Plug and play power electronics interface applied in microgrid

Abstract

Microgrid is predicted to drastically change the whole grid and offer a wide application domain for power electronics. The interface between distributed energy resource (DER) and the grid is usually through power electronics device, which controls the current drawn from the grid and can be driven to optimize the power flow, improve voltage stability and increase distribution efficiency. To achieve the autonomous control of the microgrid, the plug and play(PnP) power electronics interface for DER is a good solution to support device self-identification and system resources assignment. In the paper, the hardware architecture is built by using integrated power electronics module and a novel hierarchical software architecture is proposed by standardizing interfaces between levels. The experimental results indicate the benefits of the PnP power electronics interface. The proposed architecture with high level of flexibility, modularity can benefit the PnP property and paves the way towards future PnP power electronics interface in microgrid.