DC microgrids (MGs) have been gaining a continually increasing interest over the past couple of years both in academia and industry. The advantages of dc distribution when compared to its ac ...counterpart are well known. The most important ones include higher reliability and efficiency, simpler control and natural interface with renewable energy sources, and electronic loads and energy storage systems. With rapid emergence of these components in modern power systems, the importance of dc in today's society is gradually being brought to a whole new level. A broad class of traditional dc distribution applications, such as traction, telecom, vehicular, and distributed power systems can be classified under dc MG framework and ongoing development, and expansion of the field is largely influenced by concepts used over there. This paper aims first to shed light on the practical design aspects of dc MG technology concerning typical power hardware topologies and their suitability for different emerging smart grid applications. Then, an overview of the state of the art in dc MG protection and grounding is provided. Owing to the fact that there is no zero-current crossing, an arc that appears upon breaking dc current cannot be extinguished naturally, making the protection of dc MGs a challenging problem. In relation with this, a comprehensive overview of protection schemes, which discusses both design of practical protective devices and their integration into overall protection systems, is provided. Closely coupled with protection, conflicting grounding objectives, e.g., minimization of stray current and common-mode voltage, are explained and several practical solutions are presented. Also, standardization efforts for dc systems are addressed. Finally, concluding remarks and important future research directions are pointed out.
The high penetration of power electronic converters into dc microgrids may cause the constant power load stability issues, which could lead to large voltage oscillations or even system collapse. On ...the other hand, dynamic performance should be satisfied in the control of power electronic converter systems with small overshoot, less oscillations, and smooth transient performance. This article proposes an offset-free model predictive controller for a dc/dc buck converter feeding constant power loads with guaranteed dynamic performance and stability. First, a receding horizon optimization problem is formulated for optimal voltage tracking. To deal with the unknown load variation and system uncertainties, a higher order sliding mode observer is designed and integrated into the optimization problem. Then an explicit closed-loop solution is obtained by solving the receding horizon optimization problem offline. A rigorous stability analysis is performed to ensure the system large signal stability. The proposed controller achieves optimized transient dynamics and accurate tracking with simple implementation. The effectiveness of the proposed controller is validated by simulation and experimental results.
For large photovoltaic power generation plants, number of panels are interconnected in series and parallel to form a photovoltaic (PV) array. In this configuration, partial shade will result in ...decrease in power output and introduce multiple peaks in the P-V curve. As a consequence, the modules in the array will deliver different row currents. Therefore, to maximize the power extraction from PV array, the panels need to be reconfigured for row current difference minimization. Row current minimization via Su Do Ku game theory do physical relocation of panels may cause laborious work and lengthy interconnecting ties. Hence, in this paper, an alternative to physical relocation based on particle swarm optimization (PSO) connected modules is proposed. In this method, the physical location of the modules remains unchanged, while its electrical connections are altered. Extensive simulations with different shade patterns are carried out and thorough analysis with the help of I-V, P-V curves is carried out to support the usefulness of the proposed method. The effectiveness of proposed PSO technique is evaluated via performance analysis based on energy saving and income generation. Further, a comprehensive comparison of various electrical array reconfiguration based is performed at the last to examine the suitability of proposed array reconfiguration method.
This paper investigates the possibility of deploying a finite control set model predictive control (FCS-MPC) algorithm for dynamic stabilization of a dc microgrid (MG) that supplies tightly regulated ...point-of-load (POL) converters. Within their control bandwidth, such converters behave as constant power loads (CPLs), where the MG sees them as impedances with a negative incremental resistance. Due to this characteristic, POL converters have a destabilizing impact that may cause large voltage oscillations or even a blackout of the whole MG. This paper proposes an active damping method realized by introducing a stabilization term in the cost function of the FCS-MPC algorithm that is used for regulation of the POL converter. This approach, on one hand, stabilizes a dc MG without implementing any additional active or passive components; thus, providing higher energy efficiency and better cost-effectiveness than methods that rely on such components. On the other hand, when compared to other approaches that focus on dc link stabilization via POL converter control, the proposed method has a significantly lower influence on the load voltage regulation performance. These findings are confirmed through comprehensive analytical investigation that shows how the proposed stabilization term affects the input impedance of the POL converter and the load voltage tracking performance. This is followed by experimental validation, where an FCS-MPC regulated uninterruptible power system inverter was used as a particular CPL example.
This paper proposes the application of a finite control set model predictive control (FCS-MPC) strategy in standalone ac microgrids (MGs). AC MGs are usually built from two or more voltage source ...converters (VSCs) which have the capability of regulating the voltage at the point of common coupling, while sharing the load power at the same time. Those functionalities are conventionally achieved by hierarchical linear control loops. However, they present severe limitations in terms of slow transient response and high sensitivity to parameter variations. This paper aims to mitigate these problems by first introducing an improvement of the FCS-MPC strategy for a single VSC that is based on explicit tracking of derivative of the voltage reference trajectory. Using only a single step prediction horizon, the proposed strategy exhibits very low computational expense, but provides steady-state performance comparable to carrier-based sinusoidal PWM, while its transient response and robustness to parameter variation is far superior to hierarchical linear control. These benefits are exploited in a general ac MG setting where a methodology for paralleling multiple FCS-MPC regulated VSCs is described. Such an MG is characterized by rapid transient response, inherent stability in all operating conditions, and fully decentralized operation of individual VSCs. These findings have been validated through comprehensive simulation and experimental verification.
This paper proposes a long-term performance indicator for power electronic converters based on their reliability. The converter reliability is represented by the proposed constant lifetime curves, ...which have been developed using Artificial Neural Network (ANN) under different operating conditions. Unlike the state-of-the-art theoretical reliability modeling approaches, which employ detailed electro-thermal characteristics and lifetime models of converter components, the proposed method provides a nonparametric surrogate model of the converter based on limited non-linear data from theoretical reliability analysis. The proposed approach can quickly predict the converter lifetime under given operating conditions without a further need for extended, time-consuming electro-thermal analysis. Moreover, the proposed lifetime curves can present the long-term performance of converters facilitating optimal system-level design for reliability, reliable operation and maintenance planning in power electronic systems. Numerical case studies evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed reliability modeling approach.
In this paper, an adaptive multiobjective fractional-order fuzzy proportional-integral-derivative controller is proposed for the load frequency control (LFC) of islanded microgrids (MGs), while ...benefiting from the assets of electric vehicles (EVs) in this respect. Although the use of battery energy storage systems (BESS) can solve the unbalance effects between the load and supply of an isolated MG, their high cost and tendency toward degradation are restrictive factors, which call for the use of alternative power balancing options. In recent years, the concept of utilizing the BESSs of EVs, also known as vehicle-to-grid (V2G) concept, for frequency support of MGs has attracted a lot of attention. In order to allow the V2G controller operate optimally under a wide range of operation conditions caused by the intermittent behavior of renewable energy resources, a new multiobjective fractional-order control strategy for the EVs in V2G scenarios is proposed in this paper. Moreover, since the performance of the controller depends on its parameters, optimization of these parameters can play a significant role in promoting the output performance of the LFC control; hence, a modified black hole optimization algorithm is utilized for the adaptive tuning of the noninteger fuzzy PID controller coefficients. The performance of the proposed LFC is evaluated by using real world wind and solar radiation data. Finally, the extensive studies and hardware-in-the-loop simulations are presented to prove that the proposed controller tracks frequency with lower deviation and fluctuation and is more robust in comparison with the prior-art controllers used in all the case studies.
This paper presents a small-signal analysis of an islanded microgrid composed of two or more voltage-source inverters connected in parallel. The primary control of each inverter is integrated through ...an internal current and voltage loops using proportional resonant compensators, a virtual impedance, and an external power controller based on frequency and voltage droops. The frequency restoration function is implemented at the secondary control level, which executes a consensus algorithm that consists of a load-frequency control and a single time delay communication network. The consensus network consists of a time-invariant directed graph and the output power of each inverter is the information shared among the units, which is affected by the time delay. The proposed small-signal model is validated through simulation results and experimental results. A root locus analysis is presented that shows the behavior of the system considering control parameters and time delay variation.
Distributed secondary control (DSC) is a new approach for microgrids (MGs) by which frequency, voltage, and power can be regulated by using only local unit controllers. Such a solution is necessary ...for anticipated scenarios that have an increased number of distributed generators (DGs) within the MG. Due to the constrained traffic pattern required by the secondary control, it is viable to implement a dedicated local area communication functionality among the local controllers. This paper presents a new wireless-based robust communication algorithm for the DSC of MGs. The algorithm tightly couples the communication and the control functionality, such that the transmission errors are absorbed through an averaging operation performed in each local controller, resulting in a very high reliability. Furthermore, transmissions from each DG are periodic and prescheduled broadcasts, and in this way, contention over the shared wireless medium is avoided. Real-time simulation and experimental results are presented in order to evaluate the feasibility and robustness endowed by the proposed algorithm. The results indicate that the proposed algorithm is very robust with respect to communication impairments, such as packet delays and random packet losses.
This paper proposes the use of an artificial neural network (ANN) for solving one of the ongoing research challenges in finite set-model predictive control (FS-MPC) of power electronics converters, ...i.e., the automated selection of weighting factors in cost function. The first step in this approach is to simulate a detailed converter circuit model or run experiments numerous times using different weighting factor combinations. The key performance metrics e.g., average switching frequency (<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">f_{{\rm sw}}</tex-math></inline-formula>) of the converter, total harmonic distortion, etc. are extracted from each simulation. This data is then used to train the ANN, which serves as a surrogate model of the converter that can provide fast and accurate estimates of the performance metrics for any weighting factor combination. Consequently, any arbitrary user-defined fitness function that combines the output metrics can be defined and the weighting factor combinations that optimize the given function can be explicitly found. The proposed methodology was verified on a practical weighting factor design problem in FS-MPC regulated voltage source converter for uninterruptible power supply system. Designed weighting factors for two exemplary fitness functions turned out to be robust to load variations and to yield close to expected performance when applied both to detailed simulation model (less than 3% error) and to experimental test bed (less than 10% error).
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