A Review of AC Microgrid Control Methods

Sajjad M. Kaviri *, Majid Pahlevani **, Praveen Jain *, and Alireza Bakhshai *
* Electrical & Computer Engineering Department, ** Electrical & Computer Engineering Department,
Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada
12ssmk@queensu.ca majid.pahlevani@ucalgary.ca

Abstract—The concept of microgrid (MG) has been introduced

as a solution to future electrical grid challenges such as the rapid
increase of electrical demand, harvesting energy from renewable
energy sources, and ensuring the quality and reliability of
electricity supply. Distributed energy sources, as well as energy
storage systems are interfaced with MGs through power electronic
inverters. Control systems of the power electronic inverters in
MGs play a key role in ensuring the perfect performance of MGs.
This paper presents a comprehensive review of various control
systems used in MGs. In particular, different levels of MG control
systems have been investigated and corresponding control
strategies at each level have been compared in detail. This paper
categorizes MG control systems into four levels: 1- The converter
output control that shapes the output current in order to control
Fig. 1. MG typical structure
the flow of output power, 2- The power sharing algorithm that
guarantees the even distribution of the load between parallel
inverters, 3- The MG supervisory controller (secondary level) that
deals with the supervisory control of the converters within the
MG, and 4- The grid supervisory controller (tertiary level) that
controls the flow of power between the main grid and the MG.

Keywords— AC Microgrid, Power Sharing, Droop Controller,

Hierarchical Control System, Power Electronic Inverters.

I. INTRODUCTION
Harvesting energy from renewable energy sources (RESs)
is essential in future power systems mainly due to the
environmental concerns and sustainability [1]-[3]. Despite
several advantages coming with the use of RESs, there are
many challenges that need to be addressed in order to integrate
them into the utility grid [4]. Some of the main challenges
regarding this integration are, reliability and robustness,
controllability, and cost-effectiveness [4]-[5]. In order to
overcome these challenges and utilize distributed RESs more
efficiently, MGs are used as building blocks of the future power
generation systems [6]-[7].
MGs (MGs) as the main building blocks of power
generation systems should be able to locally control the grid
using power electronic interfaces [7]-[8]. The block diagram of
a typical MG including RESs, energy storage system, and
manageable loads along with their interfaces is shown in Fig. 1.
The MG control system plays a crucial role in the successful
implementation of this MG. The control system should provide
reliable operation in the grid-connected and islanded operating
modes while providing a smooth transient between these two
modes [6]. By using multi-level controllers known as
hierarchical control systems, various control strategies such as
power management, grid parameter regulation, and power
Fig. 2. MG Control levels including output control, power sharing, secondary
and tertiary levels
quality enhancement are performed in MGs. The
aforementioned tasks are performed through control systems of
the power converters interfacing the grid [7], [9].
In addition to the listed tasks, the ability to balance the
power inside the MG and control voltage/frequency deviations
in case of sudden power imbalances are the other important
challenges that have to be addressed by the control system in
the MG [10]. In this paper, various MG (MG) controllers are
categorized into four levels: 1- the converter output control,
which is responsible to shape the output current and control the
power flow, 2- the power-sharing control that performs the
power sharing between multiple parallel converters, 3- the MG
supervisory (secondary) control, which deals with parameter
regulations internal to the MG and provides low levels set

978-1-5090-5339-1/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE

points, and 4- the grid supervisory (tertiary), which manages
the power flow between MG and the main grid. The
aforementioned control levels in the MG control system has
been shown in Fig. 2. The arrangement of four control levels
investigated in this paper, as well as the connection between
different levels and input/output of each of them, is shown in
Fig. 2. In this figure, each control level set points are provided
by the higher level controller based on the data measurements
and communication with other control levels. In this paper,
various control techniques for each of these four levels are
reviewed in detail.
II. CONVERTER OUTPUT CONTROL
Voltage-Source Inverters (VSIs) are commonly used as the
Fig. 3. Typical output control system of a VSI
grid interface in renewable energy power conditioning systems
[11]-[13]. The control system of VSIs includes localized
controllers, which operate based on the local measurements and
show faster response compared to the supervisory controllers in
MG [14]. MGs should be able to operate in both grid-connected
and islanded (stand-alone) modes. Thus, the control system
should support both modes.
The typical output control system of a VSI is depicted in
Fig. 3. The control system employs two control loops: an (a)
internal loop that shapes the current and an external loop that
either controls the flow of active/reactive power or regulates the
frequency/voltage of the converter output based on the
operating mode [15]-[16]. The set points of the current control
loop are provided by the external loop. Therefore, the converter
output control system is categorized in two control loops as
follows:
(b)
A. Internal Control Loop (Current Controller)
The inner current control loop is active in both operating
modes. The current controller can be designed in different
reference frames, namely, stationary (αβ), synchronous (dq),
and natural (abc) frames [17]-[18]. In the stationary reference
frame, usually, Proportional-Resonant (PR) controllers are used
to control the output current. Due to their simple
implementation and adequate performance in eliminating (c)
steady-state errors, they are very popular in this application.
The poor transient response, as well as high sensitivity to the
line frequency, are the main drawbacks of PR-controllers in the
stationary frame.
In synchronous reference frame, the ac variables are
converted to dc variables and regular PI controllers can be
utilized in the control system [18]. Due to the simplicity of
implementation, this approach is the most popular one. The (d)
current control schemes implemented in (dq) and (αβ) frames Figure 4. Comparison of various current control schemes: a) dq frame PI, b)
are shown in Fig. 4 (a) and Fig. 6, respectively. One of the repetitive PD feedforward, c) H∞, d) composite nonlinear feedback controller
challenges of these controllers in single-phase applications is
ability to control each phase separately, and in turn handle
the need for an orthogonal signal generator to create the second
unbalanced conditions [17], [21].
phase (β) in the closed-loop control system. Second Order
Generalized Integrators (SOGIs), and All-pas filters are two In term of the controller type, the current controller can be
common methods to create orthogonal signals for single-phase categorized into three groups: 1-Conventional PI, PR, and
applications. They offer superior performance in comparison hysteresis based [18], 2-Digital repetitive [22]-[25], and, 3-
with conventional methods such as delay block or Composite Nonlinear controller [26]. Fig. 4(a) to (d) show the
differentiators [18]-[20]. In the natural reference frame, various block diagrams of these three controllers. Repetitive integral-
controllers such as PI, PR, hysteresis, and dead-beat are used in based and repetitive H∞-based controllers are the most
the control system. The main advantage of this frame is the commonly used digital repetitive controllers. A comparison of
different control techniques based on repetitive integral
methods has been presented in [22]. Reducing the steady-state DC-Bus Voltage
errors as well as periodic distortions caused by periodic Inverter Output Voltage
disturbances are the main advantages of these current
controllers. In addition, they are classified as low-cost
Grid Current
controllers as they only need one measurement sensor to
measure the output current or voltage. The block diagram of a
predictive PD feedforward controller in the repetitive integral Inverter Output Current
frame is shown in Fig. 4(b). In this control system, a repetitive
algorithm and a feed forward action have been added to the
predictive PD controller to reduce the output errors for cyclic Fig. 5. Transient response of the composite nonlinear current controller [26]
loads [22]. The H∞ Controllers are another popular subset of
the repetitive controllers. The block diagram of an H∞ current
controller is shown in Fig. 4(c) [23]. According to this figure, a
stabilizing compensator along with the internal model, designed
based on H∞ control theory, is added to the repetitive controller
(shown as a plant). This can improve the tracking performance
and provide a very low Total Harmonic Distortion (THD)
compared to the conventional repetitive controllers [24]- [25].
Composite nonlinear controllers are another group of
current controllers that have recently been proposed to improve
the steady-state and transient performance of the current loop
[26]. According to Fig. 4(d), the composite nonlinear controller
utilizes a combination of a nonlinear term and a linear term in
order to improve both the steady-state and transient
performance of the closed-loop control system. Transient
response of the composite nonlinear current controller is shown
in Fig. 5. This figure shows superior performance of this
controller compared to the other control techniques.
The external loop provides the reference for the current loop Fig. 6. Voltage-controlled mode control scheme in αβ frame
in a cascaded structure. In the next subsection, the external
control loop will be investigated. control system, [20] and [30] offer a fast dc-bus voltage
controller. This control scheme utilizes a local supervisory
B. External Control Loop controller to control the active/reactive power flow. A
External control loops can be categorized as follows comprehensive review of grid-connected controllers is
depending on the converter’s operating mode: presented [31].
1) Grid-connected Mode 2) Stand-Alone (Islanded) Mode:
In this mode, the main task of the control system is to In this mode, the MG is not supported by the main grid, and
control the flow of active/reactive power between the converter therefore the voltage/frequency inside MG should be regulated.
and the MG. Thus, the converter should operate in the current Thus, the inverters should operate in the voltage mode [15]. In
mode to regulate the injected/absorbed power. Desired order to operate in this mode, the voltage/frequency set points
active/reactive power are the setpoints of the control system that should be provided by the power-sharing controller based on
should be provided by a supervisory controller [27]. the amount of power mismatch in the MG. Various power
sharing control techniques are investigated in the next section.
As mentioned, in the (dq)-frame the active/reactive power A typical stand-alone control scheme including harmonic
flow can control separately using simple PI controllers. compensators in the αβ-frame is shown in Fig. 6. According to
Estimation of the average values for the active/reactive power Fig. 6, the current controller consists of a single PR controller
is one of the challenges of these controllers [19], [28]. Sluggish along with harmonic compensator (in form of PR controller for
performance of the conventional estimators due to the use of each harmonic frequency). A comprehensive review of islanded
low-pass filters (LPF), can degrade the performance of the mode control strategies is presented in [32]- [33].
controllers especially in single-phase systems that LPFs are
required to eliminate the second order power ripple. In [19] and It should be noted that both voltage and current mode
[29], two new active/reactive power controller has been strategies can be implemented in the grid-connected and the
proposed for single-phase converters that include two islanded modes respectively, but they need an additional control
estimators to precisely estimate the real-time active/reactive layer to provide their references based on the desired tasks [15].
power without using LPF. These control schemes enable the
converter to perform emerging real-time control tasks such as III. POWER SHARING METHODS IN ISLANDED MODE
active voltage regulation, active power control, and fault ride- In the islanded mode, the voltage/frequency of the MG (at
through. In order to incorporate the dynamic of the dc-side in the point of common coupling (PCC)) should be regulated by
parallel VSIs, which operate in the voltage mode. In this
scenario, every mismatch at the output voltage/frequency can
lead to high circulating currents in the MG. Thus, a proper
power sharing control should be added to the MG control
system in order to provide voltage/frequency set points for each
VSI controller based on its power contribution [34]. The power
sharing methods are categorized based on their dependency on
communication links as follows:
(a)
A. Communication-Based Methods
This kind of power sharing methods includes a central
controller that uses communication links to share power
between VSIs. The typical configurations of different
communication-based power sharing methods are depicted in
Fig. 7(a) to (c). Fig. 7(a) shows a centralized power sharing
method, proposed in [35]-[36]. It uses high-bandwidth
communication links to gather load demand data and sends the
output current reference signals from central controllers of each
(b)
VSI. Despite using multi-loop control scheme to regulate the
voltage of the MG and achieve good power sharing, low
reliability resulting from their high dependency on the
communication is the main limitation of this technique. Another
method proposed in the literature is master-slave methods
shown in Fig. 7(b), in this method one inverter (master) is
responsible for voltage regulation (i.e., operating in the voltage
mode) while other inverters (slaves) follow the current
references provided by the master inverter (i.e., operate in the
current mode) [12].
(c)
Despite good power sharing performance, high dependency Fig. 7. Comparison of communication-based power sharing methods:
on the performance of the master inverter as well as poor a) central sharing, b) Master and salve, and c) distributed sharing method
transient performance are the main drawbacks of the master-
slave method. In order to improve the reliability of this method P Q Droop
Droop
the smart selection of the master inverter and the ability to Profile Profile
adaptively switch the master inverter have been proposed in Pmax Qmax
[37]-[38]. Distributed controllers, shown in Fig. 7(c), are also Droop Droop
Compensation Compensation
proposed in [39]-[40] in which the instantaneous current
sharing in the MG can be achieved using a current sharing bus Qrated
Prated Load Profile Load Profile
and an additional local current controller in each inverter in
order to track the current references provided by the sharing Pmin ω Qmin V
bus. In this method, the presence of the central controller is not ωmin ωrated ωmax Vmin Vrated Vmax
necessary, while low-bandwidth connections are still required
to share information between the inverters. Fig. 8. Conventional P-ω, Q-V droop characteristics

B. NonCommunication-Based Methods
Methods based on the droop control are well investigated in
the literature as the main method to perform power sharing
between parallel VSIs without using communication [41]-[42].
Power sharing without requiring communication links can lead
to higher reliability, lower cost, and easier scalability. Thus, this
method is very popular in MGs. A comprehensive review of
droop-based power sharing methods is presented in [43].
In conventional droop methods, it is assumed that the
inverter output impedance is highly inductive (Line X/R ratio is
high and θ ≈90˚). Therefore, the relationship between the
decoupled active/reactive power and the inverter output
frequency and voltage can be shown as follows:
ω = ω rated − S P .( P − Prated ) S P = ∆ω / (Pmax − Pmin )
, and
E = E rated − S Q .(Q − Qrated ) SQ = ∆E / (Qmax − Qmin )
Equation (1) presents the main concept of P-ω, Q-V droop
controllers where rated values are the nominal micro-source
parameters, and droop slopes (SP and SQ) can be calculated
based on the authorized MG voltage/frequency variations (Δω
and ΔE) and the available amount of active/reactive power
capacity of each micro-source [10]. The characteristics of P-ω,
Q-V droop is shown in Fig. 8. Despite the mentioned
advantages, droop-based methods have some disadvantages
that should be solved to have a reliable and efficient MG. These
disadvantages can be organized as follows:
1) High dependency on output impedance X/R ratio
the conventional droop strategy is based on the assumption
that the inverter output impedance has a high X/R ratio while
this assumption is not valid in low-voltage MGs where X/R
ratio is very low (θ ≈0˚). Also, in medium-voltage MGs (MV-
(1)
MGs) the active/reactive power are coupled and X/R≈1
[44]-[45]. To address this drawback a P-V, Q- ω droop is
proposed in [46], which is used in low-voltage MGs where
decoupled active/reactive powers can be controlled as a
function of voltage and frequency respectively (Eq. (1) for θ
≈0˚). The application of this method is only limited to LV-MGs.
Adding a virtual output impedance loop into the control system
in order to ensure the inductive behavior at the line frequency
is another method proposed in [46] to deal with variant X/R
ratio. Complex P-Q-V and virtual frame droops are other
solutions proposed in [47]-[48] to cope with the problem of
coupled active/reactive powers in MV-MGs.
2) Poor power quality in load sharing
The conventional droop is based on fundamental values,
therefore, it only works with linear loads. In addition, sluggish
estimation process of active/reactive power can lead to poor
transient performance especially in single-phase MGs [19]. In
order to share harmonic powers resulting from the presence of
non-linear loads an enhanced virtual impedance loops are
proposed in [49]-[50]. In the proposed method, the separated
virtual impedances are emulated for each harmonic which
enables the conventional droop to share non-linear loads. In
[19], the transient performance of the droop method is
improved by introducing a novel hybrid estimator that can
estimate the real-time amount of active/reactive power without
using low-pass filters.
3) Voltage/frequency deviations
As mentioned before in islanded mode, MG is not supported
by the main grid and load variations can change
frequency/voltage of the MG. Due to constant slope in
conventional droop method, there is an inherent tradeoff
between voltage/frequency regulation and power sharing
accuracy which can result in voltage/frequency deviations
inside the MG [10]. To solve this problem, the compensation
methods in form of supervisory control levels have been
proposed in the literature. The main concept of droop
compensation performance through compensating the rated
V,ω values are depicted in Fig. 8. The review of proposed
methods as supervisory controllers is presented in the next
section. Recently new droop controllers have been presented
that use virtual flux droop instead of conventional P-ω, Q-V
droops [51]. This droop can reduce voltage/frequency
deviations while benefits from less complicated inner control
loops.
A comprehensive comparison of different power sharing
methods (Communication-based and droop-based methods),
has been presented in Table I.
IV. SUPERVISORY CONTROL
Supervisory control levels are mainly implemented in MGs
in order to ensure the reliability and economic optimization of
MG’s operation. Different supervisory controllers can be
categorized in two control levels: 1- MG supervisory control
level which is mainly focused on the reliable performance of
MG through compensating sharing algorithms and restoring
voltage/frequency of the MG. This control level is also known
as MG controller and secondary level in the literature [6], [10].
2- Grid supervisory control level or tertiary level, which
monitor and control the flow of active/reactive power between
grid and MG in order to optimize the economic performance of
the grid [10], [52]. In this section, variously presented
controllers in these two levels are briefly reviewed.
A. MG Supervisory Control (MGSC) Level (Secondary Level)
MGSC controllers can be categorized into two groups:
decentralized controllers implemented using local parameters,
and centralized controllers depended on communication links
to send control commands from MGSC to lower level
controllers.
1) Decentralized MGSC
due to inherent trade-offs in the conventional droop,
accurate power sharing and voltage/frequency regulation
cannot be achieved simultaneously. This drawback can lead to
voltage/frequency deviations in loads changing scenarios.
Various controllers are proposed in the form of enhanced
droops and distributed compensation controllers to compensate
the droop performance by changing the droop slope or its rated
values adaptively based on the MG parameters [53]-[60].
In [53], a robust droop controller has been proposed that
utilizes transient characteristic of droop controller to achieve
accurate power sharing while maintaining output
voltage/frequency at nominal values. Distributed network
control system is another method presented in [54]-[55] to
implement distributed secondary controllers to restore
voltage/frequency without using a central controller. Despite
using distributed controllers, low bandwidth communication
links are still required to coordinate lower level controllers.
Enhanced voltage droop controllers are proposed in [56]-
[57] to improve the accuracy of the reactive power sharing. In
[56], the adaptive voltage droop slope is tuned using voltage
drop data at PCC. In [57], a two-level controller is utilized to
improve the reactive power sharing accuracy and to recover the
output voltage. These methods also need low bandwidth
communication to access voltage drop data and to activate
sharing error reduction process respectively. An adjustable
reactive power sharing is proposed in [58]. In this method, an
integral controller is used to regulate the voltage of PCC. This
method is appropriate for low-voltage MGs while it is still
dependent on communication links. In addition, adaptive droop
controllers are proposed in [59] that utilize grid impedance
estimation algorithm along with conventional droop to cope
with the variable output impedance problem present in the
conventional droop.
2) Centralized MGSC
Unlike decentralized controllers, these controllers are
dependent on a central controller and high bandwidth
communication links to gather required data and sending
control signals to the inverter controllers [10]. Communication
signals consist of electrical parameters to ensure reliable
operation of the MG or economic parameters such as energy
prices to optimize MG operation [6]. A comprehensive review
of economic optimization of MGs through secondary
controllers are presented in [6].
A central controller to ensure the reliability of MG is
presented in [10] in the form of hierarchical control system. The
proposed hierarchical control system consists of three control
levels: the Primary level that consists of the converter output
controller along with power sharing algorithm, the secondary
controller that regulates voltage/frequency of the MG, and the
tertiary controller to control the flow of active/reactive power
between the grid and the MG. Block diagram of a general
hierarchical control system is shown in Fig. 9.
As can be seen in Fig. 9, regulation of MG
voltage/frequency can be done using a simple PI controller. In
grid-connected mode, the set points of the secondary controller
are provided by tertiary level, while in stand-alone mode the
pre-set voltage/frequency values can be used. The output of the
secondary controller is frequency/voltage error signals that use
as set points of conventional droop controller to compensate its
rated values. In addition, a secondary central controller based Fig. 9. AC hierarchical control system block diagram [10]
on the distributed cooperative control of multi-agent systems is
presented in [61] which utilize a sparse communication
structure to improve the reliability of the MG. Dependency on
communication links is the main drawback of the centralized
controllers while they can offer a wide variety of economic and
security services.
B. Grid Supervisory Control level (Tertiary level)
Grid supervisory control or tertiary level is the highest
control level that provides set points of the secondary level
based on the grid operator requirements. This level is typically
a central controller, which utilizes communication links to
interact with grid operator and other MGs tertiary controllers in
order to achieve optimal set points for the secondary controller
such as voltage/frequency, and active/reactive power [6].
A general hierarchical control system consists of the tertiary
controller is presented in [10]. Based on the proposed structure
(shown in Fig. 9, the active/reactive power flow between grid Fig. 10. Hierarchical MAS based control system of an autonomous MG [52]
and MG can be controlled by the tertiary controller using
active/reactive power set points from grid operator and comparison of different controllers reviewed in this paper at
measuring the real-time amount of active/reactive power at each control level.
PCC. In addition, the Multi-agent system (MAS) has recently
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 TABLE. 1. Review of AC MG control methods

Steady-state Stability Implementation

Control Level Controller Type Tracking Overshoot Undershoot
Performance Margin Complexity
Conventional PI, PR Poor High High Poor Poor Low
Primary Level
Repetitive Integral Poor Medium Medium Medium Poor Medium
(Converter Output
Repetitive H∞ Medium Low Low Good Good High
Controller)
Composite Nonlinear Very Good Low Low Very Good High High
Transient Steady-state Parameter Voltage/Fr
Control Level Sharing Method Reliability Expandability
Sharing Sharing Sensitivity Regulation
Central Sharing Good Good Poor Poor Low Good
Master and Slave Poor Good Medium Poor Medium Medium
Distributed Network Medium Good Poor Poor Low Good
Conventional droop Poor Medium Very Good Very Good Medium Poor
Active/Reactive
P-V, Q-ω droop Poor Good Very Good Very Good High Poor
Power Sharing
Complex P-Q-V droop Medium Good Very Good Good High Medium
Algorithm
Virtual output impedance
Medium Good Medium Medium Low Medium
control droop
Adaptive Droop Good Good Very Good Medium High Good
Enhanced Voltage droop Good Good Medium Medium Low Good
Transient Steady-state Economic Grid Parameter
Control Level Controller Type Reliability Expandability
performance performance Optimization Regulation
Supervisory Hierarchical-based Medium Good Low Low N/A Good
(Secondary/tertiary) Multi-agent system based Good Good Medium Medium High Good

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