Weak Grid Research Articles

Influence of wind farm fault current control strategies on distance protection during unsymmetrical faults

Abstract This paper evaluates the performance of distance protection near a wind farm with type IV wind turbines with various basic fault current control strategies implemented in the power converters. The considered fault control strategies include control of purely positive sequence currents or combined positive and negative sequence currents for reactive power support of various magnitudes. A multi-variable study is performed in PSCAD to show performance of a basic algorithm of distance protection at a 420 kV line in a vicinity of the wind farm. The results show that the majority of relay failures occur for phase-phase-ground faults, that reactive current control has less influence in strong grid than in weak grid, and that standard wind turbine fault control procedure of providing balanced current might result in fault currents much smaller than maximum allowed (usually 1.2 pu).

A Robust PCC Voltage Feedforward Control Strategy of LCL‐Type Converters under Weak Grid Condition

The point of common coupling (PCC) voltage feedforward control strategy can effectively reduce the startup inrush current and improve the anti‐interference ability of the LCL‐type converters, which is widely used in the renewable energy converters control field. With the high penetration of the new energy, the increase of grid impedance leads to the weakening of the grid. Under weak grid conditions, the PCC voltage feedforward control strategy will generate an additional feedback loop of grid‐side current, which has a great impact on the stability of the system. In this paper, the damping characteristic of the PCC voltage feedforward control strategy and the effect on the open loop characteristic of the system have been deeply analyzed. An improved PCC voltage feedforward control strategy based on a proportional plus band‐pass filter is proposed, which can effectively improve the phase margin and achieve active damping under weak grid conditions, therefore, the robustness of the converters can be effectively improved. A three‐phase LCL‐type AC/DC converter platform is built and comparative experiments are carried out to verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. The experimental results are consistent with the theoretical analysis. © 2024 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan and Wiley Periodicals LLC.

Dynamic control of grid-following inverters using DC bus controller and power-sharing participating factors for improved stability

Integrating Grid-Following Inverters (GFLs) into power systems presents significant stability challenges, particularly in systems with reduced strength and high renewable energy penetration. This study delves into the dynamic interactions between parallel synchronous generators (SGs) and GFLs, highlighting the impact of reduced system inertia and transient stability margins. A novel DC bus controller is proposed to enhance the inertia and stability of GFLs during grid disturbances by dynamically adjusting power references based on load demand. Through mathematical modelling, small signal analysis, and MATLAB simulations, the study evaluates the effects of inverter-based resources (IBRs) on power system stability. The proposed GFL configuration demonstrates improved stability control, achieving an 80 % increase in stability under weak grid conditions. This paper provides insights into optimized control strategies, emphasizing the importance of power-sharing participation factors (PSPF) for effective GFL integration in modern power systems with high renewable energy penetration.

Oscillation Suppression of Grid-Following Converters by Grid-Forming Converters with Adaptive Droop Control

The high penetration of renewable energy sources (RESs) and power electronics devices has led to a continuous decline in power system stability. Due to the instability of grid-following converters (GFLCs) in weak grids, the grid-forming converters (GFMCs) have gained widespread attention featuring their flexible frequency and voltage regulation capabilities, as well as the satisfactory grid-supporting services, such as inertia and damping, et al. Notably, the risk of wideband oscillations in modern power grids is increasingly exacerbated by the reduced number of synchronous generators (SGs). Thus, the wideband oscillation suppression method based on adaptive active power droop control of GFMCs is presented in this paper. First, the stability of the hybrid grid-forming and grid-following system is obtained according to the improved short circuit ratio (ISCR), where the GFMC is in parallel at the point of common coupling (PCC) of the GFLC. Then, an adaptive adjustment strategy of the active power droop control is proposed to enhance the oscillation suppression capability across the full frequency range, thereby mitigating the wideband oscillation caused by phase-locked loop (PLL) synchronization in the GFLCs. Additionally, a first-order inertia control unit is added to the active and reactive power droop controllers to mitigate frequency and voltage variations as well as suppress potential mid-to-high frequency resonance. Finally, the wideband oscillation suppression strategy is validated by the simulation and experimental results.

A modified synchronverter for a weak grid with virtual power circles‐based PQ decoupling scheme

AbstractThe high penetration of renewable energy sources (RES) results in a low‐inertia, weak power grid. To mitigate this and restore system inertia, it has been widely proposed to operate the inverters of RES units to mimic synchronous generators; this technology is known as a virtual synchronous generator (VSG). In weak grids there is, however, strong coupling between active power () and reactive power (), and any VSG technique therefore requires decoupling in order to operate effectively. This article proposes a new decoupling technique based on the transformation of the power circle of a VSG connected to a weak grid: first, the power circle is translated from its designed position to that of a conventional synchronous generator (SG) connected to a strong grid, achieving partial decoupling. Then, to achieve full decoupling, the authors propose further to modulate the radius of the translated power circle; this is achieved using a series resistance‐capacitance–inductance () circuit which is virtually implemented in the VSG controller. The efficacy of the proposed scheme is validated using a modified synchronverter connected to the weak grid in representative loading scenarios. It is demonstrated that the technique achieves a decoupled control for the synchronverter connected in a weak grid. Moreover, the modified synchronverter is capable of supporting frequency and voltage regulation in the grid without inducing large transient grid currents during mild frequency and voltage variations.

Review of HVDC technologies for weak grid interconnectors

Review of HVDC technologies for weak grid interconnectors

Sliding mode-based direct power control of unified power quality conditioner

The Unified Power Quality Conditioner (UPQC) is a promising solution for mitigating multiple Power Quality(PQ) issues in distribution systems, including harmonics, poor power factor, voltage sag/swell and voltage imbalance. The conventional Sliding Mode Controller (SMC) in UPQCs suffers from wide switching frequency variations, chattering problems, and inherent active and reactive power coupling. This study proposes a nonlinear control method, Sliding Mode-based Direct Power Control (SMC-DPC), for the simultaneous regulation of the shunt and series compensators in a UPQC. By optimizing voltage vector selection based on real-time power errors, the proposed method effectively mitigates chattering, and reduces switching frequency variations, and ensures precise tracking of instantaneous active and reactive powers even in the presence of coupling effects. The proposed approach simplifies the system design and improves steady state and dynamic power tracking. The simulation results in MATLAB Simulink® on a 20 kVA system demonstrate that the proposed method achieves a source current THD of 1.52%, compared to 2.31% for conventional SMC and 5.11% for linear controller. Furthermore, the method is robust to grid parameter variations and demonstrates satisfactory performance in both strong and weak grids. In weak grids, the proposed method reduces the line losses by 13.71% and 14.54% compared to SMC and linear controller respectively. The reported results comply with international standards such as IEEE-519 and IEC 61000-3-12, confirming effectiveness of SMC-DPC for enhancing PQ in distribution system.

Nonlinear Behavior and Transient Stability of Grid-Following Converters Using Direct Power Control Under Weak Grid

Nonlinear Behavior and Transient Stability of Grid-Following Converters Using Direct Power Control Under Weak Grid

Passivity Principle-Based Active Damper Design to Enhance Stability of a Voltage Source Converter for Weak Grid Scenario

Passivity Principle-Based Active Damper Design to Enhance Stability of a Voltage Source Converter for Weak Grid Scenario

Current-Oriented Phase-Locked Loop Method for Robust Control of Grid-Connected Converter in Extremely Weak Grid

Current-Oriented Phase-Locked Loop Method for Robust Control of Grid-Connected Converter in Extremely Weak Grid

An overview of grid-forming technology and its application in new-type power system

To address the global climate crisis, achieving energy transitions is imperative. Establishing a new-type power system is a key measure to achieve CO2 emissions peaking and carbon neutrality. The core goal is to transform renewable energy resources into primary power sources. The large-scale integration of high proportions of renewable energy sources and power electronic devices will dramatically change the operational mechanisms and control strategies of power systems. Existing wind and solar converters mostly adopt the grid-following control mode, which leads to significant challenges in system security and stability as it is insufficient to support the frequency and voltage of the grid. On the other hand, grid- forming control technology (GFM) can provide voltage and frequency support for the system, and thus becomes an effective measure to improve the inertia and damping characteristics of power systems. This paper illustrates the principles, control strategies, equipment types, application scenarios, and project implementation of grid-forming technology. The simulation and analysis based on a renewable-dominated real new-type power system show that GFM can significantly enhance the frequency and voltage support capacity of the power system, improve renewable energy accommodation capacity and grid transmission capacity under weak grid conditions, and play an important role in enhancing the stability and power supply reliability of renewable-dominated new-type power systems.

Sliding Mode Observer-Based Phase-Locking Strategy for Current Source Inverter in Weak Grids

The current source inverter (CSI) has become the main grid-connected interface of distributed generation systems due to its advantages, such as boost capability, current controllability, and short-circuit protection capability. However, in weak grids, the grid-connected CSI that uses a phase-locked loop to achieve grid voltage synchronization has problems, such as instability in the fundamental positive-sequence voltage phase detection at the point of common coupling and instability in the current loop control, which seriously hamper the promotion and application of the CSI and its interconnected systems. For this reason, this paper proposes a sliding mode observer-based phase-locking strategy for the CSI. The strategy proposes a sliding mode observer for grid voltage phase detection, so that the grid current can directly follow the grid voltage, solving the problem of inconsistency or distortion between the voltage phase of the point of common coupling and the grid voltage phase in weak grids. On this basis, the grid impedance is regarded as part of the CL filter, and a robust parameter design method is proposed for the grid current closed-loop control in weak grids, which achieves robust operation of a CSI in weak grids. Finally, an experimental platform for a single-phase grid-connected CSI is built to verify the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed scheme.

Impedance modeling and quantitative stability analysis of grid-connected voltage source converters under complex unbalanced conditions

The stability issues caused by voltage source converters (VSCs), which are commonly used in renewable energy systems, are investigated in this paper. Much literature has investigated the impedance models and quantitative stability analysis for converters under the weak and unbalanced grid. However, on the one hand, harmonic-transfer-function (HTF)-based modeling methods are complex, and the established infinite-order models may suffer from unreasonable truncation. On the other hand, these existing impedance models without considering all unbalance factors are inaccurate. Both of these may bring wrong stability analysis results. Therefore, this paper proposes a simple impedance extension method and considers all unbalance factors to derive the impedance model of the converter. However, due to the established higher-order impedance model, the traditional impedance-ratio based stability analysis method is not applicable to multi-input multi-output (MIMO) systems. The commonly used eigenvalue-based GNC and diagonalization-based methods applicable to MIMO systems are cumbersome and not suitable for quantitative analysis. Therefore, in this paper, a quantitative analysis tool of system stability based on the phase-frequency characteristics of determinants is developed. Then, stability regions in the multi-parameter space are obtained. Finally, the established impedance model and the quantitative analysis results are validated via both simulations and hardware experiments.© 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Optimal control of a doubly fed induction generator of a wind turbine in cooperation with weak and rigid grids

In this article a control method for a rotor side converter (RSC) of a doubly fed induction generator of a wind turbine is developed. The doubly-fed induction generator (DFIG) system of a wind energy power plant that improves grid symmetrization was applied. The issue of optimal control was treated as an extended linear quadratic regulator (ELQR) having an extra set of exogenous inputs, which are source voltages of the electric grid. No additional knowledge of equations modelling the exogenous inputs was assumed. The proposed method is much more efficient than the currently available linear quadratic control methods. The control objective for a weak grid was to maintain the given value of the voltage module on load terminals and the given value of active power transferred from the stator’s winding. First harmonic components of relevant waveforms were used for this purpose. This task also required the DFIG system to provide reactive power to the grid. In the case of a rigid grid, this reactive power would be too high. Therefore, in this case, it was assumed that the system would supply only part of the required active and reactive power, based on its capabilities. It was required that the voltage and current ratings of the system, mainly the DFIG, were not exceeded. Therefore, the parameters of the network in these difficult failure cases were corrected only partially. The behaviour of the grid in the conditions of failure, as well as the return to the steady state after failure disappearance, were studied.

Improved scheme of grid-connected inverters based on virtual PCC and impedance remodeling with enhanced steady-state and dynamic performance

The issue of low-frequency oscillation (LFO) becomes more prominent when considering the phase-locked loop (PLL) impact of grid-connected inverter (GCI) under weak grid. Impedance analysis shows that the frequency interaction point outside the capacitive negative damping region can effectively avoid the oscillation. Therefore, a modified PLL scheme is designed to shape the characteristics of the GCI output impedances, which effectively tracks the grid phase through the virtual point of common coupling and adjusts the phase- frequency characteristic of the GCI equivalent output impedance towards an increasing phase angle. On this basis, the impedance remodeling strategy is used to improve the system, which further broadens the feasible range of stable operation and ensures the phase margin of the GCI. The comparison results indicate that proposed scheme demonstrates enhanced capability in suppressing LFO and exhibits a wider range of adaptability to grid impedance. Experimental validation has verified the accuracy of the theoretical analysis, leading to the conclusion that the GCI with proposed scheme possesses superior dynamic performance.

Improved MSTOGI-PLL with enhanced control under non-ideal grid voltage conditions

Integration structure of second- and third-order generalized integrator phase-locking loop (MSTOGI-PLL) has received attention for the processing ability of harmonics and DC bias contained in grid voltage. However, due to that MSTOGI-PLL is sensitive to interharmonics and subharmonics, once low order harmonics dominate, the narrow bandwidth will result in slow response. Hence, based on the analysis on input and output frequency characteristics of existing MSTOGI, a frequency gain structure within the MSTOGI structure is added to improve the suppression ability, either to low-frequency or high-frequency harmonics. Secondly, in order to accelerate response and reduce overshoot of the output frequency of the phase-locked loop (PLL), a nonlinear PI dynamic regulator based on a hyperbolic threshold function is constructed. Furthermore, from the perspectives of voltage phase and frequency tracking error indicators, by comparing with three other types of PLL structures in weak grid application, the effectiveness of the proposed method is verified through simulation cases. Finally, a physical hardware platform based on dSPACE1104 is built to extract the grid voltage from the three-phase voltage regulating transformer, the theoretical derivation and simulation results are verified. The phase deviation is controlled within 0.44 rad s-1, and frequency deviation is controlled within 0.07 Hz.

A new model reduction method based PBC control for grid-connected inverter with LCL-filter

Passivity-based control (PBC) exhibits robustness against parameters shift, providing a substantial level of stability. However, for the LCL-filtered grid-connected inverter (GCI), the conventional PBC (called C-PBC) controller has a narrow control bandwidth due to the control time delay, resulting in poor dynamic performance, especially in the weak grid state. This paper proposes a new PBC (called P-PBC) method to increase the closed-loop bandwidth of the system by setting an appropriate feedback proportional coefficient between the grid-side current and the inverter-side current. By extending the closed-loop bandwidth of the system, the proposed P-PBC method offers improved dynamic performance, particularly in challenging grid conditions. In addition, a state observer is also employed to reduce sensors, which saves costs and enhances the system's reliability. A 110 V/50 Hz/3 kW/3-phase experimental setup has been developed using the dSPACE DS1202 platform to validate the effectiveness of the proposed control method.

Robust higher order sliding mode control of grid‐forming converters with LCL filter in weak grid scenarios for fast frequency support

AbstractThis paper presents a nonlinear higher‐order sliding mode control (HO‐SMC) designed for a droop control‐based grid‐forming converter. In weak grid scenarios, where the rate of change of frequency is notably high, achieving a rapid frequency response becomes imperative. The stable operation of a grid‐forming converter using droop control, coupled with classical vector control that employs cascaded voltage and current loops (multiloop) with PI controllers, faces limitations when higher droop coefficients are applied. This constraint on the application of classical vector control in weak grid conditions necessitates alternative solutions. Operating as a grid‐forming converter, the grid‐connected converter with an LCL filter represents a second‐order system. HO‐SMC mitigates the switching challenges associated with conventional SMC by integrating robust feedback linearized control. A graphical method is proposed for designing the switching gain using Lyapunov's direct method to counteract the impact of a matched disturbance. The study demonstrates that the implementation of HO‐SMC in the grid‐forming converter enhances fast frequency response by increasing the gain margin of the power frequency loop. Finally, it is illustrated that the proposed control method also improves the transient response of the converter.

Virtual impedance optimization control strategy for wind turbine grid-forming converters in weak grid

Abstract Grid forming(GFM) technology is key to the effective consumption and grid-friendly integration of large-scale wind power. However, as the new type of power system sees a high penetration of new energy sources and a decrease in circuit capacity, leading to systems exhibiting weak grid characteristics, this paper studies the adaptive characteristics of grid-forming wind turbine converters under weak grid conditions. It investigates the dynamic relationship between power coupling characteristics and the system impedance ratio based on the virtual impedance method and proposes an impedance optimization method to improve the power decoupling accuracy and dynamic response capability of grid-forming converters. The research results show that the grid-forming controller can operate stably under weak grid conditions, an increase in grid impedance ratio leads to stronger power coupling intensity, and the voltage support capability of grid-forming converters weakens. The simulation verifies that the virtual impedance optimization strategy proposed in this paper can effectively improve the power coupling characteristics of the grid-forming converter and enhance the converter’s dynamic response performance under weak grid conditions.

A Novel VSG with Adaptive Virtual Inertia and Adaptive Damping Coefficient to Improve Transient Frequency Response of Microgrids

This paper proposes a combined adaptive virtual Inertia and adaptive damping control of a virtual synchronous generator (AID-VSG) to improve the dynamic frequency response of microgrids. In the proposed control scheme, the VSG’s virtual inertia and damping coefficients adapt themselves during the transients to, respectively, reduce frequency deviations and increase the oscillations’ damping. In addition, as an important feature, the proposed AID-VSG is suitable for distributed control scheme applications and is designed to not rely on phase-locked loop (PLL) measurements, which avoids PLL stability issues on weak grids. The control parameters of the proposed AID-VSG are tuned by the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm to minimize the overshoot and settling time of the microgrid’s frequency during an islanding event. The AID-VSG is validated by a comparative analysis with three existing VSG control schemes, also tuned by the stated optimization algorithm. The performance of each compared VSG strategy is evaluated through the simulation of a set of 10,000 initial conditions, using the islanded microgrid’s nonlinear model. The best response among the VSG strategies was achieved by the proposed AID-VSG control for both the optimization problem and the set of initial conditions’ simulations.