Commit-
tee of the IEEE Industry Applications Society. (Corresponding author: Qusay
Salem.)
The authors are with the Institute of Energy Conversion and Storage, Univer-
sitat Ulm, Ulm 89081, Germany (e-mail: qusay.salem@uni-ulm.de; libo.liu@
uni-ulm.de; Jian.xei@uni-ulm.de).
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/TIA.2019.2917807
0093-9994 © 2019 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
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5289
as a distributed static series compensator where a new control
method is used to minimize the exchange of active power be-
tween the power system and the distributed synchronous series
compensator (DSSC). In [8], active and reactive power con-
trol of an H-bridge inverter connected in series to the distribu-
tion grid has been controlled by a novel control method that
needs no information about the line parameters. Furthermore,
Saradarzadeh et al. [9] have modeled the H-bridge inverter as
a multilevel cascaded topology where a fixed and variable dc-
bus control methods are employed to control the power flow
between two feeders. Also, the cascaded H-bridge inverter has
been introduced in [10] as a power flow controller by implement-
ing a hierarchical control strategy with multiple control loops.
However, the usage of the H-bridge inverter as a single phase
transformerless inverter has been introduced only in [11] to con-
trol the bidirectional power flow between the main grid and a
designated microgrid in the low-voltage distribution network.
Two novel control strategies have been used to control the in-
verter operation and the dc-link capacitor was supposed to be
pre-charged where an external voltage source is used to charge
the dc-link capacitor. However, to reduce the cost and number of
components, the inverter activation in this paper is accomplished
by implementing a novel control strategy which facilitates the
charging process without the need of supplementary devices.
The benefit of the new control strategy over the existing ones
is that no additional equipment is needed to charge the dc-link
voltage of the inverter. Besides, the transient effect of the power
and/or current at point of common coupling (PCC) during the in-
verter insertion process is significantly reduced since the inverter
is activated at zero net-power and thus, the inverter components
will be protected.
Furthermore, one of the main crucial problems concerning the
microgrid development is the increase of the fault current level.
Ensuring the reliability and stability of microgrids operation
when faults occur in the utility grid side is considered as a chal-
lenging issue. So that, the strategies that can mitigate the short-
circuit current and hence, prohibit the isolation of the microgrid
from the main utility grid are of great significance [12]–[15]. The
islanding detection techniques are provided to detect the island
event and to perform the disconnection process. However, the
reconnection is accomplished by implementing different resyn-
chronization schemes, in which the difference of the voltage
magnitude, frequency, and phase angle of the main grid and the
microgrid are reduced as much as possible [16]–[18]. Per-
forming the disconnection and reconnection with existence
of series VSCs between the main grid and the microgrid
 5290 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 55, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2019

is not discussed widely in the literature. In [19] and [20],

short-circuit analysis with series VSC between two networks is
investigated. Both of them considers a series power converter
as short-circuit current limiter in distribution and transmission
networks, respectively. The power converter has considered
IGBTs for the H-bridge switches so that the disconnection and
resynchronization process of the power converter is not a serious
problem since the IGBTs have high current rating capability.
However, the H-bridge inverter in this paper considers MOSFET
devices which have reduced cost, power losses, and switching
frequency. However, it is worth noting that such devices have
limited short-circuit current rating which makes their operation
under short-circuit events more critical. Thus, the disconnection Fig. 1. Circuit topology of the single phase-full bridge inverter.
and reconnection process between the two networks must be TABLE I
properly accomplished. H-BRIDGE INVERTER SWITCHING COMBINATIONS
In this paper, a transformer-less H-bridge inverter-based
power MOSFETs is proposed to be connected between the utility
and the microgrid to control the power flow. The activation pro-
cess of the series transformer-less H-bridge inverter as a power
flow controller into the power network is presented. Further-
more, the H-bridge inverter operation as a fault current limiter
and its reinsertion process are clearly described. Besides, an
and lower MOSFET of each inverter leg is varied to control the
island control method of the microgrid voltage source inverter
switching operation of the circuit. Switching the H-bridge in a
(VSI) and the synchronization controller structure are presented.
proper sequence will create an ac output voltage, and this output
Once the microgrid and the main grid are synchronized and re-
voltage can be either +Vdc , −Vdc , or 0 depending on the control
connected with each other, the H-bridge inverter can be rein-
of the H-bridge MOSFETs. The prospective switching combina-
serted into the network.
tions of the H-bridge are formulated in Table I.
The rest of the paper is organized into four sections. Fol-
The unipolar pulsewidth modulation (PWM) is applied as a
lowing the introduction, the power flow control capability of
modulation method to control the output voltage of the H-bridge
the H-bridge inverter is presented in Section II where the basic
inverter,Vout . The switching commands M1 and M4 will be ON
configuration, system description, control methodology, and the
when the reference signal is larger than the carrier signal while
activation process are investigated. Section III investigates the
M2 and M3 will be ON when the reference signal is smaller
H-bridge inverter operation as a fault current limiter in addition
than the carrier signal [21]. The output voltage of the H-bridge
to the disconnection and reconnection process of the microgrid.
inverter can be changed by varying the reference or control sig-
Finally, the conclusion is presented in Section IV.
nal. So that, two major definitions of the modulation ratios are
developed as follows:
II. POWER FLOW CONTROL CAPABILITY
ma = Vref /Vcarrier (1)
The transformerless H-bridge inverter can behave like a series
power flow controller between two networks in which a specified mf = fcarrier /fref (2)
power flow amount can be controlled between a designated mi-
where ma is the amplitude modulation ratio (modulation index)
crogrid and the main grid in the distribution network. Depending
and mf is the frequency modulation ratio, Vref is the amplitude
on a desired real power flow reference at PCC, a series voltage
of the reference signal, Vcarrier is the amplitude of the carrier
is injected at PCC with respect to the line current. The variation
signal, fcarrier is the switching frequency, and fref is the funda-
of the PCC voltage due to injecting series voltage into the line
mental frequency.
will change the real power of the microgrid distributed genera-
If ma < 1.0, the sinusoidal PWM operates in the linear range
tor (DGs) in accordance to P/V droop characteristics. Thence, a
so that the amplitude of the fundamental frequency component
balance between the total load demand and the real power gener-
varies linearly with ma such that
ation is achieved to satisfy a desired real power reference at PCC.
Vout = ma . Vdc . (3)
A. Basic Configuration of the H-bridge Inverter
Fig. 1 depicts the basic topology of the single phase-full bridge B. System Description
inverter which is often called as an H-bridge inverter, consider- Fig. 2 shows a single line diagram of the studied network
ing the power switches arrangement. The inverter consists of which includes the microgrid, the main grid and the transformer-
two legs, and each leg includes two series connected power less H-bridge inverter. The resistance and inductance of the main
MOSFETs. grid are denoted by RG , LG , respectively. The inductance of the
A MOSFET connected in antiparallel with a diode formu- H-bridge inverter is denoted by Linv . The system parameters
lates each power control device. The turn-ON time of the upper are given in Table II. The considered lines or cables have the

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 SALEM et al.: DUAL OPERATION MODE OF A TRANSFORMERLESS H-BRIDGE INVERTER IN LOW-VOLTAGE MICROGRID
Fig. 2. Single line diagram of the studied network.
TABLE II
SYSTEM PARAMETERS
same impedance value (Rline = 0.8 Ω, Lline = 0.25 mH) and
the same length 100-m long for each and they are mainly resistive
in which R>>X.
Furthermore, the mathematical modeling of the network, the
microgrid modeling and the droop control are extracted from
[11] where 10 DG units are connected in parallel to the PCC
through short underground cables. Every DG unit has its own
local load which is also considered to be resistive. The micro-
grid DG units are supported with P/V droop characteristics to
generate the real power.
The main factor which controls the real power exchange at
PCC to zero is the injected series voltage Vinv generated from
the control unit of the H-bridge inverter. Depending on the state
of power flow, this series voltage will increase or decrease the
voltage at PCC VPCC and thus, the voltage at each DG node in
the microgrid VDGi . Then, every DG droop characteristic will be
adjusted automatically to match the load demand and to satisfy
the desired real power reference Pref at PCC as given in the
following:
P = P0 − kP (u − u0 )
where P is the DG real power, u0 is the initial root mean square
(RMS) voltage 230 V, u is the DG measured RMS voltage which
is between 203 V - 253 V, P0 is the initial DG real power output,
andkP is the slope of the DG droop characteristic which is given
as
kP = (Pmax − Pmin) /(umax − umin ).
Furthermore, it should be noted that the line impedance or
length of line is another factor which reflect or contribute on
making the real power at PCC equal zero. The relationship be-
tween the line length with the DG droop characteristic is depicted
in Fig. 3. It is clearly shown that the DG droop characteristic is
limited with the line length increase. This means that controlling
the power at PCC to zero depends on the slope flexibility of the
DG droop characteristic which is responsible of satisfying the
load demand. As the line impedance or length is increased,
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5291
Fig. 3. Relationship of the DG droop characteristic with the line length.
Fig. 4. Control methodology of the H-bridge inverter.
the ability of the DG to supply the required load demand will be
reduced and thus, the real power at PCC cannot be controlled
to zero.
C. Control Methodology
The major task of the transformer-less H-bridge inverter as
a series inverter is to control the line power flow. The direct
control of the line current in terms of power control has been
accomplished, in which the exchanged power is maintained un-
der an open-loop control defined by a power reference. In order
to activate the series H-bridge inverter at PCC between the mi-
crogrid and the main utility grid, the real power amount at PCC
should be reduced to zero to avoid any expected transients or
malfunctions of the control methodology during the initializa-
(4) tion process. Another solution for activating the inverter can be
done by using a pre-charged capacitor for the dc-link voltage re-
gardless of the real power flow amount at PCC. In this paper, the
insertion process has been done by reducing the real power flow
amount at PCC to zero which means that the DG units provide
only the required real power for the local loads. Fig. 4 depicts
the control methodology of the H-bridge inverter which consists
(5) of three parts.
The first part is responsible of injecting the in-phase part of
the injected voltage (ud,max ) by controlling the dc-link voltage.
A ramp function is used to charge the dc-link voltage gradually
to the reference value through a specified slope. The second
part is responsible only of tracking the line current phase by
a phase-locked loop. The third part considers generating the
needed quadrature part of the injected voltage (uq,max ). A band-
pass filter is integrated for damping the real power oscillations.
However, damping factor determination and filter design are out
of the scope of this paper.
 5292 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 55, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2019

The inverter mode of operation is dependent on the real power

flow direction. That means; the H-bridge inverter operates in its
inductive mode if the proportional integral (PI) controller output
is negative, and the injected voltage will have +90◦ phase shift
with respect to the line current. However, the H-bridge inverter
operates in its capacitive mode if the PI controller output is
positive, and the injected voltage will have −90◦ phase shift
with respect to the line current.

D. Insertion and Activation Process

The stability and performance of the control methodology
including the dc-link control loop and the power flow control
loop have been examined by changing the real power reference
during simulating the power network of Fig. 2. The measured
dc-link voltage and the measured real power flow at PCC have
been monitored at every step change of the real power reference.
Fig. 5(a)–(f) depicts the activation process of the H-bridge in-
verter into the power network where an interaction between the
microgrid and the H-bridge inverter is initiated to control the
power flow. At (0 s < t < 0.5 s), the H-bridge inverter is out
of service so that the dc-link voltage is zero and the real power
amount at PCC is also zero. At (0.5 s < t < 1 s), the H-bridge
inverter is activated with keeping the real power flow reference
at zero and a ramp function is utilized to charge the dc-link ca-
pacitor voltage gradually to the reference voltage value (20 V).
Note that how the dc-link voltage charging is smooth and depicts
no high transients.
At (t = 1 s), the real power flow reference is increased to 10
kW and the reference dc-link voltage is activated. Note that how
the power flow controller follows smoothly the reference and
how the dc-link voltage is stabilized at the reference value. At
(t = 2 s) and (t = 3 s), the real power reference is decreased
to 5 kW and 0 kW, respectively. It can also be seen that the con-
trollers track smoothly the reference real power and the dc-link
voltage reference without any high transients. Both of control
loops (power flow control loop and dc-link voltage control loop)
are working properly in tracking their references.
The real power and voltage of the microgrid including DGs
and loads are varied depending on the series injected voltage at
PCC. Thus, a desired real power reference at PCC is achieved
by fulfilling the required balance between the total load demand
and total power generation. It is worth noting that the initial real
power value and the droop characteristic of all DG units are the
same. After (t = 1 s), it is clearly shown that with every step
change in the real power reference, the real power and RMS
voltage of the DGs and the loads are varied to satisfy the power
balance inside the microgrid.

III. FAULT CURRENT LIMITING CAPABILITY

In this section, the microgrid is represented as a DG unit
in which only one VSI is delivering power into the PCC.
Furthermore, the island control method and the synchronization
controller have been implemented in order to synchronize the
microgrid with the main grid before reclosing the circuit breaker Fig. 5. Activation process of the H-bridge inverter at PCC.
and switching to grid-connected mode. The transformer-less

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 SALEM et al.: DUAL OPERATION MODE OF A TRANSFORMERLESS H-BRIDGE INVERTER IN LOW-VOLTAGE MICROGRID
Fig. 6. Control structure of the microgrid DG VSI in island mode.
H-bridge inverter acts as a short-circuit current limiter where no
power flow control is taking place. The fault current is limited
by changing the operation of the H-bridge from an inverter to
current-limiting mode.
A. Microgrid Resynchronization Process
Under grid fault conditions, each DG unit in the microgrid
should detect the islanding event and switch its operation to
voltage control mode in order to provide a constant voltage to
the local loads [22], [23]. Therefore, the VSI of the microgrid
DG will perform as a grid-forming power converter fed by an ex-
ternal dc source. Furthermore, to keep the microgrid frequency
and voltage within their nominal limits and in order to main-
tain the microgrid energy balance, the VSI of the microgrid DG
units will supply and/or store only the needed amount of energy.
Power sharing among the microgrid DG units can be accom-
plished by means of power control loops [24] or droop control
strategies [25]. During the disconnection process of the micro-
grid, the amplitude and frequency of the reference voltage will
be settled down to their nominal values. However, the phase an-
gle will be the one detected previously to the separation of the
circuit breaker [26].
To generate the reference voltage magnitude and frequency
of the microgrid VSI in its island operation mode, inverse
droop characteristics which are well explained in [27] are imple-
mented. Furthermore, when the fault is cleared, then switching
the microgrid operation from autonomous mode to the grid-
connected mode can be initiated. However, to avoid the hard
transients in the process of reconnection, the microgrid VSI has
to be synchronized with the main grid before reclosing the circuit
breaker [28]. The circuit breaker will still have opened and the
microgrid VSI will continue to operate in the island mode until
the synchronization condition is satisfied. After that, the micro-
grid VSI is again reconnected to the main grid, and the control
strategy changed to current control mode instead of voltage con-
trol mode. Fig. 6 depicts the control structure of the microgrid
VSI in the island mode and the synchronization controller which
is incorporated to synchronize the microgrid VSI with the main
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5293
Fig. 7. Single line diagram of a power network under fault event.
grid. The reference voltage and frequency are derived from in-
verse droop characteristics. However, the phase angle generated
from the droop control named as θdroop is determined at the
beginning by the system operator. Once the system operator
activates the synchronization controller, the switch will transfer
to the new phase angle.
After the disconnection and islanding of the microgrid, the
synchronization controller is triggered by the system operator
to derive the new phase angle θnew to ensure that the microgrid
is synchronized with the main grid before circuit breaker reclose
and switching to the grid connected mode. The synchronization
controller is designed by extracting the phase angle difference
between the grid voltage and the PCC or microgrid side voltage.
Then, the sine of this angle difference is generated and passed
through PI controller. The output of the PI controller is compared
with the old measured phase angle, so that the new phase angle
which tracks the grid voltage phase is generated. Finally, the
generated voltage is transformed to dq voltage references to be
inserted into the voltage and current control loops [16].
B. Transformer-Less H-Bridge Inverter as a Fault Current
Limiter
Fig. 7 presents the single line diagram of a power network,
where the microgrid and the utility are connected together via
series voltage source inverter which represents the H-bridge in-
verter. The impedances of the grid, microgrid, line are denoted
by ZG , Zm , and Zline , respectively.
When the fault occurs at point A, then the circuit breaker
cannot isolate the microgrid and the H-bridge inverter from the
fault transient which can destroy the inverter power MOSFET
devices and the dc-link capacitor.
Therefore, the series inverter should inject a voltage near or
equal to the microgrid peak voltage in order to limit or com-
pletely remove the short circuit current which is calculated as
iSC = (Vm − Vinv ) / Ztotal . (6)
It can be noticed from (6) how the short-circuit current
limitation is dependent on the voltage difference between the
microgrid voltage and the series inverter voltage. Thus, to inject
the required voltage automatically, the series inverter operation
mode is changed from inverter mode to the current-limiting
mode once the protection scheme detects the fault event. By
turning off all the MOSFET devices and turning ON the antipar-
allel diodes, the series inverter performs in its current-limiting
mode and charges the dc-link capacitor to the peak voltage
difference between the microgrid and the faulted node. The
 5294 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 55, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2019

Fig. 8. H-bridge inverter operation during fault. (a) Forward current direction
through diodes. (b) Reverse current direction through diodes. (c) H-bridge circuit
model during fault. Fig. 9. Relationship between the short-circuit current and dc-link voltage.

short-circuit current passes only through the antiparallel diodes Vmax

VCm = 
which can handle the fault current since the diode surge current (1 − ω 2 /ωn2 )2 + ((2ζω/ωn ))2
is much more than the MOSFET [29].
 
The operation of the H-bridge in the current-limiting mode −1 2ζωωn
ϕ = tan
during the fault is depicted in Fig. 8(a) and (b), where the dc- ωn2 − ω 2
link capacitor is charged regardless of the line current direction. 
Fig. 8(c) represents the H-bridge circuit model during the fault r1,2 = −ζωn ± ζ 2 − 1
where the initial dc-bus voltage and the forward voltage drop VCm (ω cos (ϕ) + r2 sin (ϕ))
of the diodes are neglected. The total inductance and resistance A=
r2 − r1
between the faulted node and the source are denoted by LT and
RT , respectively. The dc-bus capacitance is denoted by Cdc and VCm (ω cos (ϕ) + r1 sin (ϕ))
B= .
VS is the grid voltage which is given by VS = Vmax sin(ωt). r1 − r2
Regarding the circuit model of Fig. 8(c), the capacitor voltage The capacitor voltage and line current are determined for 0 <
time domain differential equation is given by [19] ζ < 1 as indicated in
d2 Vdc dVdc Vdc (t) = e−ζωn t [A cos (ωd t) + B sin (ωd t)]
VS = LT Cdc + RT Cdc + Vdc . (7)
dt2 dt
+ VCm sin (ωt − ϕ) (12)
By rearranging (7) taking into account the damping factor ζ  
and resonant frequency ωn then idc (t) = Cdc e−ζωn t (Bωd − Aζωn ) cos (ωd t)
d2 Vdc dVdc − (Bζωn + Aωd ) sin (ωd t) + VCm ω cos (ωt − ϕ)
ωn2 VS = + 2ζωn + ωn2 Vdc . (8) (13)
dt2 dt
Moreover, the transfer function of the system is indicated as where,

Vdc (s) ωn2 ωd = ω n 1 − ζ 2 , A = VCm sin (ϕ) ,
H (s) = = 2 . (9)
VS (s) s + 2ζωn s + ωn2
B = VCm (ζωn sin (ϕ) − ω cos (ϕ))/ωd .
The capacitor voltage and line current are determined after
solving (7) for ζ ≥ 1 as indicated in Equations (7)–(13) clarify the impact of the capacitor value
on the dc-link voltage and the line current. If the capacitor value
Vdc (t) = Aer1 t + Ber2 t + VCm sin (ωt − ϕ) (10) is decreased, this will reduce the peak short-circuit current, but
the capacitor will charge more quickly which can lead to dc-link
idc (t) = Cdc [Aer1 t + Ber2 t + VCm ω cos (ωt − ϕ)] (11)
voltage overshoot at the fault starting time. Therefore, the dc-link
where capacitor value is selected based on investigating three different
capacitor values as shown in Fig. 9, where the charging time
1
ωn2 = of the dc-link capacitor in correspondence to the short-circuit
LT Cdc current can be noticed. It is clearly shown that lowest capacitance

RT Cdc value (blue-colored) has reduced the peak short-circuit current
ζ= and charges the dc-link voltage more quickly.
2 LT

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 SALEM et al.: DUAL OPERATION MODE OF A TRANSFORMERLESS H-BRIDGE INVERTER IN LOW-VOLTAGE MICROGRID
Fig. 10. H-bridge inverter operation after fault during the delay period.
After fault clearance and once the microgrid are synchronized
with the main grid, the H-bridge inverter should be reinserted
smoothly into the network to avoid the hard transients at the mo-
ment of reconnection which can harm the inverter components.
To do that, the upper or lower two MOSFET devices should be
blocked at the moment of reconnection for some milliseconds so
that the current will not flow through the dc-link capacitor. Dur-
ing this period, the dc-link voltage can be discharged through
a parallel connected resistor in order to allow the inverter to be
reinserted again into the network.
Therefore, the PWM switching commands either M 1 and
M 3 or M 2 and M 4 (see Fig. 1) should be blocked (zero sig-
nal) to allow the current flow only through the upper or lower
two MOSFET devices and to allow discharging of the dc-link ca-
pacitor voltage to zero before inserting the inverter again into
the network. Once the two networks are reconnected and the
dc-link voltage discharges to zero, then the inverter can be rein-
serted and its switching operation can be enabled. By closing
a switch which manages parallel connection of a resistor with
the dc-link capacitor, then the dc-link voltage can be discharged
during the delay period. The current flow and the resistor paral-
lel connection during this period are described in Fig. 10. This
step can ensure safe and smooth inverter reinsertion after fault
clearance and breaker reclose.
C. Coordination With Flip-Flops
During islanding and resynchronization of the microgrid due
to short-circuit events, a proper coordination with flip-flops is
required for the whole power system components. The circuit
breaker which isolates the main utility grid from the microgrid
should receive a signal from a specified protection scheme once
it detects a fault event and once the fault is cleared as well. The
VSI of every microgrid DG unit should detect any islanding
event or resynchronization process in order to decide whether
to work in grid-connected mode or island mode. The H-bridge
inverter control unit should also be informed about the fault ini-
tiation and clearance in order to plan for the reinsertion process
into the network. Fig. 11 depicts the appropriate coordination
of the circuit breaker, the H-bridge inverter control unit, and the
microgrid VSI control mode.
The protection scheme monitors the instantaneous current
value as it is faster to be detected than the RMS value. Once
the protection scheme discovers that the current exceeds a spec-
ified or threshold value due to a short-circuit event in the main
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5295
Fig. 11. Coordination of the breaker, H-bridge, and control mode during dis-
connection and reconnection process.
utility grid, the protection scheme output becomes high and sub-
sequently the flip-flops of the circuit breaker, the H-bridge in-
verter control unit, and the VSI control mode denoted by FF 1,
FF 2, and FF 3, respectively are adjusted to the set command.
Furthermore, when the fault is cleared, the fault clear signal
is set high manually to reset the flip-flops and thus changing the
VSI control mode, the H-bridge inverter operation, as well as the
circuit breaker state. It is worth noting that the fault clear signal
which is controlled manually will not be triggered unless the
synchronization criterion is achieved. The trip signal initiates the
circuit breaker tripping and reclosing, the block signal activates
the H-bridge inverter blocking state. Finally, the microgrid VSI
control mode is altered between its grid-connected and island
operation modes depending on the switch signal state.
D. Test Validation and Verification
The power network presented in Fig. 6 has been implemented
and simulated using piecewise linear electrical circuit simula-
tion (PLECS) and SimPowerSystems toolboxes in Simulink to
investigate the disconnection and reconnection process of the
system components. The microgrid is represented by a single
DG unit which feeds a resistive load with 5 kW. The short cir-
cuit is started at t = 1 s and cleared at t = 1.5 s.
The short-circuit is applied at the nearst location to the H-
bridge as a worst case scenario taking into account two fault
inception angles (FIA) at 0◦ and 90◦ . The threshold for applying
the current-limiting mode is 1.5 times the H-bridge maximum
power flow current so as to keep safe operation of the power
switches. Moreover, the MOSFET is not able to bear high transient
current for a period more than 100 μs. However, the antiparallel
diodes are able to withstand higher current density which is
nominated as surge or transient current. A fast fault detection
method based on monitoring the instantaneous current passing
through the H-bridge inverter is used to detect the fault event in
a period of time less than 100 μs. Once the fault is detected, the
 5296 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 55, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2019
Fig. 12. System behavior during the short-circuit event.
anti-parallel diodes are turned on and the surge current passes
through the diode only for half a sinusoidal cycle 10 ms. As soon
as the dc-link capacitor starts charging, the short-circuit current
will be limited.
The short-circuit current capability has been investigated to
see the behavior of the H-bridge inverter where the point on wave
or the FIA is considered at 0◦ and 90◦ . Fig. 12(a)–(d) depicts the
system behavior considering two different FIAs.
Fig. 12(a) shows the PCC voltage where the FIA is consid-
ered on near zero crossing 0◦ , and at maximum value of voltage
90◦ . It can be seen that for both cases, the short-circuit current
is detected within approximately 100 μs and the dc-link voltage
starts charging to limit the fault current as shown in Fig. 12(b)
and (c). Note that the short-circuit current is limited for both
cases where the initial surge current passes through the anti-
parallel diodes for a period much less than 10 ms. The corre-
sponding phase angle jump of the PCC voltage for both FIAs is
shown in Fig. 12(d). It can be seen that the phase angle jump is
small since the short-circuit is fast detected and limited.
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Fig. 13. FFT analysis of the PCC voltage during the fault.
The impact of the voltage and/or current distortion in the
proposed methodology is testified by measuring the harmonic
spectrum of the PCC voltage once the fault is initiated as de-
picted in Fig. 13. The total harmonic distortion (THD) limit at
PCC in 400 V low voltage distribution networks should not ex-
ceed 5% as stated in [30]. The THD is measured once the fault
is initiated (t = 1 s) for the first three cycles of the PCC voltage.
It can be seen that the THD factor of the PCC voltage is small
and below 5% at the time of fault initiation.
The simulation time sequence of the test validation model is
as the following.
1) At (0.5 s < t <1 s): The microgrid VSI operates in grid-
connected mode and the H-bridge inverter control unit is
enabled to inject series voltage into the line.
2) At t = 1 s: The short-circuit is initiated and the circuit
breaker is opened, the proposed flip-flops are set high, the
microgrid VSI switch its operation to island control mode,
the MOSFET devices are turned OFF and the antiparallel-
diodes are turned ON, VDC charges to the difference
between the peak network voltage and the faulted node
voltage.
3) At t = 1.2 s: The synchronization controller is triggered
by the system operator.
4) At t = 1.5 s: The short-circuit is cleared and the cir-
cuit breaker is reclosed, the microgrid VSI get back to
work again in grid-connected mode, the PWM switching
commands M1 and M3 are set to zero (delay), VDC
discharges to zero during the delay period.
 SALEM et al.: DUAL OPERATION MODE OF A TRANSFORMERLESS H-BRIDGE INVERTER IN LOW-VOLTAGE MICROGRID 5297

Fig. 14. Voltage magnitude and phase angle of both networks before and after
triggering the synchronization controller in island control mode.

Fig. 16. System performance during the disconnection and reconnection pro-
cess.

Fig. 15. Frequency of both networks during synchronization process.

5) At t = 1.7 s: The H-bridge inverter is reinserted, the switch-

ing commands M1 and M3 are enabled, reconnection pro-
cess of the H-bridge is completed.
The voltage magnitude, phase angle and, frequency of both the
microgrid and main grid in the island control mode before and af-
ter triggering the synchronization controller are demonstrated in
Figs. 14 and 15, respectively. Based on the droop characteristics
applied to the microgrid VSI power control, it can be seen that
both voltage sources have different frequency and phase angle.
Nevertheless, as soon as the system operator activates the syn- Fig. 17. DC-link capacitor voltage and inverter voltage during the disconnec-
tion and reconnection process.
chronization process, then the synchronization controller forces
the microgrid to track the main grid voltage, phase angle and,
frequency.
Fig. 16 presents the microgrid real and reactive power, the The performance of the H-bridge inverter in terms of the dc-
line current and PCC voltage during the disconnection and re- link capacitor voltage and its terminals voltage during the dis-
connection process. At t = 1 s, the inverter MOSFET devices are connection and reconnection process is depicted in Fig. 17.
turned OFF and the antiparallel diodes are turned ON so that the Once the fault is initiated, note that how the dc-link volt-
inverter switches its operation from an inverter mode to a current- age charges to the voltage difference between the peak network
limiting mode. Therefore, the fault current is limited very fast voltage and the faulted node. It is worth noting that between
and no transients appeared at the moment of disconnection. As (1.5 s < t < 1.7 s), the switching commands M1 and M3 are set
the microgrid is synchronized with the main grid before closing to zero (delay) in order to allow the dc-link voltage discharging.
the circuit breaker, it can be noticed that the power values in In order to reinsert the H-bridge inverter smoothly, the dc-link
addition to the line current and PCC voltage have no transients voltage is discharged to zero using a parallel-connected resistor
at the moment of reconnection. during this delay period.

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 5298 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 55, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2019
IV. CONCLUSION
In this paper, two different issues have been investigated re-
garding the transformer-less H-bridge inverter feasibility be-
tween the main grid and microgrid. The first issue was the power
flow control capability in which an advanced control methodol-
ogy has been used to activate the H-bridge inverter as a power
flow controller. The second issue was the capability of limit-
ing the fault current by changing the operation mode of the
transformer-less H-bridge from an inverter mode to a current-
limiting mode and thus, ensuring stable operation of the micro-
grid. It was observed from the simulation results that the control
methodology has tracked the real power reference successfully
at every step change. Besides, it is clearly shown that the H-
bridge inverter has limited the short-circuit current by inject-
ing the required voltage into the line. The successful microgrid
reconnection and the H-bridge inverter reinsertion confirm the
validity of the proposed approaches.
The future work will focus on the in-depth short-circuit anal-
ysis considering X/R impact in transient and steady-state behav-
ior, directional versus non-directional overcurrent settings, and
short-circuit current capability of the microgrid versus PCC of
the system. Besides, a test-bed setup will be built in lab level to
validate the proposed approaches by experimental results.
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Qusay Salem received the B.Sc. degree from the
University of Mutah, Mutah, Jordan, in 2009, and
the M.Sc. degree from Yarmouk University, Irbid,
Jordan, in 2012, both in in electrical power engineer-
ing. He is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree
in electrical power and energy engineering at the In-
stitute of Energy Conversion and Storage, University
of Ulm, Ulm, Germany.
His research interests include power control and
energy management in low-voltage smart microgrids,
Islanding detection schemes, modeling and control of
power converters, reactive power support by using FACTS devices, applications
of power electronics in power Systems.
 SALEM et al.: DUAL OPERATION MODE OF A TRANSFORMERLESS H-BRIDGE INVERTER IN LOW-VOLTAGE MICROGRID 5299

Libo Liu received the B.Sc. degree in electrical engi-
neering from Shanghai Jiaotong University (SJTU),
Shanghai, China in 2012, and the dual master’s degree
in electrical engineering from SJTU and the Technical
University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany, in 2015. Since
2015, he has been working toward the Ph.D. degree at
the Institute of Energy Conversion and Storage, Uni-
versity of Ulm, Ulm, Germany.
His current research interests include the multi-
level inverter design and motor drive techniques for
electric vehicles.
inverters, smart grid and smart meters, and decentralized control in microgrids.
Jian Xie received the B.Sc. degree from Jiao-
Tong University, Shanghai, China, in 1985, and the
Diploma and Ph.D. degree from the Technical Uni-
versity of Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany, in 1987
and 1993, all in electrical engineering.
Since 1998, he has been a Full Professor with
the Institute of Energy Conversion and Storage, Uni-
versity of Ulm, Ulm, Germany. He has two regis-
tered patents. His research interests include advanced
power converters, battery management systems, high
frequency harmonics in railways, cascaded H-bridge

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