Power Flow Control of a Distributed Generation

Unit in Micro-grid
Yong Xue1, Jiamei Deng2, and Shuangbao Ma3
1, 3 College of Electronic Information Engineering, Wuhan University of Science and Engineering, 430073, P. R. China
2 Department of Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering, Loughborough University, UK

Abstract-Distributed generation units in micro-grid can be penetration levels [1], where penetration is dened as the
connected to utility grid as alternative energy sources besides percentage of DG power in total load power in the system. A DG
providing power to their local loads. The distributed generation unit affects the system stability by generating or consuming
units are interfaced with utility grid using inverter. With inverter active and reactive power. Therefore, power control
control, both active and reactive power pumped into the utility performance of the DG unit determines its impact on the utility
grid from the distributed generation units can be controlled. grid it connects to. If the power control performance is good, the
Reactive power ow control allows the distributed generation units DG unit can be used as means to enhance the system stability
to be used as static var compensation units besides energy sources. and improve power quality; otherwise it could undermine the
This paper has presented a power ow control approach for a DG system stability.
unit in micro-grid. The proposed approach achieves decoupled P Control issues of the DG unit in micro-grid have been
and Q control under grid-connected mode, an integral approach to addressed by a number of researches. Some past researches on
conduct the power ow control has been developed to control P by line interactive inverters [2]–[6] only concentrate on current
adjusting the power angle and control Q by adjusting the filter waveform control where power control is not considered.
capacitor voltage. This paper has described control system Although current waveform control is one of the goals of the
algorithm for the proposed power controller. Simulation and inverter control, power control performance must be addressed
experiment results have demonstrated strong P and Q regulation before it can be practically connected to any power system.
capability, fast enough response, and purely sinusoidal line Liang et al. [7] have presented a power control method for a
current. grid-connected voltage source inverter which achieves good P Q
decoupling and fast power response. However, this approach
I. INTRODUCTION requires knowledge of the value of power system equivalent
impedance, which is impractical. Even though the possible error
Power quality, safety and environmental concerns and
in the power factor angle of the impedance has been considered,
commercial incentives are making alternative energy sources,
it is the magnitude of the impedance that truly causes the
e.g., photovoltaic devices, wind power, fuel cells, and gas-red
sensitivity of P and Q responses, which is however not
micro-turbines, more desirable. Micro-grid is comprised of
addressed. Therefore, the effectiveness of the control approach
several alternative energy sources. They are connected in
claimed in [7] is undermined.
addition to the main power grid and are placed on the site that is
to use for the local load. That is it is connected to the low voltage II. THE POWER FLOW CONTROL SYSTEM
distribution network through power electronics. Micro-grid is
The proposed control solution is developed for a DG unit in
being applied and focused increasingly due to the fact that
micro-grid under grid-connected mode shown in Fig. 1. The DG
conventional electric power systems are being more and more
unit consists of a DC bus powered by any DC source or AC
stressed by expanding power demand, limit of power delivery
source with a rectier, a voltage source inverter, an LCL lter
capability, complications in building new transmission lines,
stage, a isolation transformer with secondary side ltering. The
and blackouts. A distributed generation (DG) unit in micro-grid
utility protection switch Su is governed by a local utility, while
is important element to maintain the balance between load and
the inverter interactive switch Si is governed by the the DG unit.
generated power, and to guarantee the quality of supply on an
When the grid power is normal, the utility protection switch Su
acceptable level. Developments in power electronics and digital
and the inverter interactive switch Si are all in ON state. The
control technology are providing more possibility and better
utility grid is modeled as an equivalent three-phase AC source
exibility of using these new sources in conventional electric
with an equivalent internal impedance.
power systems, to not only increase electric energy production
Under grid-connected mode, the DG unit conducts power
but also help to enhance the power system stability via power
control, where the output active power P and reactive power Q
ow control.
from the DG unit to the utility grid should be regulated to
Previous research results have shown that DG could have
desired values Pref and Qref . Both Pref and Qref can be positive
signicant impacts on transmission system stability at heavy

嘋,((( 2122 ,3(0&

 Lf Lg Si Su

Io
T1 T3
D1 D3

Cf Emer-
DC Vcf gency Vs AC Vs
C Load
Vdc

T2 T4
D2 D4

1:1
Fig. 1. Single-phase grid-connected DG unit
∂Q / ∂δ = (Vcf Vs sin δ ) / X (5)
or negative, which provides possibility for the DG unit to help ∂Q / ∂Vcf = (2Vcf − Vs cos δ ) / X (6)
with the energy production and stability enhancement of the
power system or sustain power supply to local load when it
exceeds the capacity of the DG. The control goal of power When δ is small which is true for large capacity power
regulation is stability, low static error, and fast response. systems, ∂P / ∂δ is close to Vs (Vcf / X ) and ∂P / ∂Vcf is
Since the DG unit uses a voltage source inverter, its output
active and reactive power are determined by the unit’s output close to 0 and reversely, ∂Q / ∂δ is close to 0 and ∂Q / ∂Vcf is
voltage, including magnitude and phase angle, as stated in close to (2Vcf − Vs ) / X .
This fact indicates that P is more sensitive to  and Q is more
P = Vs (Vcf sin δ / X ) (1)
sensitive to Vcf especially when the DG unit is connected to a
Q = (Vcf2 − Vcf Vs cos δ ) / X (2) large capacity system where the power angle  is usually small.
The different levels of sensitivity of P and Q to  and Vcf
where Vs is the equivalent main voltage, X is the equivalent line provide a chance to control P and Q relatively independently,
reactance where the resistance is ignored, and  is the power not completely independently though.
angle - the phase angle difference between phase angle Based on the above analysis, an integral approach to conduct
associated Vs and phase angle associated Vcf. the power ow control can be developed to control P by
Since the DG unit output voltage control already exists, the adjusting  and control Q by adjusting Vcf. If the phase angle
task of the power controller is to generate voltage command for associated to the system voltage Vs is assumed to be 0,  is the
the voltage controller based on the desired power values Pref phase angle associated to Vcf. The voltage and phase angle
and Qref and actual values P and Q. references can be generated as
It is apparent that the desired DG output voltage V and the
power angle  can be calculated from (1) and (2) given desired P δ ref = δ 0 + ³ K p ( Pref − P)dt (7)
and Q values and system parameter X. If this is true, the power
control problem is solved. However, in practical systems, the Vref = V0 + ³ K q (Qref − Q)dt (8)
above approach is not feasible. A large capacity power system is where δ 0 and V0 are the initial voltage and phase angle at the
assumed in this research, where the value of X must be small.
moment that the DG unit is connected to the grid from island
Practically, the value of X cannot be precisely known and may
running mode.
change due to the operation of the power system. Once an
The proposed power controller is illustrated in Fig. 2. The P
inaccurate value of X is used in the control, the error of X will
and Q control loop regulate active power and reactive power
lead to poor tracking and even instability. Therefore, power
slowly in the frequency domain, while the voltage control loop
control solutions requiring knowledge of X cannot be practically
controls the filter capacitor voltage in the time domain. In Fig. 2
used.
δ s is the phase angle associated to the system voltage Vs, it is
It can be observed from (1) and (2) that both P and Q will be
generated by a PLL (phase-locked loop) circuit. The resultant
affected by only adjusting one of V and ¥, which is so called
phase angle summation ( δ ref + δ s ) is sent to the augment for a
coupling between P and Q. However, variations of V and  have
sine function.
different levels of impact on P and Q as described in the
In the proposed power regulation approach, P and Q controls
following partial derivatives
are decoupled under steady state due to the integration of the
errors. However, in the transient, the P and Q coupling cannot be
∂P / ∂δ = Vs (Vcf cos δ / X ) (3) eliminated. Both P and Q are nonlinear function of Vcf and .
∂P / ∂Vcf = Vs (sin δ / X ) (4) Due to the coupling and nonlinearity, the stability of the power
control must be investigated.

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 Fig. 2. Control system block diagram for the proposed power controller
.
δ = K p ( Pref − VsVcf δ / X ) (9)
4000 .
P(t)
Q(t)
V cf = K q (Qref − Vcf (Vcf − Vs ) / X ) (10)
3000
The stability of the power loop can be evaluated using
2000
Lyapunov’s direct method where there is no external excitation,
1000 i.e., Pref= 0 and Qref= 0.
P&Q(W/Var)

A Lyapunov function can be defined as

0
1 1
ξ (Vcf , δ ) = (Vcf − Vs ) 2 + δ 2 (11)
-1000 2 2
-2000
The derivative of the above function is
. . .
-3000
ξ (Vcf , δ ) = Vcf䯴 Vcf − Vs ) + δ δ
-4000 = − K qVcf䯴 Vcf − Vs ) 2 / X − K p δ 2Vcf Vs / X (12)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Time(s)
•
From (12), it can be observed that ξ (Vcf , δ ) < 0 holds when
Fig. 3. Simulation waveforms for P, Q regulation (Vcf-Vs) ≠ 0 and  ≠ 0 , given positive values of
K p , K q , Vcf , Vs and X. therefore the proposed power control
loop is stable.
3500

III. SIMULATION AND EXPERIMENT RESULTS

3000
Simulations have been run on a 5kVA DG unit with a
topology shown in Fig. 1 connected to a 220V line-to-neutral
2500
power system with an equivalent reactance 1.
Under grid-connected mode, P and Q output to the utility grid
P(W)

2000
need to be controlled for system stabilizing, compensation, or
handling local load disturbances. Fig. 3 illustrates the P and Q
1500
regulation under various step references. It can be observed
from Fig. 3 that the settling time is about 0.5 sec. for P response
1000
and 0.2 sec. Even though some minor coupling between P and Q
is seen in the transients, the steady state decoupling is achieved
500
2 3 4 5
Time(s)
6 7 8 with the control.
To verify proposed power ow control of a DG unit, an
experimental inverter system has been established as shown in
Fig. 4. Experimental waveforms for P regulation Fig. 1. The control algorithm for the experimental system is
implemented fully digitally as shown in Fig. 2. The rated input
Assuming large capacity power system with small power line-line voltage from the solar-cell array is 280V. The output of
angle , it is reasonable to have sin δ ≈ δ and cos δ ≈ 1 , the inverter is connected to the grid and emergency load. The
Equation (7) and (8) can be rewritten in differential format normal grid voltage is 220V and grid frequency is 50Hz. The

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switching frequency is 20KHz. The rated output power is 5KW.
Fig. 4 shows the experimental waveforms for P regulation.

IV. CONCLUSION
This paper has presented a power ow control approach for a
DG unit in micro-grid. The proposed approach achieves
decoupled P and Q control under grid-connected mode.
Simulation and experiment results have demonstrated strong P
and Q regulation capability, fast enough response, and purely
sinusoidal line current. The stability of the power control loop is
proved using Lyapunov direct method.

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