ABSTRACTTo enhance the power quality of microgrid inverters and reduce the influence of changes in inductance parameters and external disturbances on the direct power control of the inverter system, a terminal sliding mode control strategy with a variable exponential power reaching law has been proposed. The designed new reaching law comprises a variable exponential term and an enhanced power term. The variable exponential term contains an arctangent function, and the power term coefficient is replaced by a function about the sliding mode. Therefore, the convergence rate can be adaptively adjusted based on different stages of the system, ensuring a faster rate of convergence throughout the process of approaching the sliding mode surface. To weaken the effects of changes in inductance parameters, a power disturbance observer is designed to estimate the internal disturbances induced by the filtered inductance in the system. Subsequently, a sliding mode control law containing disturbance observations is derived. Moreover, a variable exponential terminal sliding surface is designed to adjust the convergence rate of system errors on the sliding surface in stages, thereby enhancing the control performance of the system. The simulation results show that the new reaching law has faster convergence rate and better dynamic performance. The convergence speed of the system error can be accelerated by the designed variable exponential terminal sliding surface. The sliding mode control strategy with the variable exponential power reaching law is applicable to the power control system of three‐phase inverters in microgrids, thereby significantly enhancing the dynamic performance and robustness of the system.