A Modified Decentralized Droop Control Method to Eliminate Battery Short-Term Operation in a Hybrid Supercapacitor/Battery Energy Storage System

Abstract

Employment of a battery energy storage system to compensate for the generation-consumption mismatch is a vital element for a resilient microgrid. However, the frequent (i.e., short-term) cyclic activity and the abrupt current variations (i.e., high di/dt) have adverse effects on the energy-type battery’s lifespan. On the other hand, the power-type supercapacitor energy storage system (SCES) has almost zero lifetime degradation when it is subjected to irregular charging/discharging patterns. Therefore, the hybridization between them can reduce battery stress levels. This study proposes a droop control algorithm with multiple segments for a SCES/battery hybrid energy storage system (HESS) that is employed in a solar/wind DC microgrid. The presented control scheme is decentralized since it avoids the central controller (CC) and the communication links between the controllers of SCES and battery units. To eliminate the short-term cyclic operation of the battery, the SCES regulates the bus voltage inside a narrow zone with a droop curve that exploits all its available energy capacity. Inside this zone, the battery is kept inactive. As soon as the bus voltage deviates from this band, the SCES enters the idle mode, and the battery is triggered following a droop curve different for charging or discharging mode to stabilize the bus voltage. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed system over a battery-only system and a hybrid SCES/battery system controlled with the classical droop method, a comparative analysis under different scenarios is presented.