Electrical Power and Energy Systems 89 (2017) 94–105

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Electrical Power and Energy Systems

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijepes

Microgrid control based on a grid-forming inverter operating as virtual

synchronous generator with enhanced dynamic response capability
Ioan Serban ⇑, Catalin Petrea Ion
Department of Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics, Transilvania University of Brasov, 29 Eroilor, 500036 Brasov, Romania

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This paper focuses on improving the dynamic response of autonomous microgrids (MGs) by proposing a
Received 30 September 2016 grid-forming inverter controlled as a virtual synchronous generator (VSG), in combination with a super-
Received in revised form 27 December 2016 capacitor (SC)-based energy storage system (ESS). By this arrangement, the MG-forming VSG is designed
Accepted 21 January 2017
to react only in transitory regimes, the steady-state load being distributed to other MG-supporting invert-
Available online 2 February 2017
ers spread within the MG. In this way, the MG-forming VSG can maintain its full power reserve capacity
for dynamic response. The paper details the control solution for the MG-forming inverter, including the
Keywords:
VSG and SC-ESS control. The control method for the MG-supporting inverters that allow achieving the
Microgrid
Frequency control
proposed control approach is also described. To prove the concept, the paper includes simulation results
Virtual synchronous generator and experiments accomplished on a complex laboratory MG system based on three parallel inverters, one
Grid-forming inverter being controlled as MG-forming VSG, while the others operating as MG-supporting inverters.
Grid-supporting inverter Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Supercapacitor energy storage system

1. Introduction
The autonomous operation of microgrids (MGs), especially the
ones with high-penetration of renewable energy sources (RESs)
interfaced by power converters, is characterised by reduced inertia
and short-circuit power level. Therefore, in transitory regimes,
voltage and frequency exhibit large variations – both in rate of
change and in permanent deviation – and reduced damping of
oscillations, which can threaten the stability of MGs in case of sev-
ere dynamic events. In this regard, one measure to improve the MG
stability margin and to compensate for the RES lack of controllabil-
ity and power reserve consists in integrating fast-acting energy
storage systems (ESSs) throughout the system [1,2] either by using
dedicated stationary ESSs units [3] or by means of temporary stor-
age capacities provided by electrical vehicles [4]. In terms of
energy storage capacity, ESSs can be classified into main two cate-
gories, short-term and long-term. Focusing only on improving the
dynamic response of MGs, the first class of ESSs is of interest in the
current paper. The fast response of a short-term ESS is the primary
feature that enables an effective deployment of the storage capac-
ity during dynamic events, therefore being the best choice to pro-
vide the type of MG services that are characterised by millisecond
time ranges, like ensuring the voltage and frequency stability in AC
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: ioan.serban@unitbv.ro (I. Serban), catalin.ion@unitbv.ro
(C.P. Ion).
MGs [5], or regulating the DC-link voltage during transients for DC-
connected RES generators [6]. Besides relying on a quick response
storage unit (e.g. supercapacitor), the control method of the inter-
facing power converter plays the most important role in the pro-
cess of supporting the MG stability. Depending on the interaction
mode with the grid, the inverters that are used to interface RES
and non-RES generators, ESSs and other special resources can be
classified into three operation categories: grid-forming, grid-
supporting and grid-feeding [7,8]. Of these three categories, the
first two are of interest because of their capability of considerably
influencing the MG power quality. In this paper, MG-forming and
MG-supporting are the terms used to describe the two inverter cat-
egories operating in an MG. The MG-forming inverters operate as
voltage sources, being responsible for generating the AC voltages
(single-, or three phase) of the MG. The grid-supporting inverters
operate either as voltage or current sources and are usually
designed to provide voltage and frequency control in autonomous
MGs, the total load being shared by using a droop control method
in most cases [8].
Reducing the number of conventional generators in an autono-
mous power system leads to a decrease of the total system inertia,
which has a negative impact on the MG stability, mainly on the fre-
quency control process [9]. Therefore, the current trend is to
enhance the inverter-based generators with so-called virtual or
synthetic inertia, which in fact is accomplished by controlling the
inverter to mimic the behaviour of a conventional synchronous
generator in order to effectively support the MG during fast

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijepes.2017.01.009
0142-0615/Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 I. Serban, C.P. Ion / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 89 (2017) 94–105 95

frequency changes. There are a number of studies that address this 2. Control design of the MG-forming inverter
topic, this control technique being applied to both grid-forming
and grid-supporting inverters. As revealed in the comprehensive The targeted MG structure is presented in Fig. 1, where the sys-
survey from [10], the dynamic response of the virtual synchronous tem consists on multiple distributed generators (DGs) and ESSs
generator (VSG) can be provided in various ways, which can be connected on a common three-phase power line and a central
classified into two main approaches. One method consists in com- inverter acting as an MG-forming unit based on a SC-based ESS
bining a droop control with an additional frequency-derivative according to the proposed solution as described in the following.
loop to provide the inverter active power reference [11–13]. A communication line is also used to exchange messages between
Another method is based on calculating the inverter output the MG-forming inverter and the other units.
voltages from the equivalent electrical and mechanical model of Focusing on achieving flexible MGs where both conventional
a synchronous generator, usually called virtual synchronous gener- and converter-interfaced generators can be interconnected and
ator/machine [14–16], or synchronverter [17,18]. In the majority of participate in ensuring the system stability and power quality,
cases the inertial response is directly proportional with the VSG is considered a more suitable control method for the MG-
frequency derivative, but there are also solutions that use non- forming inverter than the conventional droop control method, as
linear control algorithms aiming to improve the transitory demonstrated in [21]. As also emphasized in the introduction,
frequency response [19,20]. Comparative analyses between the the structure and control method of the proposed MG-forming
conventional droop control and the virtual synchronous machine inverter are designed to maximise the dynamic capability to react
show that, even though for certain operating cases the response in case of severe contingencies that can destabilize the MG. There-
of the second control method can be more oscillatory than for fore, the proposed MG-forming inverter combines the VSG control
droop control, the overall dynamic response is improved in com- with a SC-based ESS, aiming to increase the MG fast responding
parison with the conventional control [21,22]. power reserve by relieving the inverter of the steady-state load.
The primary source that supplies the inverter operating with Moreover, this operation strategy allows the MG-forming inverter
synthetic inertia determines in a great extent the inverter response to run cooler and, therefore, its overload capacity during transients
capability. Although the control method can be applied to RES gen- is increased.
erators also, especially for wind turbines [23–25], as described in Fig. 2 presents the structure of the MG-forming inverter, which
[5] this attribute becoming mandatory in the near future, ESSs includes the three-phase inverter, controlled as a VSG, and the SC-
are the main targeted resources that can more efficiently provide based ESS. A non-isolated bidirectional DC-DC converter is used to
synthetic inertia by means of either grid-forming, or grid- interface the SC with the inverter DC-link. For the purpose of the
supporting interfacing inverter. The grid-forming inverter is in current paper the SC is modelled as a simple RC network, with
the majority of cases supplied from an energy storage unit, han- Csc being the rated capacitance and rsc the rated equivalent series
dling most of the transitory regimes and sharing the load in resistance [29].
steady-states with the other generators operating at a certain time
in the MG. Benefiting from the highest response capability in terms 2.1. VSG frequency control
of reaction time, the grid-forming inverter is of major importance
in case of large transients caused by events like large load switch- Fig. 3 presents the VSG control diagram for generating the ref-
ing, or loss of important generation capacities. However, its rated erence angular frequency xVSG, which is based on the mechanical
size and operating power reserve at the moment of a transitory swing equation expressed in per units (p.u.) as follows:
event greatly influence the inverter response capability. If designed
dxVSG
to share the load in steady-state also, which is the common T m
T e ¼ 2H þ K D DxVSG ð1Þ
approach, during the transitory regime the inverter can provide dt
only a certain amount of power according to its remaining power
reserve. Therefore, in order to maximize the transitory response
capability of the MG-forming inverter and thus improving the
overall dynamic MG stability, the current paper proposes to add
to the MG-forming inverter, besides the VSG capability, a superca-
pacitor (SC) – based ESS. Using the proposed control method dis-
cussed in Section 2, the MG-forming ensures a quick response to
the perturbations caused by loads switching or power generation
variations, while the steady-state load is distributed between the
other units (e.g. MG-supporting inverters) by developing a fre-
quency and voltage restoration solution based on cancelling the
active and reactive powers of the MG-forming inverter. This mode
of operation allows using the entire inverter capacity during tran-
sitory regimes and, due to the no-load operation during steady-
state, the inverter’s transistors can also run at reduced temperature
(which enables a greater overload capacity to be exploited during
transitory regimes). Furthermore, the use of a supercapacitor-
based ESS makes the system more robust and reliable [28].
After introduction, the paper is organized as follows: Section 2
presents the proposed control for the MG-forming, highlighting
the targeted MG frequency response, the control of MG-
supporting inverters is described in Section 3, Section 4 provides
validations of the proposed control system using simulation and
experimental results, while the main paper conclusions are pro-
vided in Section 5. Fig. 1. General structure of the targeted MG.
96 I. Serban, C.P. Ion / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 89 (2017) 94–105
Fig. 2. Structure of the MG-forming inverter with SC-based ESS.
Fig. 3. VSG control diagram for reference frequency generation.
where H is the inertia constant, Tm and Te represent the mechanical
and electrical torques, and KD is the damping coefficient.
The virtual torques are calculated based on the virtual mechan-
ical power Pm and the inverter output power Po, as shown in Fig. 3.
The main parameters that affect the dynamic frequency response
are the inertia constant H and the damping coefficient KD [26],
where the value of H has the strongest effect on the rate of change
of frequency (RoCoF) and dynamic frequency deviation (Df dyn Þ.
Approximating the per unit torques difference with the equivalent
power deficit DP (where DP < 0 for load increase) at nominal fre-
quency (x0 = 1 p.u.) and neglecting the damping effect for small
variations of the frequency, the initial RoCoF can be expressed as
in (2), while the dynamic frequency deviation can be evaluated
with (3) [26]. The damping constant KD affects mostly the
steady-state frequency value and its effect on the dynamic beha-
viour is less pronounced as also described in [26]. However, the
size of the MG-forming inverter in terms of power and energy stor-
age capacity is a limiting factor when designing the VSG [30]. In the
present paper, the value of KD is calculated according to the maxi-
mum steady-state frequency deviation (Dxmax Þ and to the maxi-
mum active power reserve (P o;max ) of the MG-forming inverter.
Therefore, for x0  Dxmax , the damping constant can be approxi-
mated as in (4). Considering a maximum frequency deviation of
2% (according to standard EN50160 for islanded systems [31])
and for x0 ¼ 1 p:u: and Po;max ¼ 1 p:u:, results K D ¼ 50 p:u:.
DP
RoCoF ¼
2H
DP 2
Df dyn ¼

4H dPdtG
Po;max
KD ¼ ð4Þ
x0  Dxmax
The control diagram presented in Fig. 3 also includes an active
power/frequency restoration loop, which is detailed in Section 2.4.
2.2. SC-ESS control
Having as primary source an SC-based ESS, the VSG input power
Pm is used to regulate the SC state-of-charge (SOC). For this pur-
pose, a proportional-integrative (PI) controller is used, as shown
in Fig. 4a, which provides the signal Pm according to the difference
between the steady state value SOC0 and the instantaneous SOC
calculated as follows:
V sc Isc
SOCðtÞ ¼ SOCðt
DTÞ
DT ð5Þ
Esc;r
where DT is the SOC control sampling time; Vsc, Isc are the measured
SC voltage and current; Esc,r is the rated SC energy.
From the VSG control strategy described above one can con-
clude that the inverter has to be capable of providing full power
in both directions for a certain period of time during dynamic
events. The steady-state SOC depends on the storage reserve
required by the inverter to respond to positive and negative output
power. Considering an equal distribution of the storage reserve for
both charging and discharging and neglecting the different system
efficiencies for the two operating cases, the steady-state SOC can
be regulated to:
SOC 0 ¼ ðSOC min þ SOC max Þ=2 ð6Þ
where SOCmin, SOCmax are the minimum and maximum SOC that
allow maximum power flow through the SC-ESS.
After the SOC is restored to SOC0, in steady-state the virtual
mechanical power tends to zero (P m ffi 0Þ, compensating only for
the internal losses of the inverter and ESS. It is important to men-
tion that the SOC control is a slow process, which is characterised
by time constants much larger than those associated with the
dynamic control. An appropriate method for calculating the
required size and optimal SOC of an ESS that is used for providing
short dynamic support in power grids is provided in [30].
Fig. 4b presents the SC-ESS control diagram, which is based on a
cascaded voltage-current topology. The SC current control loop
includes a PI controller, which provides the compensation voltage
Vf, and the voltage feed-forward signal Vsc. The resulting voltage
ð2Þ reference Vc is used to generate the duty cycle Dc of the PWM signal
for the two transistors (Tc1, Tc2) of the SC-ESS converter. The SC cur-
rent reference (I⁄sc) is produced by the voltage controller, which is
ð3Þ responsible for maintaining the inverter DC-link voltage to the pre-
set reference V⁄dc.
 I. Serban, C.P. Ion / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 89 (2017) 94–105
Fig. 4. Control diagram of SC-ESS: (a) SOC Control; (b) Control of SC current and DC-link voltage.
2.3. VSG voltage control
For the voltage control a classical droop control method is
adopted, as shown in Fig. 5, where the reference voltage VVSG is cal-
culated as follows:
V VSG ¼ V 0 þ K Q  ðQ ref
Q o Þ
where V0 is the rated voltage (at no load), KQ is the droop gain; Qref is
the reference reactive power and Qo is the inverter reactive output
power.
If no reactive power support is provided by the MG-forming
inverter in steady-states (i.e. the entire reactive load is distributed
among the other inverters), the reference reactive power can be set
to Qref = 0. The droop gain depends on the maximum allowed volt-
age deviation during primary control process and on the MG volt-
age control characteristics that influence the system stability [32].
A reactive power/voltage restoration loop is also included, as
shown in Fig. 5, the purpose of this control subsystem being
described in the following subsection.
2.4. Steady-state load distribution
In order to achieve the targeted functionality of the MG-forming
inverter as previously explained, in both control diagrams for fre-
quency (Fig. 3) and voltage (Fig. 5) additional loops are included
to provide the restoration of the steady-state operating points. This
process is based on sending frequency and voltage corrections to
all the generators that are actively supporting the MG at a certain
time in order to relieve the MG-forming inverter after an event has
passed. It is important to mention that, as the experimental results
prove in Section 4, this process automatically ensures the restora-
tion of the voltage and frequency to the reference values, so being
Fig. 5. VSG control diagram for reference voltage generation.
97
associated with the MG secondary frequency/voltage control [27].
As Fig. 3 shows, the active power – frequency restoration is based
on an integral controller with gain Kf2 that acts on cancelling the
difference between the virtual mechanical power Pm and the mea-
sured active output power Po. The reactive power – voltage restora-
tion illustrated in Fig. 5 is similar, where the action of an integral
ð7Þ controller with gain KV2 brings the reactive output power to the
reference value. The obtained correction signals for the frequency
(df 2 ) and voltage (dV 2 ) are then sent through a low bandwidth com-
munication line to all the MG-supporting generators in order to
modify their operating points for distributing the load of the MG-
forming inverter.
2.5. Inverter voltage-current control
The control diagram of the MG-forming inverter is illustrated in
Fig. 6a, consisting in a cascaded voltage-current structure imple-
mented in the dq synchronous reference frame (SRF). The inner
current controller provides the VSC voltage reference (vc,dq), which
is used to generate the PWM signals by means of a space-vector
(SV) modulation technique. Fig. 6b shows the current control loop
implementation, based on a PI controller for the fundamental com-
ponent and having a harmonic compensation (HC) loop imple-
mented with resonant controllers operating in dq SRF [33,34].
Therefore, the transfer functions associated with the current con-
troller for the fundamental component (GRI(s)) and for HC (GRIh(s))
are:
K iI
GRI ðsÞ ¼ K pI þ þ GRIh ðsÞ ð8Þ
s
X 2K hI s
GRIh ðsÞ ¼ 2
ð9Þ
h¼6;12 s2 þ ðhx1 Þ
where KpI, KiI are the proportional and integral gains of the PI cur-
rent controller; KhI is the resonant controller gain for HC; x1 is
the fundamental frequency.
Within the current control loop, an active damping (AD) com-
ponent is added to avoid instabilities related to the output filter
resonance [35]. For this purpose, the filter capacitor current is esti-
mated from the output voltage by using a filtered derivative [36],
as follows:
K AD sC f
GAD ðsÞ ¼ ð10Þ
T AD s þ 1
where KAD is the AD loop gain; TAD is the derivative filter time
constant; Cf is the output filter capacitance.
The obtained current reference (i⁄o,dq) is provided by the outer
voltage controller, which is similarly implemented based on a PI
98 I. Serban, C.P. Ion / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 89 (2017) 94–105

Fig. 6. MG-forming inverter control: (a) voltage-current control diagram; (b) current controller structure; (c) voltage controller structure.

controller with HC operating in SRF, as shown in Fig. 6c, with the

following transfer functions:

K iV
GRV ðsÞ ¼ K pV þ þ GRVh ðsÞ ð11Þ
s

X 2K hV s
GRVh ðsÞ ¼ 2
ð12Þ
h¼6;12 s2 þ ðhx1 Þ

where KpV, KiV are the proportional and integral gains of the PI con-
troller; KhV is the resonant controller gain for voltage HC; x1 is the
fundamental frequency.
The reference voltage, expressed in (13), is generated using the
frequency and RMS voltage produced by the VSG model, as
explained in the previous subsections.
pffiffiffi Z 
v o ðtÞ ¼ 2V VSG sin xVSG dt ð13Þ

3. Control design of the MG-supporting inverters Fig. 7. Control diagram of MG-supporting inverters.

Ensuring the MG stability and power quality represents a pro-

cess shared by the available resources in the MG at a certain time. modifying the internal power reference (Pc) with a frequency
The generators along with energy storage systems, active loads and dependent power loop, which can respond to both permanent fre-
other specific resources contribute in a certain degree to support- quency deviation and to RoCoF. In this regard, a droop control is
ing the MG during dynamic regimes or in steady-states. Being dis- combined with an inertial response based on measuring the
tributed in the entire MG with the primary purpose of interfacing frequency derivative (df/dt). The frequency deviation (Df) is calcu-
generators with the MG, the grid-supporting inverters are among lated by comparing the reference frequency value (fc) from the
the most interesting and reliable solutions to achieve this goal. estimated MG frequency provided by a PLL (fpll). Besides, the
Therefore, in the proposed control method the MG-forming inver-
ter is operating in correlation with several MG-supporting invert-
ers, which are able to sustain the loads requirements during
steady-states. It should be mentioned that the issues related with
the primary source limitations of the MG-supporting inverter are
out of the scope of the current paper and, therefore, being
neglected. The following description focuses only on the inverter
control, which allows implementing the proposed control solution
based on distributing the load supplied by the MG-forming inver-
ter during dynamic regimes among the MG-supporting inverters.
Fig. 7 illustrates the targeted control diagram of an MG-
supporting inverter that can participate to both frequency and
voltage regulation. The active power reference (P⁄) is obtained by Fig. 8. Schematic diagram of the PLL.
 I. Serban, C.P. Ion / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 89 (2017) 94–105
Fig. 9. Block diagram of the laboratory MG.
Fig. 10. Laboratory MG illustration.
99
MG-supporting inverter steady-state response can be modified
remotely by the MG-supporting inverter by means of a slow-
acting correction signal (df 2 Þ, as described in the previous section.
Therefore, the active power reference of an MG-supporting inver-
ter can be expressed as:
P ¼ P c þ sDfK fd þ ðDf þ df 2 ÞK f ð14Þ
where Kf and Kfd are the droop and the inertial response gains.
The reactive power reference (Q⁄) is calculated, as expressed in
(15), by a droop control with gain KV applied to voltage deviation
(DV), which can be remotely modified by means of the signal
ðdV 2 Þ in order to control the reactive power response in steady-
state by the MG-forming inverter.
Q  ¼ Q c þ ðDV þ dV 2 ÞK V ð15Þ
The reference currents generated in SRF from P⁄ and Q⁄ are further
used to control the inverter by means of a current controller with a
similar configuration with the one presented in Fig. 6b.
An important aspect related to the frequency response of MG-
supporting inverters regards the frequency estimation method.
The classical approach of detecting the frequency is to use the
PLL, which is required to synchronize the inverter current control
with the output voltage. Therefore, the frequency supporting capa-
bility is also highly dependent on the characteristics of the fre-
quency measurement loop [37]. Among many existing solutions
for three-phase systems [38], a PLL structure based on SRF trans-
formation and amplitude normalization using an inverse tangent
operation to reduce the loop nonlinearity is adopted as shown in
Fig. 8. The frequency deviation from the rated value is estimated
by a PI controller that acts upon cancelling the phase deviation
between the real and estimated voltage phases. An important issue
regarding the estimated frequency by the PLL is that, when the
input voltage is distorted, on the useful signal Dx high-
frequency oscillations will be superimposed [39]. Because of the
derivative element found in the frequency controller from Fig. 7,
even small oscillations in the fpll signal can lead to large high-
frequency variations of the active power reference. For this reason,
a Butterworth-type low-pass filter (LPF) is added to suppress the
100 I. Serban, C.P. Ion / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 89 (2017) 94–105

Table 1 response and the input harmonic distortion level. The transfer
Main system parameters. function of the frequency measurement loop results as follows
Parameters Values [34]:
Hardware Inverters rated power (Sinv) 5 kVA
Rated voltage (V0) and frequency (f0) 230 V; 50 Hz f pll ðsÞ 1 x2 K p;PLL s þ K i;PLL
GPLL
f ðsÞ ¼ ¼  pffiffiffi cf 
PWM switching frequency (fs) 10 kHz f MG ðsÞ 2p s2 þ 2xcf s þ x2cf s2 þ K p;PLL s þ K i;PLL
DC power supply voltage (Vdc) 650 V
Filters inductance (Lf) and series resistance 3 mH; 0.25 X ð16Þ
(rf)
Filters capacitance (star connected) (Cf) 10 lF
where Kp,PLL and Ki,PLL are the proportional and integral gains of the
Transformers series inductance (LT) and 1.75 mH; 0.4 X
resistance (rT) – only for MG-supporting PI controller; xcf is the cut-off frequency of the LPF.
inverters
Load rated power (PL) 4.5 kW
Control MG-forming inverter: 4. Results and discussion
Inertia constant (H) 10 s
Damping constant (KD) 2.53 W s2/rad2 The proposed control method is assessed mainly by means of
Frequency restoration integral gain (Kf2) 0.5 Hz/(kW s)
experimental results accomplished using a laboratory-scale MG,
Voltage droop gain (KQ) 7.7 V/kVAr
Voltage restoration integral gain (KV2) 40 V/(kVAr s) developed according to the block diagram from Fig. 9. The system
MG-supporting inverters: has also been modelled and the experiments are supplemented
Frequency droop gains (Kf) INV-1: 2.5 kW/Hz with simulation results for those parts which could not be repli-
INV-2: 1.5 kW/Hz cated experimentally (i.e. the SC-ESS subsystem).
Inertial response gain (Kfd) 0.2 kW s/Hz
The MG, consisting of three interconnected test-benches as
Voltage droop gain (KV) 0.055 kVAr/V
illustrated in Fig. 10, is based on one MG-forming and two MG-
supporting inverters. The experimental setup parameters are pro-
vided in Table 1. It should be mentioned that, even though a real
high-frequency oscillations. However, as also demonstrated in
MG is expected to include a larger number of inverters to connect
[40], the LPF will have a detrimental effect upon the frequency con-
DGs and ESSs as represented in Fig. 1, the experimental setup
trol loop, i.e. the dynamic response will be reduced once the LPF
based on two MG-supporting inverters and the MG-forming VSG
cut-off frequency decreases. Therefore, the right cut-off frequency
is considered adequate to prove the proposed control concept.
of the LPF will have to be a trade-off between the required dynamic
For a higher degree of generalisation, different values of the

10 5
case 1
RoCoF [Hz/s]

case 2 4
tsf [s]

5
3

0 2
0 5 10 15 0 5 10 15
3.5
1
EESS [kWs]

3
Δfdyn [Hz]

0.5
2.5

0 2
0 5 10 15 0 5 10 15
H[s] H[s]

0.2
ISE (case 1)
ITSE (case 1)
0.18 ISE (case 2)
ISE [Hz2s], ITSE [Hz2s2]

ITSE (case 2)
0.16

0.14

0.12

0.1

0.08

0.06

0.04
0 5 10 15
H[s]

Fig. 11. Dynamic performance analysis of the MG for different values of the inertia constant (H).
 I. Serban, C.P. Ion / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 89 (2017) 94–105 101

frequency droop gains (Kf) of the two MG-supporting inverters are
considered, as presented in Table 1.
As Fig. 9 shows, the MG-forming VSG includes an LC filter on the
output side, while the MG-supporting inverters have an LCL con-
nection formed by the LC filter and an isolation transformer. A con-
trollable load is included to create dynamic events in the MG. Each
inverter is controlled by an independent dSPACE DS1103 real-time
board, which implements the proposed control schemes, as
described in the previous sections. The presented measurements
were acquired by means of graphical user interfaces (GUIs) imple-
mented in each of the three dSPACE platforms using the dedicated
software ControlDesk. In order to obtain consistent data on differ-
ent platforms, all the acquisitions were synchronized by the same
trigger signal. The control boards can exchange messages through a
CAN network operating at a transmission rate of 500 kbit/s, which
is used to transmit the correction signals (df 2 and dV 2 ) from the
MG-forming inverter to the other two inverters.
As mentioned in the introduction of this section, the system has
also been modelled and simulated using Matlab/Simulink, but as
the results follow closely the experimental ones, for a concise pre-
sentation only the simulation results that could not be replicated
experimentally were included in the paper. On this line it should
be mentioned that, for experiments the SC-ESS presented
in Fig. 2 has been emulated by a DC source that maintains the

Fig. 12. Experimental measurements for case 1 to case 3: (a) MG-forming VSG; (b) MG-supporting INV-1 and INV-2; (c) correction signals for frequency (df 2 ) and voltage
(dV 2 ).
102 I. Serban, C.P. Ion / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 89 (2017) 94–105

160 Z t 1 þt sf
SC voltage [V]

EESS ¼ po ðtÞ  dt ð17Þ

t1
140
Z t 1 þt sf
2
120
ISE ¼ Df ðtÞ  dt ð18Þ
t1
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
50 Z
SC current [A]

t1 þt sf
2
ITSE ¼ Df ðtÞ  ðt
t1 Þ  dt ð19Þ
t1
0
The results are synthesized in Fig. 11. One can observe that as H
increases, both RoCoF and frequency deviation (Dfdyn) become
-50
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 smaller with a more significant variation in the interval H = 1–5 s.
80 However, the settling time (tsf) increases slightly once the inertia
constant is set to higher values. Regarding the difference between
SOC [%]

70
60
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
T ime [s]
Fig. 13. SC voltage, current and SOC for case 1 to case 3 (simulation results).
DC-link voltage constant (i.e. 650 V, as shown in Fig. 9). Therefore,
the SC-ESS behaviour is presented in the following by simulation
results. For this purpose, the SC is modelled as an RC network, as
shown in Fig. 2, where a single SC module with the rated voltage
of Vscr = 160 V, Csc = 5.8 F and rsc = 240 mX was chosen [41].
In order to evaluate the MG control dynamic performance, the
following cases of interest were considered:
Case (1) System response to step load change, with only one
MG-supporting inverter;
Case (2) System response to step load change, with both MG-
supporting inverters;
Case (3) System response to unexpected loss of one MG-
supporting inverter;
Case (4) System response to random load variation.
In the first two cases the transitory regime is created by switch-
ing the load on and off at an interval of five seconds. Prior to the
event considered in case 3, created by disconnecting one MG-
supporting inverter, the system is at steady-state with all inverters
and the load in operation. In the last scenario, the load is pro-
grammed to have a random variation between 0 and 4.5 kW with
a time step of 1 s.
In order to analyse the influence of the main parameter that affect
the MG dynamic frequency response, i.e. inertia constant (H) of the
MG-forming VSG, several experiments were accomplished for H
ranging from 1 s to 15 s, corresponding to the first two cases. The
measurements for each experiment were acquired numerically
using ControlDesk software on each dSPACE platform, which were
used to calculate the following dynamic performance indices:
 RoCoF;
 dynamic frequency deviation (Dfdyn);
 frequency settling time (tsf) – calculated as the time required by
the frequency to settle within the ±20 mHz band around
f0 = 50 Hz;
 MG-forming inverter dynamic energy (EESS) – calculated as the
energy circulated by the MG-forming inverter during transitory
regime (expression (17), neglecting the inverter internal
losses);
 integral of squared error (ISE) of frequency, expressed by (18);
 integral of time multiplied by squared error (ITSE) of frequency,
expressed by (19).
case 1 and case 2, the results show that adding the second MG-
supporting inverter further improves the dynamic response of the
MG frequency. However, while the difference of Dfdyn remains
almost constant with the increase of H, the difference of RoCoF
35 for case 2 in comparison with case 1 is canceled for H > 7 s. Never-
theless, adding a second inverter into operation leads to an evident
improvement of the settling time, which decreases by approxi-
mately 1 s in case 2. Moreover, the required energy from the grid-
forming VSG (EESS) is maintained quasi-constant with the variation
of H (around 3.4 kW s), but significantly decreases by more than
1 kW s when the second inverter enters into operation. It is impor-
tant to highlight that the relatively reduced energy level required by
the VSG to support the dynamic regime provides the opportunity to
use compact supercapacitors batteries [41].
The corresponding values for ISE index clearly show the
improvement in the frequency regulation when increasing the
inertia constant, in both cases. However, as shown in Fig. 11, the
ITSE index, which penalizes the extension of the transitory regime,
slightly increases with H because of the higher settling time (tsf).
Therefore, the optimal value of H, which is found to be 10 s for
the studied system, represents a trade-off between the response
time and dynamic performances in terms of RoCoF and Dfdyn.
Figs. 12 and 13 present the main experimental and simulation
results, including the most representative measurements for the
first three cases to analyse the proposed MG operation. The mea-
surements include the active and reactive powers for each inverter,
along with the RMS voltages, while the frequency, being the same
throughout the MG, is included only for the MG-forming inverter.
The three cases are successively triggered by switching the load
and one MG-supporting inverter (i.e. INV-2) with the pattern
shown in the top of Fig. 12a.
Following the 4.5 kW load connection (t = 0 s) and disconnec-
tion (t = 5 s), at the initial moment of the transitory regime
the MG-forming VSG responds as expected compensating for
the entire load until the MG-supporting inverter (i.e. INV-1) grad-
ually takes over to relieve the MG-forming inverter in about 4 s. In
terms of dynamic response type, the frequency has an
over-damped behaviour because of the relatively high inertia
constant H.
Regarding the MG voltage, the main reactive power loads are
the LC filter of each inverter and the isolation transformers that
link the MG-supporting inverters to the MG, as presented in
Fig. 9. Therefore, both RMS voltages of VSG and VSI-1 are main-
tained in a narrow band around 230 V, with small oscillations
(no more than ±10% of the nominal value) during load power
changes. As the reference reactive power of the MG-forming inver-
ter is set to zero (Qref from Fig. 5), in steady-state the entire reactive
load is provided by the MG-supporting inverter.
In order to achieve the steady-state as explained in Section 2.4.,
the MG-forming inverter sends to the other inverter two correction
signals (df 2 , dV2 ) presented in Fig. 12c. By this way, the operating
 I. Serban, C.P. Ion / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 89 (2017) 94–105 103

Fig. 14. Experimental measurements for case 4: (a) Load power variation; (b) MG-forming VSG; (c) MG-supporting INV-1 and INV-2; (d) correction signals for frequency (df 2 )
and voltage (dV 2 ).

point of the MG-supporting inverter is changed until the load is
completely removed from the MG-forming inverter. As one can
see, during this process the frequency is automatically restored
to the rated value. As one can see in Fig. 12b, the voltage at the
MG-supporting inverter terminals (VVSI-1) is slightly different than
the MG-forming inverter voltage (VVSG), this being caused by the
load-varying voltage drops on the MG lines, including the
transformers.
The results presented in Fig. 12 for the second case (i.e. from
t = 10 s to t = 25 s), highlight how the proposed control method
can be as easy to apply for multiple MG-supporting inverters as
for a single inverter. The system response is similar with the one
from case 1, except that the additional MG-supporting inverter
(INV-2) further improves the frequency performance, in compar-
ison with case 1, the transitory regimes being shortened by 1 s
and the maximum frequency deviation being reduced by around
104 I. Serban, C.P. Ion / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 89 (2017) 94–105
0.1 Hz. As shown in Fig. 12b, the load (active and reactive power) is
now shared by the two inverters according to their corresponding
frequency droop gains provided in Table 1, in steady-states VSI-1
and VSI-2 providing 2.8 kW and 1.7 kW respectively. It should be
pointed out that both inverters receive the same correction signals
shown in Fig. 12c and, therefore, the proposed solution has the
advantage that the complexity of communication packages does
not depend on the number of connected inverters.
The system response for the case of an MG-supporting inverter
malfunctioning (i.e. case 3) is tested by suddenly disconnecting
INV-2 at t = 30 s. In order to test the system for a more difficult sce-
nario, prior to the event considered in case 3 the load is switched
on at t = 25 s. As shown in Fig. 12, right after disconnection
(t > 30 s), the VSG takes over the load of the lost inverter, redis-
tributing it to the remaining inverter (INV-1) by sending the corre-
sponding correction signals. To be mentioned that this scenario
proves that having more than one unit supporting the MG
improves the system reliability in case of an inverter failure.
The SC-ESS response during the events created by the three
cases is presented in Fig. 13, which includes simulation results of
the SC voltage, current and SOC. According to the description from
Section 2.2, the SC-ESS is controlled to maintain the DC-link volt-
age constant. Additionally, a SOC controller is included as shown
in Fig. 4a, which modifies the virtual mechanical power (Pm) of
the VSG in order to charge or discharge the SC. As also mentioned
in Section 2.2, the SOC controller aims to maintain the average
value SOC0 as expressed in (6), being characterised by a slow action
that does not interfere with the primary control purpose of the
VSG. Therefore, as shown in Fig. 13, the SC voltage and current
waveforms follow the variations of the VSG active power (i.e. PVSG
presented in Fig. 12a), while the SOC, which is calculated according
to expression (5), changes around the average value of SOC0 = 75%.
In the last analysed scenario (case 4) presented in Figs. 14 and
15, all three inverters (i.e. VSG, VSI-1 and VSI-2) are in operation
and, in order to have a better representation of the real loads beha-
viour, a randomly reference pattern is considered for the control-
lable load, as shown in Fig. 14a. The voltage and frequency
restoration controllers within the MG-forming VSG continuously
adjust the correction signals df 2 and voltage dV2 in order to bring
the VSG active and reactive powers to the reference values, while
160
SC voltage [V]
140
120
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
50
SC current [A]
0 frequency and voltage being maintained well within the standard
-50
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
80
SOC [%]
75
70
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Time [s]
Fig. 15. SC voltage, current and SOC for case 4 (simulation results).
the MG-supporting inverters change their output power according
to the measured frequency deviation and received correction sig-
nals. The results show that the MG frequency is maintained within
the range 49.8–50.17 Hz, while the voltage presents short varia-
tions during load power change within the interval 220–238 V.
Therefore, the system behaves as expected, the MG frequency
and voltage being regulated well within the standard variation
ranges for islanded systems of 50 Hz ± 2% and 230V ± 10% [31].
The SC response presented in Fig. 15 shows that the SC-ESS system
operates as expected, the average values of the SC voltage and SOC
being around 137V and 73.7% respectively.
5. Conclusions
A dynamic stabilisation method for autonomous microgrids
(MGs) has been presented in the current paper. The proposed con-
trol approach is based on an MG-forming inverter operating as a
virtual synchronous generator (VSG) reacting only in transitory
regimes. By relieving the MG-forming inverter of the permanent
load an enhanced capability for taking over dynamic events is
ensured. Requiring small energy levels for transitory regimes, a
supercapacitor (SC)-base energy storage system (ESS) has been
included in the MG-forming inverter structure, thus contributing
to the increase of the system robustness and reliability. In
steady-state the load is distributed between the MG-supporting
inverters, this functionality being achieved by means of two
restoration controllers for active and reactive powers at the MG-
forming inverter level, which sends online correction signals for
frequency and voltage to each MG-supporting inverter using a
low-bandwidth communication line. The proposed control solu-
tion has been validated mainly through experimental results
accomplished in a complex laboratory MG based on one MG-
forming inverter and two MG-supporting inverters interconnected
through a power exchange line and a communication bus. More-
over, for a complete analysis of the system, the experiments were
supplemented with simulation results for the SC-ESS behaviour,
which could not be replicated experimentally. The results included
four representative cases, covering dynamic events associated with
load switching and malfunctioning of one MG-supporting inverter.
The frequency control response has been assessed for different
operating conditions and values of the main parameter that influ-
ence the dynamic MG frequency response (i.e. inertia constant H of
the MG-forming inverter). The results showed that the increase of
H improves the dynamic frequency response in terms of rate-of-
change-of-frequency (RoCoF) and dynamic frequency deviation
(Dfdyn), but at an expense of higher settling time for frequency. It
has been also demonstrated that the required energy level by the
35 MG-supporting inverter to operate as proposed is in the range of
the targeted short-term energy storage units (i.e. supercapacitors).
The analysed transitory regimes have shown how the system
responds to different kind of dynamic events, in all cases the MG
deviation ranges. The results related to the SC-ESS have shown that
it has been able to provide the necessary power required by the
35 MG-forming VSG during dynamic events, while the SC operational
parameters were maintained within the preset limits.
The main contributions of the paper can be synthesised as
follows:
 The VSG control technique is applied to an MG-forming inverter
that provides support only in transitory regime, while the
steady state load being distributed to other units in the MG
35
(e.g. MG-supporting inverters). This approach enables the MG-
forming inverter to operate with maximum power reserve
and, therefore, being able to better react during severe dynamic
 I. Serban, C.P. Ion / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 89 (2017) 94–105
events. Moreover, the no load operation in steady-state allows
the inverter to run cooler and, therefore, a higher overload
capacity can be exploited during transitory regimes (this aspect
is reserved for future studies);
 A frequency and voltage restoration algorithm based on con-
trollers that act on cancelling the active and reactive powers
of the MG-forming inverter is proposed.
 An SC-based ESS is associated with the MG-forming inverter,
the paper presenting the control solution that allows the inte-
gration of the SC-ESS with the VSG.
Acknowledgment
This work was supported by a grant of the Romanian National
Authority for Scientific Research and Innovation, CNCS–UEFISCDI,
project number PN-II-RU-TE-2014-4-0359.
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