Virtual Synchronous Machine Control Strategy Research Articles

Photovoltaic Power Injection Control Based on a Virtual Synchronous Machine Strategy.

The increasing participation of photovoltaic sources in power grids presents the challenge of enhancing power quality, which is affected by the intrinsic characteristics of these sources, such as variability and lack of inertia. This power quality degradation mainly generates variations in both voltage magnitude and frequency, which are more pronounced in microgrids. In fact, the magnitude problem is particularly present in the distribution systems, where photovoltaic sources are spread along the grid. Due to the power converter's lack of inertia, frequency problems can be seen throughout the network. Grid-forming control strategies in photovoltaic systems have been proposed to address these problems, although most proposed solutions involve either a direct voltage source or energy storage systems, thereby increasing costs. In this paper, a photovoltaic injection system is designed with a virtual synchronous machine control strategy to provide voltage and frequency support to the grid. The maximum power point tracking algorithm is adapted to provide the direct voltage reference and inject active power according to the droop frequency control. The control strategy is validated through simulations and key experimental setup tests. The results demonstrate that it is possible to inject photovoltaic power and provide voltage and frequency support.

Multi-VSM based fuzzy adaptive cooperative control strategy for MVDC traction power supply system

This paper studies the control of a medium-voltage DC (MVDC) traction power supply system for rail transit (RT). In order to optimize the ability of DC voltage fluctuation and frequency regulation of rail trains, a fuzzy adaptive cooperative secondary control strategy based on improved virtual synchronous machine (VSM) is proposed. Firstly, the improved VSM control strategy is adopted in the traction substations (TSSs), which makes the RT trains have the external characteristics of synchronous generator and have certain inertia and damping support capacity, so as to improve the ability of the RT traction system to cope with traction network transient changes. Secondly, the virtual inertia and virtual damping can be dynamically adjusted by the system frequency deviating from the nominal steady-state frequency, and the dynamic fuzzy adjustment can be carried out by the fuzzy logic system to slow down the frequency fluctuation. Then, due to the different power supply distances and parameter settings between multiple TSSs, cooperative control is used to coordinate local TSS perceptions of information between adjacent TSS to achieve consistency of frequency response of multiple TSSs under different parameters. Besides, a time-varying switching topology handoff method is considered to select the optimal communication topology between adjacent base stations. Finally, simulation results verify the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy.

Stability enhancement of DC power systems by VSM control strategy

DC system is characterized by low inertia and weak damping, which leads to a couple of stability issues. This paper proposes a modeling method for analyzing the DC-side oscillations occurred in DC microgrid with taking multi-paralleled converters into account. A new modeling is developed for analysis of dynamic interaction between multiple power converters. Thus, it is found that dynamic interaction between multiple converters will result in the poorly-damped oscillation of DC voltage. Besides, the poorly-damped modes will aggravate the stability of DC system. To cope with this issue, a virtual synchronous machine (VSM) control approach is proposed to suppress the oscillation of DC voltage, strengthen inertia, and improve damping performance of DC microgrid. Besides, the controller tuning of the VSM has a large flexibility that it does not depend on the system parameters. Finally, the proposed conceives are demonstrated by simulations.

Dynamic Analysis and Model Order Reduction of Virtual Synchronous Machine Based Microgrid

The concept of virtual synchronous machine (VSM) was proposed to deal with the shortcomings of low inertia and damping of traditional control strategies for power electronic converters. But what if all distributed energy resources and controllable loads in a microgrid adopt the VSM control strategy, and will it present better performance than conventional droop control-based microgrid (DMG)? In this paper, the VSM-based microgrid (VSMG) is analyzed. The small-signal modeling of the VSMG is studied at first. Then static stability and dynamic characteristics of the VSMG are analyzed and compared with the DMG in both frequency-domain and time-domain. With the growing scale of microgrids, their modeling and simulation are becoming significant computational burdens. Inspired by the participation factor analysis of the VSMG and the concept of coherency in power systems, the VSMG small-signal model is equivalent to a modified third-order synchronous generator (SG) model in this paper. The equivalencing involves gray-box system identification and is realized by estimating equivalent electrical parameters alternately and iteratively. The equivalent SG (EqSG) model is compared with three representative model order reduction methods to verify its effectiveness. Simulation results confirm the accuracy of the EqSG model substituting detailed VSMG model in time-domain simulations.

A Comprehensive VSM Control Strategy Designed for Unbalanced Grids

A virtual synchronous machine (VSM) is a converter which, compared to other types of converters, has more friendly interactions with the power grid because it is able to simulate the external characteristics of a synchronous machine, which can provide virtual inertia and damping. When the grid voltage is unbalanced, there will be negative sequence current and power oscillations. There will also be double-frequency ripples on the DC bus, which affect the normal operation of the DC power source or load. In order to solve these problems, a comprehensive control strategy is proposed in this paper. The principle of a VSM operated as a current source converter, also called VISMA, is used in the design. A complex coefficient filter is applied to separate the positive and negative sequence components of the grid voltage. By analyzing the reasons of power oscillations under unbalanced voltage, the electrical simulation part of the VSM is improved to achieve several objectives: to suppress negative sequence current and DC voltage ripples. Additionally, the rated voltage in the reactive control part is adaptively adjusted to stabilize the system. The validity of the proposed control strategy is verified by simulation and experiment.

Research on the Structure and Control Strategy of a Novel Power Electronic Transformer for AC/DC Hybrid Distribution Network

Power electronic transformers (PETs), as the core devices of the energy internet, are the key to achieve both effective consumption for renewable energy and the safe and coordinated operation for AC/DC hybrid system. In order to overcome the shortcomings of the existing PETs, a novel PET with an improved structure that applicable for multi-voltage level AC/DC hybrid distribution network is proposed. The topology of the proposed PET is analyzed, and the corresponding control methods are suggested for different parts. The input stage utilizes the modular multilevel converter structure and applies the virtual synchronous machine control strategy to enhance the inertia and damping of the system. The power of the output stage is adjusted flexibly and that enables the PET to provide certain power support to the upper grid and participate in its primary frequency regulation. A combined connection of input-series output-series and input-series output-parallel is applied for the dual-active-bridge modules of the isolation stage to enable network interconnection and electrical isolation of AC/DC grids with significantly different voltage levels. A power coordinated control method is then proposed to meet the power demand of the distribution networks connected to the output stage and ensure stable operations of PET simultaneously. The reliability and efficiency of the proposed PET topology and control strategy for AC/DC hybrid distribution network are finally verified via PSCAD/EMTDC simulation.

Transient Frequency Response Improvement in Microgrid Using Virtual Synchronous Machine

Microgrid concept helps to provide reliable electric power by integrating distributed generators based on renewable energy into the power system network. Grid-connected and autonomous modes of operation of microgrids and power electronic converter-based distributed generators make the microgrids to operate in a highly flexible manner. Since many of the microgrids are dominated by converter-based generators as against the rotating synchronous generators, they have a lower amount of rotating inertia. This causes poor transient frequency response in microgrids. Virtual inertia can be provided to microgrids by virtual synchronous machine-based control of converters. In this method, the converter emulates the behaviour of a synchronous machine and provides virtual inertia with the help of the electrical energy storage. Swing equation is used to derive the equivalent power to be delivered by the inverter to the grid. Simulation of the virtual synchronous machine with the grid-connected inverter was carried out in MATLAB/Simulink platform, and the results indicate the satisfactory operation of the proposed control strategy. An experiment on the laboratory scale model of the grid-connected inverter with virtual synchronous machine control strategy was carried out. The control algorithm was implemented in OPAL-RT real-time simulator. The performance of the virtual synchronous machine is compared with droop control, and the difference in performance with the two schemes is analysed.

SSR Analysis of DFIG-Based Wind Farm With VSM Control Strategy

The wind turbine is usually integrated into the power grid via back to back converter, and the inertia is decreased. Virtual synchronous machine (VSM) control was proposed to improve inertia of the wind farm. While for the doubly-fed induction generator (DFIG)–based wind farm with traditional control strategy, sub-synchronous resonance (SSR) has become a significant problem when it is connected to series compensation transmission lines. Therefore, the impacts of VSM control strategy for DFIG on SSR need to be investigated. In this paper, a detailed small-signal stability analysis model of the VSM control strategy is first established and eigenvalue analysis is then carried out. SSR in the wind farm with the VSM control under different series compensation levels, controller parameters and wind speeds is analyzed, and it is also compared to that in the wind farm with the conventional vector control strategy (VC). Simulations are performed in PSCAD/EMTDC to verify the result of SSR analysis.