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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS 1

New Family of Microgrid Control and Management

Strategies in Smart Distribution Grids—Analysis,
Comparison and Testing
Mahdi Ashabani and Yasser Abdel-rady I. Mohamed, Senior Member, IEEE

Abstract—This paper presents a new family of comprehen- q-axis current preset.

sive control and management strategies for microgrids in smart
distribution grids. The paper also provides a general and compu- Voltage amplitude of VSC.
tationally-efficient framework for modeling and analysis of power
management strategies in a microgrid with multiple-distributed Local load bus voltage amplitude.
generation (DG) units which facilities microgrid dynamic studies Feedback voltage amplitude.
and controller parameters selection in large microgrids with
multiple DG units. Three different approaches for real and reac- Voltage reference.
tive power management are proposed. The controllers offer the
following advantages: 1) the proposed topologies can be applied to Voltage drooping preset value.
both voltage-controlled (VC) and current controlled (CC) voltage Voltage frequency.
source converters (VSCs). 2) The controllers are universal and
realize requirements of both grid-connected and islanded modes, Frequency drooping preset value.
i.e., they share real and reactive power during islanding and act
as grid supporting VSCs in the grid connected mode. 3) The DG load angle.
drooping variables can be either power or current, thus VC-power
DG voltage angle.
drooping, VC-current drooping and CC-power drooping are
different available variants. 4) The concept of hybrid polar-vector Frequency loop preset value.
control is developed in this paper. Thus, it can combine the
benefits of both types of controllers in one augmented strategy. 5) d-q voltage components of VSC.
The controller emulates the behavior of conventional synchronous
generators (SGs) which in turn results in better integration of Three-phase voltages of the output filter.
electronically-interfaced DG units into the power system and d-q voltage components of VSC’s filter.
prevents instabilities due to interaction of fast response DGs and
SGs. 6) The controllers realize seamless and robust transition to Controller commands for d-q voltage components.
islanding mode. The controllers are developed under the concept
of synchronous converters. A theoretical analysis and simulation d-q current components of VSC.
results show that the proposed controllers yield the aforemen- Controller commands of d-q current components.
tioned requirements in one compact structure.
Index Terms—Control topology, microgrid, power management, Frequency vs. power drooping slope.
smart grid, voltage source converter. Voltage drooping slope.

NOMENCLATURE DG connecting filter resistance.

Real power. DG connecting filter reactance.
Reactive power. Reactive power vs. voltage slope constant.
Real power preset. Line reactance.
Reactive power preset. Line resistance.
d-axis current preset. Total connecting reactance.
Total connecting resistance.
Manuscript received July 07, 2013; revised November 12, 2013, January 02, Power/current vs. angle slope constant.
2014, and February 09, 2014; accepted February 10, 2014. Paper no. TPWRS-
00875-2013. Power/current vs. frequency slope constant.
The authors are with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G2V4 Canada (e-mail: ashabani@ual- Voltage regulation loop integrator gain.
berta.ca; yasser_rady@ieee.org).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online Number of units in an MG.
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Total reflected local load impedance.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRS.2014.2306016

0885-8950 © 2014 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
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2 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS

Conductance between DGs and . and employing a virtual impedance loop is to mimic the SG’s
equivalent impedance. However, a PLL is necessary during
Suseptance between DGs and .
steady-state which may deteriorate system stability and does
not allow the controller to yield the self-synchronization ability
similar to [5] and [9]. The virtual inertia of an SG’s rotor
I. INTRODUCTION and power sharing are simultaneously achieved in [12] by a
modified droop control by adding an extra derivative term to
the conventional droop. In [13], the dynamic behavior of an

A CCORDING to the IEEE Standard 1547.4-2011, an ef-

fective approach to control and manage smart distribution
grids is to divide them into a set of microgrids (MGs) [1]. The
SG’s rotor is emulated by proper dc-link voltage regulation and
in fact grid views the dc-link capacitor as a virtual rotor. One
major advantage of controlling VSCs to behave as SGs is the
best approach to integrate DG into power grids is to group DG elimination of the PLL because of the existence of damping
units and loads into some clusters forming MGs, and hierarchi- power which provides self-synchronization ability [5], [9],
cally manage them. An MG has three states of operation, namely [13]. Other techniques have been reported in [14] to make the
grid connected, islanded modes and transitions between them. conventional vector control react similar to SGs. Obviously,
To prevent any risk during maintenance, islanding operation power converters with SGs characteristics are key components
of MGs is not still allowed in many countries; however, con- in the development of future smart grid.
siderable benefits like consistent supply of critical local loads Several works have been reported in the literature for MG
and higher reliability makes the islanding operation of MGs a operation in either grid connected [15]–[20] or islanded mode
mandatory demand in the near future. The MG concept facili- [18]–[32]. A good survey is presented in [33]. The most adopted
tates smart distribution grid management by coordination of in- approach in the literature for the power management of an is-
dividual MGs. landed MG is the frequency and voltage drooping to realize ac-
Grid connected converters are categorized as three main curate real and reactive sharing to deploy the maximum capacity
groups, namely, grid-forming, grid-feeding and grid-supporting of DG units and avoid the circulating current without commu-
voltage-source converters (VSCs) [2]. Grid forming VSCs nication links. VPD/FQB droop method [20], adjustable load
act as ac voltage sources to generate the voltage reference sharing [21], adaptive droop gain [22], virtual frame transforma-
with low equivalent output impedance. There are serious tion [23]–[25] and virtual output impedance [26], [27] are var-
drawbacks related to the grid forming VSCs such as lack of ious variants. Feeder-flow strategy has been developed in [28]
inherent current limitation, considerable coupling between to enhance power sharing accuracy. Reference [29] introduces a
real and reactive powers, and poor synchronization process unified control structure appropriate for both operational modes.
with the grid due to low output impedance [2] which makes Robust droop control method has been expressed in [30] to com-
them unsuitable candidates for the grid-connected mode. Since pensate for system uncertainties. All the droop control methods
grid-feeding VSCs inject the - and -axis preset currents and cause a deviation between the output frequency of a DG unit
show current source behaviors with high parallel impedance, and the grid, thus these methods, in their original versions, can
most of grid-connected VSCs are of this type. However, the be only applied to an islanded MG [19]. Moreover, the droop
grid-feeding strategy causes voltage and frequency distortion control is mainly effective for inductive lines with equal per
and even instability during; therefore, it cannot guarantee unit impedances [23]. Therefore, in low-voltage resistive lines,
satisfactory peformance for islanding operation [3]. An al- poor power sharing is expected. To eliminate frequency drop,
ternative is to use hybrid current-controlled (CC)-VSC and the angle droop method is proposed in [31] and [32]. However,
voltage-controlled (VC)-VSC by switching between them it needs a common clock in the MG to synchronize various units
strategies subsequent to change of mode of operation. [31] which in turn necessitates communication infrastructure
The conventional VSC control approach for realizing the and also adjustment of the angle reference is complex. To elim-
aforementioned strategies is the well-known vector control inate the need for a general clock and improve dynamic perfor-
methodology [4]. The main related concerns are possible insta- mance and power sharing accuracy, the concept of cooperative
bilities due to phase locked loop (PLL) and its interaction with angle-frequency droop is reported in [34]. However, it still suf-
the controller during contingencies and grid synchronization fers from complex angle-reference tuning. Droop control is con-
[5], interaction with conventional synchronous generators sidered as a common method for power management of MGs.
(SGs) due to their different characteristics and response speed, In [16], the theory of power management of MGs is extensively
instability in weak grids [6], [7], and unknown frequency and discussed. However, there are some questions about its opera-
angle dynamics. To overcome these difficulties, novel control tion and practicability for both modes of operation as CC-VSC
strategies have been recently developed for control of VSCs may cause instability in islanding [3]. Also, its performance and
in polar coordinates mainly to mimic SGs behavior in VSCs operation in both modes have not been clearly addressed. Refer-
[5], [8]–[13]. The “synchronverter” strategy proposed in [9] is ence [21] extends the technique of [16] using the concept of cur-
mainly developed for a grid-connected VSC and its character- rent sharing but it is still a current-controlled strategy and cannot
istics in the islanding operation are not investigated. Moreover, ensure voltage regulation in the islanded mode which may lead
the current limitation and regulation, and dc-link dynamics are to poor performance and instability [18]. The MG hierarchical
not taken into account during controller design. The back-EMF management structure is proposed in [19] in which the droop
generation of SGs is emulated in [11] by redesigning the PLL control and inner current regulation loops are implemented in
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ASHABANI AND MOHAMED: NEW FAMILY OF MICROGRID CONTROL AND MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES 3

sharing is investigated by the study of power-flow in Fig. 1. The

power-flow of th unit is expressed by the well-known equations

(1)

Fig. 1. Typical two-DG microgrid.

(2)

the primary level and frequency and voltage restoration are em- The main assumptions in the conventional control methods are
bedded in the second level. These confirm necessity for a new that the load angle is small and the line is inductive. In this
family of controllers-managers for the VSCs in smart grids. case, the real power is controllable through the load angle
This paper introduces a new family of universal control and reactive power is regulated by the voltage amplitude. The
topologies which can fulfill typical MG operation requirements method which is usually employed for the power sharing is to
in the smart grid environment via the concept of synchronous drop frequency as a function of the real power and drop voltage
converter. This work expands the work reported in [7], [13], amplitude proportional to the reactive power. The and
and [34] to provide a framework for the next generation of droop controls are addressed as
MG controllers in smart grids with SGs characteristics. The
(3)
controllers offer the following advantages as compared to [7],
and [13], [34]: they present a comprehensive set of topolo- (4)
gies giving wide variety of choices and combinations for a
where and are the average real and reactive powers,
designer whereas both CC-VSC and VC-VSC characteristics
respectively, which are adopted instead of their instantaneous
are available; operate seamlessly in both operational modes
values to eliminate VSC switching effects and avoid interfer-
without a need for reconfiguration and islanding detection;
ence between power and current loops using a low-pass filter
offer steady-state rated frequency operation; and emulate SGs
and are expressed by
dynamic behavior while eliminating the PLL. The drooping
variables can be either current or power providing either current (5)
or power management. A novel controller topology is proposed
in which current sharing-management, current regulation, (6)
current limitation, mimicking SGs’ behavior are integrated in
one compact and neat structure. Moreover, hybrid voltage- and Since the goal of power sharing is to minimize the circulating
current-source based operation is also possible as the controller current among DG units, an alternative is to use current compo-
can generate preset voltage amplitude and current components, nents as drooping variables and consequently apply direct cur-
simultaneously. The concept of hybrid polar-vector control is rent sharing instead of conventional power sharing. Toward this,
proposed in this paper. The controllers do not need complicated if (1)–(2) are presented in the - frame, the following equations
angle reference tuning similar to [7]. Moreover, [7], [13], and are derived
[34] do not deal with the reactive power management and
voltage control of MGs. Furthermore, this paper also provides a (7)
general and computationally-efficient framework for modeling (8)
and analysis of power management strategies in an MG with
which in steady-state are simplified to
multiple DG units, which facilities MG dynamic studies in
large MGs with multiple DG units. (9)
(10)
II. LOAD SHARING IN MICROGRIDS
This means that real and reactive powers are proportional and
Fig. 1 shows a typical MG including two DG units, local
controllable through and , respectively. Therefore, and
loads and common load connected at the point of common cou-
can be replaced with and to realize a direct current sharing
pling (PCC). The MG is connected to the utility grid at the PCC
and control. The governing equations in this case are
through a static switch. If the static switch is closed, the MG
is in the grid-connected mode whereas if it is opened, an is- (11)
landed MG is formed. To improve system reliability and guar-
(12)
antee continuous power supply of the critical and sensitive local
loads, the islanding operation of MGs is becoming an essential Similar to power sharing, the average current components are
requirement of smart grids [1]. As mentioned earlier, in an is- adopted for drooping, and they are given by
landed MG, it is required that DG units share total power de-
mand among themselves proportional to their power capaci- (13)
ties. In a grid connected mode, a DG unit should generate its
preset power or current. The basic theory of power and current (14)
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4 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS

Equations (11)–(14) realize direct current management-sharing

in an MG whereas (3)–(6) provide power sharing. Although the
power sharing is the common adopted method, designers can
also employ the current sharing as it fulfills direct control and
management over the currents of DG units. Also, the frequency
drooping suffers from some drawbacks such as permanent fre-
quency offset and low stability margin [22]. To compensate the
permanent frequency drop, the angle drooping is recently pro-
posed in [31], [32] which necessitates a general clock and com-
munication links in an MG to synchronize various units [31].

III. PROPOSED STRATEGIES FOR MG MANAGEMENT

In this paper, a new family of management methodologies is

proposed using either current or power sharing which integrates
the requirements of MG operation in one compact structure
called synchronous converter. To determine the output power
requirements, the controller employs independent real/reactive
power control strategies. The output of the power manager can
be either - currents or voltage amplitude and frequency. The
first is a CC-VSC and the latter is a VC-VSC. In the current-con-
trolled VSC, a PLL is required to process the measured currents
and voltages of the DG unit and to estimate the local frequency.
Fig. 2. Proposed topologies with cascaded series frequency-angle drooping. (a)
VC-VSC with power drooping [7] (model-a). (b) CC-VSC with power drooping
A. Real Power Management and Frequency Control (model-b). (c) CC-VSC with current drooping (model-c).

To share real power among DG units, either frequency or load

angle drooping method can be utilized. It was mentioned that
the load angle regulation is the basic tool for power sharing.
An alternative approach to benefit from advantages of both fre-
quency and angle droop methods is to combine them and use as
one unified control method. Fig. 2 represents the proposed hy-
brid droops with connection of angle and frequency droops in
series. It should be noted that the topology shown in Fig. 2(a) is
initially developed in [7] for connection of VSCs to weak grids.
Nevertheless, its characteristics for operation in an MG have not
been studied yet. It has three cascaded loops namely angle, fre-
quency and power loops. The first loop is the frequency loop
in which the reference angle is obtained as a function of the
frequency error. Generated by the angle droop loop, the refer-
ence of the real power loop is obtained. The power loop involves
an integrator which acts as a controller and simultaneously em-
ulates momentum of inertia of a virtual rotor and introduces
some dynamics for frequency. As shown in Fig. 2, the output
of the power controller can be either frequency [Fig. 2(a)] or
-axis reference current [ , Fig. 2(b)]. The first case yields a Fig. 3. Voltage control methodologies. (a) Voltage-controlled constant voltage
VC-VSC whereas the latter yields a CC-VSC. The CC-VSC has bus. (b) Current-controlled constant reactive bus. (c) Voltage-controlled con-
the benefits of current regulation, current limitation and better stant reactive power bus.
current quality due to the existence of a current loop; however,
it is not a suitable choice for an autonomous MG because of lack
of voltage frequency and amplitude regulation which may result deteriorated since there is no current regulation and feedback
in poor voltage profile and even instability whereas it is a good loop.
candidate for a grid connected DG. If a voltage amplitude con- The existence of the current loop allows current shaping, reg-
trol loop is embedded within the reactive power manager, since ulation and limitation simultaneously with very fast response.
voltage regulation is realized in the reactive power manager, it Actually, this is a neat controller which augments many of the
is possible to eliminate the voltage loop and apply the vector MG operational requirements in one compact structure. In spite
voltage directly to the PWM; however current quality may be of this, if the inner current and voltage loops are removed from
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ASHABANI AND MOHAMED: NEW FAMILY OF MICROGRID CONTROL AND MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES 5

Fig. 4. Conventional control strategy.

model-a, current limitation and regulation are missed which P-V to voltage drooping after transition to islanding by setting
may result in very high current injection during severe con- to zero which is not the case in this paper.
tingencies and poor current quality. Otherwise, if inner loops Fig. 3(b) represents a current-controlled constant reactive
are adopted, they may degrade system overall stability and the power bus in which the voltage reference in the outer reactive
response speed. If the output vector voltage is directly applied power regulation loop is adjusted to compensate the reactive
to the VSC, the extra internal voltage and current regulation power error and -axis current component is regulated as a
loops shown in Fig. 2(a) can be eliminated which results in very function of voltage amplitude error. Similar to model-b of
fast response with very high bandwidth. Another major advan- the real power controller, since this topology cannot usually
tage of model-c is that it operates as a current-source-based guarantee voltage regulation within acceptable limits during
VSC with high equivalent parallel impedance which in turn islanding, the current controlled method is mainly applicable to
facilitates smooth grid synchronization [2]. a grid-connected DG unit. Therefore, to realize a CC-VSC con-
trol, topologies shown in Figs. 2(b) and 3(b) should be adopted
B. Reactive Power Management and Voltage Control for the real and reactive power management, respectively.
The proposed topologies are shown in Fig. 3. They consist of To have a voltage-controlled constant- bus, the sequence
sequential voltage and reactive power loops. The model shown of reactive power and voltage loops are reversed in Fig. 3(c).
in Fig. 3(a) provides a constant voltage operation with proper re- Suitable for the grid-connected mode, the constant- bus is not
active power adjustment. Although constant voltage operation appropriate for the autonomous mode and may lead to severe
can be applied to both grid-connected and islanded DG units, it under- or over-voltage and even instability. Moreover, the reac-
is not the common approach for an islanded MG. On the con- tive power sharing is also not fulfilled in an autonomous MG.
trary, the voltage drooping is applicable for both operational In other words, if a DG unit is employed as a constant-Q bus in
modes but it is not an optimal solution for a grid-connected the grid-connected mode, it may suffer from poor voltage regu-
MG since voltage regulation is violated. It is recommended in lation and instability subsequent to islanding. If the integrator is
[9] that for the sake of constant voltage regulation, one DG removed , the proportional gain becomes equal
unit works in constant voltage mode whereas other units should to the voltage drooping constant :
participate in the reactive power sharing. To obtain a general
topology for both modes, the integrator must be eliminated. In (19)
the case of , the characteristics equation is obtained as (20)
(17)

Based on (9)–(10), reactive power is proportional to , so the C. Conventional Control Strategy

-axis current can be utilized for the reactive power control
while current regulation is automatically realized within the re- Fig. 4 shows the conventional MG control strategy. As
active power manager. In this case the static characteristic equa- shown, for the grid-connected mode, the VSC acts as a
tion is current source and generates the preset dq-axis currents
whereas subsequent to islanding, the controller is switched
(18) to voltage-controlled power drooping, therefore an islanding
detection technique is required for the switching action. Also,
If an islanding detection strategy is available within the con- for the grid-connected mode, a PLL is necessary to detect the
troller, the reactive power management can be changed from grid angle and synchronize the VSC to the grid.
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6 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS

TABLE I process for their initial start-up by using a PLL; however,

COMPARISON OF DIFFERENT CONTROL STRATEGIES model-a and model-c can realize self-synchronization with the
grid after initial synchronization without a need for a PLL.

IV. SMALL-SIGNAL ANALYSIS

To analyze the dynamic performance of the proposed con-
trol schemes and optimize their parameters, a set of small-signal
analysis for a grid connected VSC is performed on the systems
shown in Fig. 2(a) and (c) (model-a and model-c). These two
topologies are selected for further studies because of their gener-
ality for both grid-connected and autonomous modes and elim-
ination of PLL in steady state.

A. Model-a With Power Feedback

In this section, small-signal dynamics of model-a is obtained.
The load angle derivative is given by

D. Discussion (21)
The proposed real power management strategies involve The frequency dynamic is governed by
power drooping voltage-controlled (model-a), power drooping
current controlled (model-b) and current drooping voltage-con- (22)
trolled VSC (model-c). For the sake of voltage regulation and
reactive power control, the constant voltage operation, constant Considering (5), the average power derivative is expressed by
reactive power operation and voltage drooping are proposed.
(23)
By the proper combination of real and reactive power control
strategies, current-controlled-based, voltage-controlled-based The voltage dynamic is calculated based on Fig. 3(a) as follows:
and hybrid voltage-current-control-based operation can be ob-
tained. For example, if the current-controlled-based (model-c) (24)
management and constant voltage regulation [Fig. 3(a)] strate-
where
gies are adopted, hybrid current- and voltage-controlled VSC
is realized. Alternatively, polar vector and hybrid polar-vector (25)
control are various available variants as model-a, model-b
and model-c work in polar, vector and hybrid coordinates, and is the perturbation of the feedback voltage. Equation
respectively. The controllers also augment the secondary and (25) is written for the voltage drooping case with . If a con-
primary controllers in one neat compact controller as they stant voltage bus is required, (24) is rewritten as
provide nominal frequency and voltage restoration, and voltage
and current regulation in one topology. Since the model-b is a (26)
current controlled one and cannot guarantee voltage regulation, (27)
it is not commonly a good candidate for the islanding mode and
consequently cannot realize a universal strategy. The power Thus, the new state variable which is the output of the in-
drooping voltage controlled strategy is not able to guarantee tegrator , is introduced to the system. The perturbation of
current limitation and regulation without the inner loops. Inner the real and reactive powers at an operating point is obtained by
current and voltage loops can provide voltage and current linearization of (1) and (2):
regulation and limit the current amplitude during fault and tran- (28)
sients; however they reduce the overall controller bandwidth
(29)
and response speed and may degrade system stability. This
control strategy can work in both modes without controller where the variables and are given by
switching. Model-c can provide current management, regula-
tion and limitation in one compact and neat scheme without the (30)
need to inner loops. It is a hybrid polar-vector controller with
ability to work as both current source-based and hybrid current- (31)
and voltage-source-based controller. The same concept is valid
for the reactive power/voltage controller with inner -axis (32)
current loop [Fig. 3(a)] where voltage and current regulation,
limitation and sharing are achieved simultaneously. Table I (33)
shows a comparison between the characteristics of the proposed
controllers and the conventional control strategy. It should be Equations (21)–(27) along with algebraic equations (28)–(33)
noted that all the proposed controllers need a synchronization present the overall small-signal analysis of the power manager.
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ASHABANI AND MOHAMED: NEW FAMILY OF MICROGRID CONTROL AND MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES 7

Fig. 5. Eigenvalue locus of model-a, (a) . . (b)

. Fig. 6. Eigenvalue locus of model-c, (a) . , (b)
.

Fig. 5 represents the modes of model-a as a function of

and . The fifth pole is not shown here because it appears far Small-signal dynamics of model-c is obtained by linearizing
away from the imaginary axis and has high natural damping. It is these equations around the operating point:
evident that the MG has acceptable stability margin and the most
dominant pole appears away from the imaginary axis. This is
due to existence of extra damping and synchronizing powers in (39)
this topology which provides more damping as compared to the
conventional angle or frequency droop [7], [34]. The dominant
poles are highly dependent on and while poles number (40)
3 and 4 are almost constant.
Fig. 5 reveals that considerable stability margin can be The voltage dynamics are the same as (24)–(27) with the dif-
achieved by the proposed controller. However, by further ference that is replaced with . Thus, (21), (22) and
increment of the system stability margin is drastically (34)–(40) describe the overall small-signal analysis of model-c.
degraded and the dominant mode moves toward the imaginary Fig. 6 shows the loci of system modes as a function of control
axis. parameters. With equivalent drooping constants, the stability
margin in this case is pretty similar to the power drooping case
B. Model-c With Current Feedback and system still presents considerable damping. Mode 3 appears
at the cut-off frequency (200 rad/s) and mode 4 appears near
In this case, the real power management block is modeled by to the cut-off frequency and move toward left by increment of
the following equations: drooping constants. Except two right most modes other modes
are not affected by changing drooping constants. By increasing
(34) , mode 1 moves toward the imaginary axis and mode 2 con-
verges to the cut-off frequency. Modes 3 and 4 are almost con-
According to (13) and (14), it is followed that stant.
(35) C. Small-Signal Analysis of a Multiple-DG MG
(36) To investigate the interactions between VSCs which signif-
icantly influence the frequency and voltage stability, it is of
The following equations relate and to the load angle and high importance to evaluate overall system performance in both
voltage amplitude: grid-connected and islanded MGs. In the following, a small-
signal framework for a multi-DG MG is presented. From power
(37) systems perspective, since most of buses are load ones, mod-
eling the whole system including the load nodes is not helpful
(38) to draw a conclusion about the controllers performance. One
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8 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS

approach is to model passive loads with their impedances and

eliminate these nodes by Kron reduction . In fact, in this case, the
load impedances are transferred to be in parallel to the nearby
VSCs feeding the load by to transformation method and the
grid is modeled by an admittance matrix representing the equiv-
alent admittance between the generation units whereas there is Fig. 7. Parameters of the analyzed two-DG MG system.
no common load node. This allows studying the coupling and
interaction between controllers and generation units. To obtain
an augmented model for the whole MG, VSCs, network and The overall system state-space model consists of the state-space
the grid are combined. In this case, VSCs determine the voltage of all DG units, i.e.,
phasors the network and load models feedback the power where and the vector of other variables
and current to the controller. The governing equations for each are obtained similarly. The overall MG model is expressed by
VSC are the same as (21)–(27), with only difference that the real (45) and (46) at the bottom of the page. Note that for a grid-con-
and reactive powers are given by nected MG, the perturbations of the real and reactive powers,
frequency, voltage and angle of the bus number which
is connected to the grid are set to zero and it is assumed that
(41) they do not have dynamics
.
The proposed model is applied to an islanded MG shown in
Fig. 7. The MG has two DG units and a common load at its PCC.
DG1 is a constant voltage bus whereas DG2 works in voltage
drooping mode, i.e., . The state matrix of has 11
eigenvalues and Fig. 8 shows their locations as three clusters.
Fig. 9 shows the trajectory of the dominant eigenvalues by vari-
(42) ations of and . The oscillatory mode represented
by eigen1, which corresponds to the voltage drooping mode of
DG2 with respect to the electrical system has a relatively low
damping. Thus, it has a detrimental effect on the system per-
formance. Another factor which significantly affects the dom-
inant eigenvalues is . In fact, as shown in Fig. 9(b), all
the eigenvalues except eigen1 are dependent on this parameter.
Actually, for low values of modes 5 and 6 become domi-
The terms and represent the real nant. As shown in Fig. 9(c), eigen2 is mainly influenced by the
and reactive powers absorbed by the equivalent reflected local voltage restoration loop integrator whereas other domi-
load bus, respectively. The term represents the total equiva- nant modes are almost constant.
lent impedance of the local load connected to bus and involves Therefore, satisfactory performance and fast response the can
the reflection of the common loads set to the bus after trans- be achieved without loss of stability.
formation or Kron reduction. The linearized form of (41) and V. SIMULATION STUDIES
(42) around an operating point is
To evaluate the performance of the proposed topologies, the
MG model with the parameters given in Table II and schematic
(43) shown in Fig. 10 (adapted from IEEE Std. 399) is simulated
in MATLAB/SIMULINK environment. The VSCs’ dc-links
are considered as inertia-less ones. In this section, model-a
(44) and model-c are simulated and in each case, three different
scenarios are taken into account. The scenarios include power

(45)

(46)
 This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.

ASHABANI AND MOHAMED: NEW FAMILY OF MICROGRID CONTROL AND MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES 9

Fig. 8. Location of eigenvalues of a two-DG MG using model-a.

Fig. 10. Simulated system.

TABLE II
CONTROLLERS PARAMETERS (SI UNIT)

case that model-c is adopted for DG3, since it generates the

-axis current and the voltage amplitude references, it operates
as a hybrid voltage-current source. Although constant voltage
regulation is missed in the grid-connected mode for DG2 and
DG1, this strategy can realize the reactive power sharing by the
voltage drooping in both modes.

A. Grid-Connected Mode
Fig. 11 shows controllers responses of model-a and model-c
in the grid-connected mode of operation. The system is ini-
Fig. 9. Loci of MG’s eigenvalue as by variations of the reactive power manager tially in the steady-state and at time instant s the con-
parameters, (a) , (b) verter is subjected to a 20% step reduction in the reference
and (c)
. power (model-a) and current (model-c). Fig. 11 shows that both
model-a and model-c properly regulate the real and reactive
powers, and current oscillations are well damped. Model-a of-
set points change in the grid connected mode, frequency varia- fers slightly faster response and system settles within 0.07 s
tion of the grid, transition from to islanding, and disconnection whereas in model-c the settling time is about 0.1 s. The wave-
of DG1. During the autonomous mode, both transient and forms of reactive power and are shown in Figs. 11(c) and
static characteristics are studied. The cascaded voltage-reactive (d), respectively, showing that for the case of model-a, the re-
power loops shown in Fig. 3(a) is adopted for the voltage active powers of DG1 and DG2 before the reference change are
control. It is assumed that DG3 works as a constant voltage bus equal to 720 and 870 MVAr, representing acceptable sharing
and two other DG units are used for reactive power sharing; accuracy. Since DG3 works as a constant voltage bus, it does
therefore, their integrator gains are set to zero. In the not participate in the reactive power sharing. For model-c, the
 This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.

10 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS

Fig. 11. System waveforms subsequent to the reference change, (a) Real power waveforms of model-a, (b) -axis current waveforms of model-c, (c) Reactive
power of model-a, and (d) -axis current of model-c.

Fig. 12. Frequency waveforms subsequent to frequency disturbance in the grid, (a) model-a and (b) model-c.

-axis currents of DG1 and DG2 before the reference change current sharing error in this case is less than 1% which proves
are A and A, representing satisfactory the effectiveness of the proposed current drooping method for
load sharing accuracy. At s, it is supposed a fault oc- the current sharing. In this case, since current sharing and cur-
curs in the main grid and the grid frequency is reduced by 0.5 rent regulation are embedded within the power manager, there
Hz. Fig. 12 depicts frequency variations of DG units during is no need for the inner current and voltage loops as shown in
this disturbance which proves that the system is able to track Fig. 2(a) which provides higher bandwidth. It is also assumed
grid frequency variations without a PLL similar to synchronous that the MG has enough power capacity to supply the local loads
machines. Both models present satisfactory performance sub- after islanding.
sequent to this sudden frequency drop manifesting fault ride The key issue in seamless transition to islanding is elimi-
through capability of these models. Although there is no PLL, nating the need for reconfiguration and elimination of PLL in
the existence of damping and synchronizing power and cur- the controller. In the conventional strategies, the switching from
rent provide self-synchronization capability [7], [34]. Further- the current-controlled mode to the voltage control strategy sub-
more, as it is seen, the frequencies of various DG units in the sequent to islanding and delays related to islanding detection
steady-state are equal; however, they show different transient may result in severe transients. The frequency waveforms are
responses. illustrated in Fig. 14, which clearly confirm that the controllers
are well capable of preserving frequency stability subsequent
B. Islanding Mode to islanding. The frequencies increase from 59.5 Hz to 60 Hz
In this scenario, the static switch is suddenly opened at subsequent to islanding which indicates frequency restoration
s and the MG is disconnected from the utility grid. The real ability of the controller in islanding mode even in the case that
power, -axis current and instantaneous currents are shown in the initial frequency is less than 60 Hz. Note that the frequency
Fig. 13. Both models offer well damped transient characteristics responses of various DG units are very close. On the contrary,
with minimum oscillations. The controller topology and param- in the conventional frequency droop controllers, a permanent
eters are the same before and after islanding and there is no is- frequency offset is expected. The load sharing with frequency
landing detection strategy. As shown, the transients settle down restoration capability provides better power quality which is an
within 0.2 s. The angle drooping coefficient is adjusted important requirement for sensitive loads, and enables more ac-
such that MG presents accurate real power sharing and is ad- curate load sharing without loss of stability.
justed based on the small-signal analysis to achieve satisfactory At s, DG1 is disconnected from the rest of the grid
dynamic performance. In this case, in model-a, the generated and DG2 and DG3 are responsible to supply the MG total load
power of DG1, DG2 and DG3 are equal to 1.67, 2.01 and 1.341 including the load of DG1. As shown in Fig. 15, in model-a, the
MW, respectively, which indicates the power sharing error is real power of DG2 and DG3 are increased to 2.901 and 1.935
less than 0.5%. In model-c, the steady-state values of of DG1, MW within 0.15 s; in model-c the generated -axis currents of
DG2 and DG3 are 310 A, 375 A and 250 A, respectively. The DG2 and DG3 are smoothly increased to 550 A and 371 A,
 This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.

ASHABANI AND MOHAMED: NEW FAMILY OF MICROGRID CONTROL AND MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES 11

Fig. 13. System waveforms subsequent to islanding, (a) Real power waveforms Fig. 15. System waveforms before and subsequent to DG1 disconnection, (a)
of model-a, and (b) -axis current waveforms of model-c. Real power waveforms of model-a, (b) and d-axis current of model-c.

It should be noted that the power flow matching is a necessary

but not sufficient condition for the system stability.

C. Comparison to the Conventional Droop

It was mentioned that in the conventional approach, the cur-
rent source-based VSC is adopted to supply the preset - and
-axis currents to the grid whereas subsequent to islanding, the
voltage-source-based strategy with power sharing capability
is adopted. To compare the performance of the proposed con-
trollers with the conventional control and management policies,
the response of the conventional strategy before, during and
subsequent to an islanding event is studied. The simulated
system is exactly the same as the previous case and it is sup-
posed that in the grid connected mode, the -axis preset currents
are A, A and A,
and the -axis current presets are A,
A and A.
The parameters of the controllers are given in Table III. The
corresponding waveforms of -axis currents and frequencies are
shown in Fig. 16. The DG units generate the preset currents
during grid connected mode. At s the MG is switched
Fig. 14. Frequency waveforms subsequent to islanding, (a) model-a and (b) to the islanding mode and it is also assumed that islanding is
model-c. detected without any delay, therefore at s the controller
is switched from current-source-based to the voltage-source-
based strategy. Fig. 16 shows that although there is no islanding
respectively. In this case, although the connecting impedances detection delay, due to the controller change action, the transi-
of DG units are unequal, both models offer power and current tion to islanding is not seamless and huge spikes and transients
sharing ratio error less than 1%. It should be noted that it as- appear in the current waveforms. In spite of this, the model-c
sumed that DG units have enough capacity to supply the MG provides very seamless transition to islanding without any re-
overall demand after DG1 disconnection because in this case the configuration while it operates as a current-source-based con-
goal is to study transient and steady-state behaviors of the con- troller and realizes the preset current generation in the grid con-
trollers. Available DG capacity is usually guaranteed by a super- nected mode and share current during islanding. Actually, it
visory MG operating center to ensure the power flow matching. presents a hybrid current-voltage source based operation, so it
 This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.

12 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS

cascaded hybrid frequency and angle droop loops so it bene-

fits from advantages of both schemes. The angle and frequency
loops realize power sharing in the autonomous mode while they
present damping and synchronizing power in a grid-connected
MG. There is an extra power loop within the controller emu-
lating dynamic behavior of a synchronous generator rotor and
presents some dynamics for the frequency. Various topologies
including power drooping voltage-controlled, power drooping
current-controlled and current drooping voltage-controlled are
proposed, and their characteristics have been investigated. It
was shown that stable operation, accurate power sharing and
steady-state rated frequency operation can be achieved by the
proposed controller. Some structures for reactive power man-
agement and voltage control of DGs were also developed en-
abling DG units to either work as P-V bus or share reactive
power. A theoretical analysis and simulation results validate the
effectiveness of the proposed controllers under various oper-
ating conditions.

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[23] Y. Li and Y. W. Li, “Power management of inverter interfaced au- in electrical engineering from Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran,
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[24] J. C. Vasquez, J. M. Guerrero, A. Luna, P. Rodriguez, and R. Teodor- at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada.
escu, “Adaptive droop control applied to voltage-source inverters op- His research interests cover many aspects of power engineering including
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tron., vol. 56, pp. 4088–4096, Oct. 2009. netic devices.
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[26] J. M. Guerrero, L. G. D. Vicuna, J. Matas, M. Castilla, and J. Miret, November 25, 1977. He received the B.Sc. (with honors) and M.Sc. degrees in
“Output impedance design of parallel-connected UPS inverters with electrical engineering from Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt, in 2000 and
wireless load-sharing control,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 52, pp. 2004, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the Uni-
1126–1135, Aug. 2005. versity of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada, in 2008.
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IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 55, no. 8, pp. 2845–2859, Aug. 2008. University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada, as an Associate Professor.
[28] S. Ahn et al., “Power-sharing method of multiple distributed generators His research interests include dynamics and controls of power converters;
considering modes and configurations of a microgrid,” IEEE Trans. distributed and renewable generation; microgrids, modeling, analysis and
Power Del., vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 2007–2016, Jul. 2010. control of smart grids; electric machines and motor drives.
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tronically interfaced distributed energy resources,” IEEE Power Del., ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS. He is also a Guest Editor of the IEEE
vol. 27, no. 2, pp. 803–812, Apr. 2012. TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS Special Section on “Distributed
[30] Q.-C. Zhong, “Robust droop controller for accurate proportional load Generation and Microgrids”. His biography is listed in Marque’s Who is Who
sharing among inverters operated in parallel,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Elec- in the World. He is a registered Professional Engineer in the Province of
tron., vol. 60, no. 4, pp. 1281–1290, 2013. Alberta.