Abstract
Microgrids (MGs) interest is growing very fast due to the environment urgency and their capability to integrate renewable energy in a flexible way. In particular, islanded MGs in which distributed energy resources (DERs) are connected to the infrastructure with power electronic converters have attracted the interest of many researchers of both academia and industry because management, control and protection of such systems is quite different from the case of traditional networks. According to their operation mode, MGs that power electronic converters can be divided into grid-forming, grid-feeding and grid-supporting inverters. In particular, grid forming inverters are asked to impose voltage and frequency in the MG. This paper aims to propose a model predictive control (MPC) based approach for grid-forming inverters in an islanded MG. The MPC strategy is implemented because of its capability to define the optimal control actions that contemporarily track the desired reference signals and accounts for equality and inequality constraints. The overall problem formulation (objective function and relevant constraints) is described step by step and considers the specificity of the considered DC source. The proposed approach allows for the obtaining of very good results in terms of readiness against disturbances, even if it requires being fed only by local measurements. In order to validate the developed method, this paper proposes an experimental validation of the designed MPC controller in order to show its correct operation on a real system in a power hardware in the loop set-up using a rapid control prototyping approach.
Highlights
The interest in microgrids (MGs) is growing very fast as they represent a possible solution to a complete integration of renewable energy sources (RES) thanks to their flexibility [1,2,3]
A ramp increase is provided for the grid voltage, from 35 V to 175 V RMS phase to phase in 4 s, starting at 5 s
This paper proposed an innovative control architecture for grid-forming inverter control in islanded MGs
Summary
The interest in microgrids (MGs) is growing very fast as they represent a possible solution to a complete integration of renewable energy sources (RES) thanks to their flexibility [1,2,3]. The massive number of energy sources connected to the grid through power electronics converters is changing the classic paradigm of the electric power systems [4,5]. This evolution claims for new strategies to ensure power-sharing [6], voltage and frequency control [7] and grid support [8,9]. Grid-feeding converters are designed to supply a specified value of active and reactive power This operation allows for the considering of the controlled DER as an ideal current source connected to the grid in parallel with high impedance Inverters that interface distributed energy resources (DERs) to the MG can be classified according to one of the three following operation ways: grid-feeding, grid-forming and grid-supporting power converters [10,11,12].
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