Direct AC voltage control for grid-forming inverters

Abstract

Grid-forming inverters usually use inner cascaded controllers to regulate output AC voltage and converter output current. However, at the power transmission system level where the power inverter bandwidth is limited, i.e., low switching frequency, it is difficult to tune controller parameters to achieve the desired performances because of control loop interactions. In this paper, a direct AC voltage control-based state-feedback control is applied. Its control gains are tuned using a linear quadratic regulator. In addition, a sensitivity analysis is proposed to choose the right cost factors that allow the system to achieve the imposed specifications. Conventionally, a system based on direct AC voltage control has no restriction on the inverter current. Hence, in this paper, a threshold virtual impedance has been added to the state-feedback control in order to protect the inverter against overcurrent. The robustness of the proposed control is assessed for different short-circuit ratios using small-signal stability analysis. Then, it is checked in different grid topologies using time domain simulations. An experimental test bench is developed in order to validate the proposed control.