A Control Strategy for Islanded DC Microgrid with Battery/Ultra-capacitor

Hybrid Energy Storage System

Li Jing, Shen Yanxia, Wu Dinghui , Zhao Zhipu
Institute of Electrical Automation, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122, Jiangsu Province
E-mail: shenyx@jiangnan.edu.cn

Abstract: Battery and ultra-capacitor respectively has the advantages of high energy density and high power density.
Combining them into a hybrid energy storage system (HESS) can meet multiple requirements of microgrid. Balanced
system power and stable DC bus voltage are achieved by establishing the power management strategy. A HESS control
strategy is designed to meet charging/discharging demand and reduce battery damage caused by frequent
charge/discharge current. The model of DC microgrid system with HESS is built on Matlab/Simulink platform and the
simulation results verify the feasibility of the control strategy.
Key Words: power management, DC microgrid, battery, ultra-capacitor

In this paper, an improved HESS control strategy is

1 INTRODUCTION
Under the background of improving requirements for
energy utilization and environment protection, distributed
generation (DG) and its related technologies using
renewable energy have aroused global attention[1-2].
Microgrid integrates DGs, loads, energy storage and other
units. It can realize internal control and management of the
system[3-4]. As a special form of microgrid, DC microgrid
has better power quality and simpler structure. It is easier to
implement coordinated control of each component in grid
than the AC one. Given the intermittent and random output
of DGs such as wind turbine (WT) and photovoltaic (PV),
energy storage units have become the key parts to maintain
stable operation, improve power quality and keep
uninterrupted power supply[5].
In order to meet the demands of power fluctuation
smoothing and power supply, hybrid battery/ultra-capacitor
storage scheme is often adopted in energy storage system
(ESS). Battery with high energy density is a long-time
power supplier while ultra-capacitor with high power
density can make up for low charge/discharge rate of
battery. And it has abilities to smooth power fluctuation
rapidly , reduce battery charge/discharge frequency, and
extend the battery life as a result[6]. Chen Wei et al [7]
analyzed several kinds of energy storage units of their
characteristics applying in microgrid; Liu F et al [8] and
Mendis N et al [9] used battery and ultra-capacitor to deal
with high/low frequency component of power or current
fluctuation separately with a high/low pass filter; Zhang
Guoju et al [10] and Wang Haibo et al [11] adopted
multi-hysteresis current control strategy to reduce transition
of battery charge/discharge.
This work is supported by Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral
Program of Higher Education (20130093110011), the Fundamental
Research Funds for the Central Universities (JUSRP51510), and the
National Natural Science Foundation of China (61573167,61572237).
proposed. To take high power density advantage of the
ultra-capacitor, it is connected directly to the DC bus while
to keep the security of the battery, voltage limitations of
battery is set. Besides, to satisfy storage power demands
and stabilize DC bus voltage, their values are set as
judgements to realize operation modes switching. Different
from conventional multi-stage constant current control
strategy, an improved multi-hysteresis control strategy
based on battery voltage is proposed to reduce frequent
transition at the transition points. Finally, a system
simulation is carried out based on Matlab platform, and
results of the voltage, power and current prove the
feasibility of the control strategy mentioned above.
2 SYSTEM CONFIGURATION
DC microgrid works in grid-connected mode or islanded
mode, only the latter one is studied here. The simplify
configuration of the system is shown in Fig.1. DGs, HESS
and loads are connected to DC bus through their converter.
The HESS to be studied is composed of a battery, an
ultra-capacitor and a DC/DC converter. In it, the battery
connects the ultra-capacitor via the DC/DC converter, and
the ultra-capacitor is interfaced with the DC bus directly.
Because DGs such as PV and WT are easily to be affected
by the environment, it is necessary for HESS to
charge/discharge on purpose so as to ensure the normal
operation of loads. Except for power balancing, allocating
the system internal power to protect and make full use of
energy storage units is also an important task for HESS[12].
The DC/DC converter used in HESS is a Buck/Boost
bi-directional converter as shown in Fig.2. The converter
has advantages of simple structure, few power electronic
devices and easy to control. The control of the converter is
the key part of system power management[13]. In
Fig.2, S1 / D1 , S2 / D2 are controllable power switches and
their anti-paralleled diodes. Their states decide the battery
charge or discharge. L is the equivalent inductance of

c
978-1-4673-9714-8/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE 6810
DC/DC converter. U b , Rb is equivalent voltage and
equivalent resistance of battery respectively. U SC , RSC is
equivalent voltage and equivalent resistance of
ultra-capacitor respectively. CDC , U DC is equivalent
capacitance and equivalent voltage of DC bus respectively.
R is equivalent resistance of load. The structure with the
battery locating in the low voltage side while the
ultra-capacitor locating in the high voltage side keeps the
battery at a lower voltage and reduces unstable
problems[14]. Besides, it is convenient for ultra-capacitor to
absorb system power fluctuation quickly and protect the
battery to some degree.
Fig.1 DC microgrid with HESS
Fig.2 Bi-directional Buck/Boost DC/DC converter
3 POWER MANAGEMENT STRATEGY
DC bus voltage is the judgement standard of whether
system power is balanced. The relationship between DC
bus voltage and each power unit in system is:
dU dc
CdcU dc = PDG − PL − PS
dt
where PDG is the output power of DGs, PL is the load
power and PS is the power of energy storage units.
When the DC bus voltage is balanced, the relationship
among each power units is as follows˖
PDG − PL − PS = 0
or
2016 28th Chinese Control and Decision Conference (CCDC)
PS = PDG − PL (3)
Therefore, the sign of PS is taken as a judgement to decide
the operating mode of DC/DC converter to implement
control of HESS. The flowchart of the system control
strategy is shown in Fig.3. U dc h is the upper-limited
−
voltage of DC bus, U dc l is the low-limited voltage of DC
−
bus, U b h is the upper-limited voltage of the battery, and
−
U b−l is the low-limited voltage of the battery. When
PS > 0 , DC bus absorbs energy and U dc is increasing.
When U dc > U dc h , the battery is charged if its voltage is
−
not higher than the upper limit, meanwhile, the DC/DC
converter is working in Buck mode. When PS < 0 , DC bus
releases energy and U dc is decreasing. When U dc < U dc l ,
−
the battery is discharged if its voltage is not lower than the
low limit, meanwhile, the DC/DC converter is working in
Boost mode. When the battery voltage is beyond the safe
limit, the DC/DC converter is shut down to prevent battery
damage.
Fig.3 Flowchart of the system control strategy
4 CONTROL OF DC/DC CONVERTER
Because of the fluctuation of the power flow of DGs and
loads, the charge/discharge current of the battery iL suffers
a lot from it. This fluctuation not only causes damage to
battery, but has bad influence on system power quality as
well. Hence, to reduce current fluctuation, the battery is
(1)
charged/discharged with constant current in each time
period. At the same time, to prevent high battery voltage
and reduce transitions of charge/discharge current at each
voltage segment point, an improved control strategy based
on battery voltage multi-hysteresis is proposed, as shown in
Fig.4
(2)
6811
 420
Single battery
Hybrid
410

D C b u s v o lt a g e / V
400

390

380
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2
t/s
Fig.5 DC bus voltage

Fig.4 Multi-hysteresis control
Firstly, the controller judges whether the DC/DC converter
needs to act on base of Fig.3. If act, it outputs the operation
modes of the converter according to Fig.3 and decides the
absolute reference current of iL that is iL− ref according to
the input battery voltage and its change direction. Then, the
reference current can be decided according to the operation
mode of DC/DC converter (Buck, Boost and shut down).
The power output waves of each units in DC microgrid is
shown in Fig.6. The blue curve is the charge/discharge
power of the ultra-capacitor, the green one is the
charge/discharge power of the battery and the red one is the
output power of the current source. It can be seen that the
combination of battery and ultra-capacitor satisfies the
changing power demands well. The ultra-capacitor
responses to the changes quickly and the battery meets the
rest power demand according to the controller.
x 10
4

At last, the tracing of iL − ref is implement by PI controller.

3
Ultra-capacitor
Battery
When the battery is charging, the switch S1 acts while S2 is 2
Current source
off; When the battery is discharging, the switch S2 acts 1
O u t p u t p o w e r/ W

while S1 is off. 0

5 SIMULATION AND RESULTS -1

In this section, a DC microgrid model is built to validate the -2

proposed power manage strategy through Matlab/Simulink.
-3
The equivalent resistor R is replaced by a controllable 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2
t/s
current source in Fig.2. The output power of the current
Fig.6 DC microgrid power output
source represents the difference between the power of DGs
PDG and loads PL , that is as mentioned above PS . The 50
B a tte ry c h a rg e /d is c h a rg e c u rre n t /A

40
output of the current source is 30
I = 15 sin 2π t + 15 sin 3π t + 10 sin 4π t + 5 A. The 20
capacity of the battery is 50Ah and the nominal voltage is 10
150V. The capacity of the ultra-capacitor is 20F, and its 0
equivalent resistance is 0.1 Ω . Set battery charge/discharge -10
current as 10A( I1 ) and 30A( I 2 ) and each voltage segment -20
-30
point as 135V( U1 ),145V( U 2 ),155V( U 3 ), and 165V( U 4 ). -40

Fig.5 is the waves of DC bus voltage. The curve in red is for -50
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2
structure adopting single battery storage structure and the t/s

blue one is for structure adopting hybrid storage. From
Fig.5, it is obvious that the curve of hybrid energy storage
has less fluctuations than the single battery structure,
because the battery cannot meet the frequent power
requirements rapidly. The joining of ultra-capacitor with
high power density improves the ability for
absorbing/releasing energy of HESS.
Fig.7 Charge/discharge current of battery
Fig.7 is the wave of battery charge/discharge current. It
charges when the current is positive, whereas discharges
when the current is negative. It can be seen that the battery
charges/discharges in constant current under different
conditions. This achieves the power object and avoids high
voltage at the same time. Meanwhile, the optimization of
the battery is realized.

6812 2016 28th Chinese Control and Decision Conference (CCDC)

6 CONCLUSION
Considering the intermittence and random of DGs and the
limitation of single energy storage, an islanded DC
microgrid power management strategy is proposed to
achieve system power balancing and DC bus voltage
stabilizing by adopting battery/ultra-capacitor HESS. As
for the control of DC/DC converter, a multi-hysteresis
control strategy based on battery voltage is proposed. It can
control the battery flexibly, avoid frequent
charge/discharge states transition, prevent high voltage
performance, and then reduce battery damages. These are
good for battery life extending. The simulation results show
that HESS and the proposed control strategy take
advantages of battery/ultra-capacitor very well, satisfy
system power demand, optimize the operation of battery
and improve the economy and reliability of ESS.
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