A new power management control strategy for a MV microgrid with both synchronous generator and inverter-interfaced distributed energy resources

Abstract

Control strategies of a microgrid which includes both synchronous generators and converter-based distribution generation (DG) units must be designed such that effective operation of the microgrid is achieved. The main objective of this paper is to develop a high performance control strategy for an islanded medium voltage (MV) microgrid consisting of inverter and non-inverter interfaced DG units. A new control method for the synchronous generator in an islanded microgrid is proposed based on a virtual droop scheme. The proposed strategy can effectively manage the real and reactive powers of the microgrid among the inverter and non-inverter based DG units. The steady state and dynamic responses of the MV microgrid is significantly improved by using the proposed power management scheme. The performance of the proposed control strategy is verified by using digital time-domain simulation study in the PSCAD/EMTDC software environment.