Microgrid reactive and harmonic power sharing using enhanced virtual impedance

Abstract

To address the load sharing problem in islanding microgrids, this paper proposes an improved approach which regulates the distributed generation (DG) unit interfacing virtual impedance at fundamental and selected harmonic frequencies. In contrast to the conventional virtual impedance control where only a line current feed-forward term is added to the DG voltage reference, the proposed virtual impedances at fundamental and harmonic frequencies are realized using DG line current and point of common coupling (PCC) voltage feed-forward terms, respectively. With this modification, the mismatched DG feeder impedances can be properly compensated, resulting in accurate reactive and harmonic power sharing at the same time. In addition, this paper shows that the microgrid PCC harmonic voltages can be mitigated by reducing the magnitude of DG unit equivalent harmonic impedance. Finally, an improved proportional plus resonant voltage controller is developed to ensure accurate power sharing and PCC harmonic voltage compensation without using any fundamental/harmonic component detections.