Low/Middle-Frequency Positive External- Damping Design Under Self-Stability Constraint for Inner Control Loop of Grid-Forming Converters

Abstract

The inner voltage control loop and inductor current active damping loop of grid-forming (GFM) converters perform the output voltage control and filter resonance damping, and their stability design has been widely developed in the literature. However, the equivalent external-damping characteristics have not been fully explored. In this paper, the analysis shows that inappropriate design focusing only on self-stability would lead to negative external-damping in a wide low/middle-frequency band when LC resonant frequency is greater than one-sixth sampling frequency and less than one-third sampling frequency, which may cause system instability when interacting with loads or grids. Therefore, a low/middle-frequency positive external-damping design method under self-stability constraint is proposed for inner control loop of GFM converters. Detailed design process is presented with simple implementation. The key feature is the use of negative proportional gain of voltage controller. Through the proposed design method, the GFM converters can improve system damping capability, which is beneficial to promoting large-scale integration of distributed generation systems based on power electronics. Simulation and experimental results are finally provided to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the design method.