Power quality improvement in autonomous microgrid operation using particle swarm optimization

Abstract

This paper presents an optimal power control strategy for an autonomous microgrid operation based on a real-time self-tuning method. The purpose of this work is to improve the quality of power supply where Distributed Generation (DG) units are connected to the grid. Dynamic response and harmonics distortion are the two main performance parameters which are considered in this work, particularly when the microgrid is islanded. The controller scheme is composed of an inner current control loop and an outer power control loop based on a synchronous reference frame and the conventional PI regulators. Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is an intelligent searching algorithm that is applied for real-time self-tuning of the system. The results show that the proposed controller provides an excellent dynamic response with acceptable harmonics level.