An enhanced second-order-consensus-based distributed secondary frequency controller of virtual synchronous generators for isolated AC microgrids

Abstract

Virtual synchronous generator (VSG) control is a promising control method in microgrid (MG) for the inertia support characteristic. However, the VSG inherits the oscillation feature of synchronous generator (SG), thus the active power and frequency oscillation may be observed when VSG control is applied. In MG, the oscillation may cause the unreasonable dynamic active power sharing among VSGs. Subsequently, the VSGs are prone to overload and even unstable, and the existing works based on consensus control cannot suppress the oscillation effectively. In order to tackle this problem, this paper proposes an enhanced second-order-consensus-based distributed secondary frequency controller by introducing the active power second-order consensus control, and reveals the oscillation suppression capacity of the second-order consensus algorithm in depth. Since there is no specific control requirement for the second-order variables, i.e., the change rate of active power and frequency of MG in steady state, the proposed controller can be simplified by replacing the integral control of second-order variables with the proportional control of first-order variables, i.e., active power and frequency, thus the communication data volume will not increase comparing to the traditional first-order-consensus-based controller. This paper also provides a small-signal model of MG with the proposed controller to evaluate the system dynamic performance and design the parameters. Finally, the simulation results verify the effectiveness of the proposed controller.