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Control of power converters for microgrids

Ionel Vechiu (ESTIA‐Recherche, Technopôle Izarbel, Bidart, France)
Octavian Curea (ESTIA‐Recherche, Technopôle Izarbel, Bidart, France)
Alvaro Llaria (ESTIA‐Recherche, Technopôle Izarbel, Bidart, France and UPV/EHU, University of the Basque Country, Leioa, Spain)
Haritza Camblong (ESTIA‐Recherche, Technopôle Izarbel, Bidart, France and UPV/EHU, University of the Basque Country, Leioa, Spain)
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Abstract

Purpose

Nowadays, distributed generation and microgrids (MGs) are becoming an important research line because of their peculiar characteristics. MGs are composed of small power sources which can be renewable, placed near customer sites. Moreover, they have the inherent property of islanding: the disconnection of either the MG from the main grid or a part of a MG from the rest of the MG. The purpose of this paper is to study two different control strategies allowing grid connected and islanding operation of the MG.

Design/methodology/approach

In this paper, the behaviour of a particular MG during grid connected and islanding operation is investigated. The studied MG is based on different energy sources: a wind turbine, a photovoltaic array, a backup diesel generator and a storage system. The renewable sources and the storage system are connected on a DC bus which is interconnected with a main grid through a voltage source inverter (VSI). The attention focuses on the control technique of the VSI during grid connected and islanding operation of the MG. The behaviour of the AC signals on the point of common coupling between the MG and the main grid as well as the DC signals on the DC bus on which are connected renewable energy sources of the MG has been investigated by simulation using a MATLAB/Simulink model.

Findings

For the investigated MG, the simulation results show that using a single master VSI and classical control strategies, it is possible to have a good power quality on the MG during grid connection and islanding operation.

Originality/value

This paper investigates the behaviour of a particular MG in order to analyse two different control strategies allowing grid connected and islanding operation.

Keywords

Citation

Vechiu, I., Curea, O., Llaria, A. and Camblong, H. (2011), "Control of power converters for microgrids", COMPEL - The international journal for computation and mathematics in electrical and electronic engineering, Vol. 30 No. 1, pp. 300-309. https://doi.org/10.1108/03321641111091575

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2011, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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