Distributed Voltage Control and Load Sharing for Inverter-Interfaced Microdrid with Resistive Lines

This paper proposes a new distributed control method for coordination of distributed energy resources (DERs) in low-voltage resistive microgrids. The proposed framework consists of two level structure; primary and secondary control. Unlike the existing distributed control methods, the proposed method is based upon the practical assumption of resistive network impedance. In this context, a V-I droop mechanism is adopted in the primary control level, where GPS timing is used to synchronize the control agents. A new distributed secondary control method based on consensus protocol is introduced to improve the voltage regulation and load sharing accuracy of the V-I droop method. In this method, the d-axis components of the voltage is altered so as to regulate the average microgrid voltage to the rated value while guarantying proper sharing of active power among the DERs. Additionally, the q-axis component of voltage is adjusted to perform proper current and, accordingly reactive power sharing. The proposed control methodology accounts for the distribution line impedances. It features a plug-and-play environment; prior system knowledge is not required, and an arbitrary DER can enter the microgrid without any need for additional synchronization mechanisms. An AC microgrid is prototyped to experimentally demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed method.