IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 27, NO.
4, NOVEMBER 2012
Autonomous DC Voltage Control of a DC
Microgrid With Multiple Slack Terminals
Dong Chen and Lie Xu, Senior Member, IEEE
AbstractAutonomous DC voltage control for a DC microgrid
with multiple power and slack terminals is studied in this paper.
Slack terminals respond to the generation variation and load step
within a DC microgrid to maintain the DC voltage. The slack
terminals considered here are grid connected VSC and energy
storage systems. A voltage droop based power sharing and coordi-
nation strategy among the slack terminals is proposed for power
smoothing during grid-connected condition and normal operation
during islanding condition. A prototype microgrid with two power
and two slack terminals is established to demonstrate the excellent
operation performance of the proposed control system during
various operating conditions such as power variation, islanding,
and grid reconnection.
Index TermsAutonomous control, DC microgrid, energy
storage, power sharing.
I. INTRODUCTION
D UE to increasing concerns on environmental protection
and sustainable development, renewable energy has at-
tracted extensive interest. As renewable energy sources are usu-
ally dispersed, distributed generation becomes an attractive so-
lution. By connecting distributed generation with local loads
and energy storage, a microgrid is formed [1]. Microgrids can be
generalized into two types, i.e., AC and DC. A variety of studies
have been reported on AC microgrids regarding power sharing
between parallel-connected sources [2][4], islanding operation
[5], [6], protection [7], [8], etc.
A DC system can be designed for developing rural area or
small scale commercial facilities [9] such as a data center [10]
or a residential building [11]. One advantage of DC microgrids
over its AC counterparts is that there is no need for frequency,
phase, or reactive power control. In order to ensure the sta-
bility of a DC system, the power flow within the DC micro-
grid must be balanced at all times to ensure the DC voltage
can be maintained. As renewable generations, such as wind
and photovoltaic power, are obliged to follow the meteorolog-
ical conditions [12], [13], and local loads usually operate on
their own merits, the other controllable sources, e.g., energy
storage, network connected converters etc., must accommodate
their variable demands to balance the power. To achieve this,
a power sharing scheme between controllable sources must
be performed. The power sharing solutions can be generalized
Manuscript received June 27, 2011; revised September 30, 2011 and January
17, 2012; accepted February 24, 2012. Date of publication April 03, 2012; date
of current version October 17, 2012. Paper no. TPWRS-00598-2011.
The authors are with the School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and
Computer Science, Queens University of Belfast, Belfast BT9 5AH, U.K.
(e-mail: dchen02@qub.ac.uk; l.xu@ee.qub.ac.uk).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRS.2012.2189441
0885-8950/$31.00 2012 IEEE
1897
into two types: centrally controlled [14] and autonomously con-
trolled [15][17]. For a centrally controlled architecture, the
operational orders of the consisting converters are given by a
central controller with real-time feedback from controlled ter-
minals. A drawback of such a solution is that communication
delay or failure might undermine its reliability. In addition, any
expansion of the microgrid will result in increased complexity
of the central controller, which might not be economical for
an expandable system with a large number of terminals. The
autonomously controlled solution, however, is based on local
voltage detection and can effectively eliminate circulating cur-
rent [18]. As the DC voltage can be treated as an indicator
of power balancing within a DC grid, the method of voltage
droop has been widely accepted in power sharing schemes for
its reliability and simplicity in implementation. Most of the re-
search conducted on droop control focuses mainly on its perfor-
mance in time domain for constant power sharing; however, fre-
quency-based transient power sharing has rarely been studied.
One extensive application of power sharing is the external
exchange power smoothing. As real power fluctuation is un-
desirable for AC power grid, it is desirable to smooth the ex-
change power before passing it to the AC grid. Energy storage
systems (ESS) based power smoothing techniques have been
widely studied for renewable generation [14], [19], [20]. Such
smoothing scheme usually relies on real-time detection of gen-
erated power, which is feasible for a simple load-free DC gen-
eration system, e.g., single wind turbine. However, for a more
complex DC network with various generation sources and loads,
the power fluctuation may come from any generation source or
load terminal. In this case, the necessity for a fast and reliable
communication path for real-time power detection remains a po-
tential problem. In this paper, a simple strategy of frequency
based autonomous smoothing scheme is proposed for grid side
power exchange.
As a grid connected voltage source converter (G-VSC) is
used to control the active power exchange between DC and
AC sides, the microgrid can still actively harness the power ex-
change within its rating when an AC fault caused voltage dip oc-
curs [21], [22]. For the most severe conditions, a DC microgrid
system can be disconnected (islanded) from an AC grid with
the support of ESS [11], [18] and reconnected when the fault is
cleared. Communication between AC and DC side converters
is usually essential for sending fault/clear signals. However, in
the AC fault-ride-through strategy proposed in this paper, it is
not required.
To incorporate the system control of power sharing and
fault-ride-through, a cooperation strategy is needed. In this
paper, a comprehensive control strategy for DC voltage control
1898
Fig. 1. DC microgrid system configuration.
of a four-terminal DC microgrid is proposed. Embedded with
a novel droop based power sharing scheme, system operation
including exchange power smoothing, AC fault ride-through,
and recovery can be performed autonomously. This paper is
organized as follows. Section II defines the DC microgrid
under investigation and the principle of DC voltage control.
The details of the control strategies under different operation
modes are described in Section III and a frequency response
study based on the proposed power sharing scheme is also
carried out in this section. Experimental results are presented in
Section IV to validate the proposed system control and finally,
Section V draws the conclusions.
II. SYSTEM CONFIGURATION AND OPERATION MODES
A. System Definition
A typical DC microgrid system has four kinds of terminals:
generation, load, ESS, and G-VSC. In this paper, these termi-
nals can be further categorized into two types: power terminal
and slack terminal. Power terminals usually operate on their
own merits and do not actively contribute to system control.
Typical power terminals are variable generations such as wind
and photovoltaic systems which normally operate at maximum
power point tracking (MPPT) according to weather conditions,
and variable load. On the other hand, slack terminals are con-
trolled to accommodate the power variation coming from the
power terminals and maintain a stable system operation with
limited DC voltage variation. Examples of this are determin-
istic generation such as diesel Gensets, ESS, and G-VSC during
grid-connected operation. For satisfactory operation, a DC mi-
crogrid should have at least one slack terminal.
The schematic diagram of the DC microgrid under investi-
gation is shown in Fig. 1. It is assumed that the four termi-
nals are closely located and thus the DC side impedance is ne-
glected. However, if DC resistances are considered, there will
be small voltage differences among various DC terminals which
may need to be considered when setting the voltage controller.
The proposed DC microgrid consists of the following devices:
1) Generation. The generation within a DC grid can come
from wind, photovoltaic units, diesel generator, etc. In
Fig. 1, they are represented by a wind turbine based on
permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG). The
output power of a wind turbine varies due to the variation
of wind condition. Thus, the generator operates as a power
terminal.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 27, NO. 4, NOVEMBER 2012
Fig. 2. DC power flow.
2) DC loads. The loads consume power on their own merits.
The action of switching in/out loads tends to lead to a step
in the total power deficit (surplus). Again, the DC loads act
as a power terminal under normal conditions.
3) G-VSC. During normal operation, the G-VSC ensures a
constant DC voltage by controlling the external exchange
power with AC grid. Thus the G-VSC operates as a slack
terminal. However, during abnormal conditions, e.g., AC
voltage dip during grid AC fault, the maximum power
transmitted by the G-VSC can be significantly reduced. In
the most severe cases, the exchange power drops to zero
during near zero AC voltage or in a complete island oper-
ation. Under such conditions, the G-VSC effectively oper-
ates as a power terminal.
4) ESS. The ESS of a DC microgrid can be based on bat-
teries, fuel cells, flywheels, super capacitors, etc. The
power and energy density varies according to the usage
time scale, which is not discussed here. In this paper, the
ESS is represented by a bi-directional DC/DC converter
controlled battery energy storage system as is shown in
Fig. 1. When the energy capacity and power rating is
sufficient, the ESS is a slack terminal, which can operate
together with the G-VSC to contribute to DC voltage
control (power balancing) by sharing the instant power
surplus (deficit). When the G-VSC reaches its power limit,
i.e., becomes a power terminal, the ESS becomes the only
slack terminal in the system and is required to regulate the
DC voltage on its own.
The charging/discharging power of the ESS can be treated
separately from the DC voltage controller as a passive load (or
source during discharging). Thus the ESS is a combination of
power and slack terminals. The charging and discharging of the
ESS controlled by its energy management system is not consid-
ered in this paper.
B. DC Voltage and Power Flow
Fig. 2 shows the equivalent circuit of the DC bus, where
refers to the power flowing out from the DC bus through the
G-VSC whereas and refer to the power flowing into the
DC bus from the PMSG and the ESS, respectively. is the
total power consumed by the DC loads and is the common
DC voltage.
The charging power of the DC capacitor and the DC voltage
are given as
(1)
(2)
where refers to the DC capacitance value.
CHEN AND XU: AUTONOMOUS DC VOLTAGE CONTROL OF A DC MICROGRID WITH MULTIPLE SLACK TERMINALS
As illustrated in (2), a constant DC voltage indicates a bal-
anced power flow among the microgrid terminals. Unbalanced
power flow can cause abnormal DC voltage and disrupt normal
operation. Therefore, to ensure normal operation, the DC
voltage must be maintained at all times by ensuring the power
flow is balanced.
For the proposed system, under normal operation, there are
two slack terminals, i.e., G-VSC and ESS. Thus by coordinating
the two slack terminals, it is possible not only to ensure the
DC voltage is controlled but also provide enhanced operation,
e.g., reducing the fluctuation of the power exchange between
the G-VSC and AC grid. It is known that load power varia-
tion, especially in distribution networks, can cause extra power
loss [23], [24]. Similarly, large power variation from distributed
generation will also give rise to higher losses than transmit-
ting the same amount of energy at a constant power. In addi-
tion, power variation will also lead to voltage variations at local
AC buses. Thus, it may be desirable to reduce the variation of
active power exchange between the DC microgrid and the AC
grid. For a DC grid, the fluctuation of generated power and a
load step (switching on/off) will both inevitably affect the power
balance. To accommodate this power difference variation, the
second slack terminal, i.e., the ESS, can be regulated to absorb
most of the power fluctuation within the DC microgrid. Hence
the rest of the power surplus (deficit), which is to be delivered
via the G-VSC, is smoothed.
C. Operation Modes
To achieve a satisfactory operation of the proposed DC mi-
crogrid under wind speed fluctuation, load step, AC fault, and is-
landing, two main operation modes are considered in this paper:
Mode 1: Under this mode, the wind generation operates on
its own. The ESS is regulated to smooth the fluctuations of the
power difference between the variable generation and the DC
loads, and the average power of the above is automatically bal-
anced by the G-VSC to ensure the DC voltage is maintained at
the reference value of . Neglecting the power losses, during
steady state, there is
(3)
where the superscript refers to the reference values.
In this mode, the ESS acts as an exchange power smoother
and in addition, a charging/discharging power offset can be di-
rectly added to the to control the battery charging state. As
previously discussed, this condition is not probed further in this
paper. Under Mode 1, the ESS and G-VSC are coordinated to
contribute to the DC voltage regulation and to ensure appro-
priate power flow between them.
Mode 2: In this mode, the G-VSC is incapable of delivering
the power required in (3). Such a scenario is most likely caused
by an AC voltage dip during grid AC fault, which can signifi-
cantly reduce the maximum power that the G-VSC can transmit.
In this case, the G-VSC holds at its maximum power and the
ESS regulates the DC voltage on its own. Assuming the power
provided by the ESS is sufficient, there is
(4)
1899
Fig. 3. Converter control for Mode 1. (a) G-VSC. (b) ESS.
Under this mode, the voltage is solely regulated by the ESS
and the G-VSC acts as a constant power source depending on
current limitation and the AC voltage. Island operation can also
be regarded as a special case, i.e., .
III. SYSTEM CONTROL
As previously described, the two slack terminals are con-
trolled and coordinated to respond to the demands of the power
terminals, to ensure stable system operation and desirable per-
formance of the DC grid. In this section the control designs for
the two respective operation modes previously described are
outlined.
A. Control Strategies Under Mode 1
In this mode, both the ESS and G-VSC respond to the fluctu-
ating wind power and variable loads to maintain the DC voltage.
A basic control strategy for Mode 1 operation is shown in
Fig. 3. Under this mode, is set at the nominal DC voltage
. For the G-VSC, a PI controller with proportional and inte-
gral gains of and , respectively, as shown in Fig. 3(a),
is used to regulate the DC voltage. Meanwhile, a droop (pro-
portional) of is applied to the ESS as shown in Fig. 3(b),
where is the output DC voltage of the energy storage device.
The respective power of the two slack terminals can be shared
on a frequency base. When the ESS droop gain is much
larger than of the G-VSCs PI controller, and the time con-
stant of the PI controller, i.e., , is also large, the fluc-
tuating power of higher frequency tends to go to the ESS while
the lower frequency components transmit through the G-VSC.
Thus in this case, the exporting is smoothed, which is desir-
able for the AC grid.
The power/current loops of VSC and DC/DC converters are
frequently modeled as a first-order delay with small time con-
stants in some literature [11]. By using the technique of pre-
dictive current and direct power control [25], [26], the dynamic
responses of the power/current loops are usually much faster
than the voltage loop with a time delay of usually around one
switching period. Thus, to simplify the system model, it is ac-
ceptable to assume that the inner power/current loop is ideal and
the real powers always follow their orders and the delay time can
be neglected.
By combining Fig. 3 and (2), the block diagram of the close
loop DC voltage control is obtained as shown in Fig. 4. As a
large gain (droop) can make the ESS vulnerable to instability
due to high-frequency DC voltage ripples and measurement
1900
Fig. 4. Diagram of the DC voltage control loop in Mode 1.
noise, it is necessary to add a low-pass filter, say . (13)
However, the inclusion of such a filter can result in poor system
damping. Thus, a lead-lag filter is used in
real implementation as is illustrated in Fig. 4.
The close loop transfer function of the DC voltage loop can
be expressed by (5), shown at the bottom of the page.
Using the generation and load terminal as system input, the
transfer function of the power at the slack terminals can be ob-
tained from Fig. 4 as shown by (6)(8) at the bottom of the page.
It can be seen that (5) and (6) are identical whereas transfer
functions (7) and (8) exhibit band-pass and low-pass character-
istics, respectively. When their pass-bands are not totally over-
lapped, there must be a crossing point on the magnitude-fre-
quency response plot, where the low-pass magnitude starts to
fall and the band-pass starts to rise. Since (7) and (8) have the
same denominator, the frequency of such crossing point can be
calculated by considering
(9)
Substituting into (9) yields
(10)
Among the four possible roots for (10), the crossing point
frequency shall be the smallest positive one. Considering the
lead-lag filter time constant and the desirable fre-
quency no more than a few rad/s (or even lower), according to
(10), the crossing point frequency can be approximated by
(11)
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 27, NO. 4, NOVEMBER 2012
For a typical G-VSC PI controller, the proportional and inte-
gration gains can be set as
(12)
where is the damping coefficient and is its natural fre-
quency. The time constant of the PI controller can be defined
as
Defining and substituting (13) into
(11) yields
(14)
where .
Equation (14) shows that to have a lower crossing frequency,
both and need to be large.
By setting s,
and s, the designed crossing point is set at
rad/s according to (14). The corresponding Bode Plots of (5),
(7), and (8) can be obtained, which are shown in Fig. 5. As
illustrated in Fig. 5(a), the total bandwidth of the DC voltage
loop is about 500 rad/s which is sufficiently high for a typical
DC voltage control system. Within this band, the power flow
of higher frequency is mostly delivered by the ESS whereas the
lower frequency part flows via the G-VSC as shown in Fig. 5(b).
The frequency crossing point corresponds well to the designed
value.
Under steady-state, the average DC voltage is controlled to
its reference voltage of at the G-VSC terminal and
voltage error is zero. Thus the average power of the ESS is also
zero due to the droop characteristic. However, the existence of
DC resistances in the DC network in reality and possible mea-
surement error result in the voltage at the ESS terminal being
slightly different to that at the G-VSC terminal. Consequently,
considerable ESS current (power) offset may occur due to the
large ESS gain . This offset may disrupt normal charging/
discharging operation. To deal with this issue, a first-order high-
pass filter with low cut-off frequency (say, time constant of 0.5 s)
(5)
(6)
(7)
(8)
CHEN AND XU: AUTONOMOUS DC VOLTAGE CONTROL OF A DC MICROGRID WITH MULTIPLE SLACK TERMINALS
Fig. 5. Bode plots of the close loop voltage and power transfer functions.
(a) . (b) and . (with additional ESS high-pass filter). (a)
is added to the ESS control output to filter out such voltage dif-
ference. The corresponding Bode plot is shown in Fig. 6. Com-
pared to Fig. 5, it can be seen that the voltage loop response and
power frequency pass-bands are not affected. However, higher
power attenuation for the ESS at very low frequency is obtained
due to the addition of the high-pass filter which would effec-
tively eliminate any impact due to the DC voltage offset. For
instance, at 0.1 rad/s, an attenuation of dB is obtained in
Fig. 6(b) compared to dB shown in Fig. 5(b).
As the basic idea of voltage control based power sharing
scheme is shown above, the performance of G-VSC power
smoothing can be further improved by adding additional
low-pass filter to the G-VSC controller to stiff the falling edge
and lower the cutoff frequency in the magnitude-frequency
response of the G-VSC. As the system shown in Fig. 4 performs
satisfactory, no further discussion will be provided here for this
option.
B. Control Strategies Under Mode 2
In this mode, the G-VSC delivers constant power (zero power
during island operation) according to the current limit and thus,
only the ESS is controlled to maintain the DC voltage.
The control scheme of the ESS is identical to the previous
case shown in Fig. 3(b) and the close loop DC voltage control
system is shown in Fig. 7. The previously mentioned high-pass
filter needs to be bypassed as the ESS has to supply net power
during stead-state depending on the DC microgrid condition.
The droop determines the DC voltage variation during
power variation and can be set different to in Mode 1. For
1901
Fig. 6. Bode plots of the close loop voltage and power transfer functions
. (b) and
.
Fig. 7. ESS control in Mode 2.
a certain output power , the larger is, the smaller DC
voltage variation will be.
C. Mode Switching
Under normal operation (i.e., Mode 1), both the G-VSC and
ESS regulate the DC voltage with a small variation. However,
when the G-VSC reaches its maximum power, the DC voltage
can derivate from its nominal value. Thus, the DC voltage
derivation can be used to determine the switching of the oper-
ation mode as schematically illustrated in Fig. 8. There is no
need to have extra communication between the various parts.
When the detected DC voltage error is higher (lower)
than a certain level, e.g., , the ESS switches
to Mode 2 operation. If relatively high DC resistance exists
between the terminals of the G-VSC and ESS, the value of
might need to be set slightly bigger than it would be to
ensure normal DC voltage variation under Mode 1 would not
cause mode switch. Once the voltage error falls back, e.g.,
, the ESS switches back to Mode 1. As seen in
Fig. 8, a double hysteresis scheme with a band of
1902
Fig. 8. (a) Mode switch. (b) ESS voltage droop for Mode 2.
Fig. 9. Layout of the prototype system.
is applied to avoid undesirable repetitive mode switching. In
order to distinguish the ESS system operation mode by voltage
detection, a lower (higher for overvoltage case) value is given
to the DC voltage reference during Mode 2 operation as shown
in Fig. 8(b). This indicates that under Mode 2, the DC voltage
will be slightly different from the nominal DC voltage.
IV. EXPERIMENTAL TESTS
To test the previously cited control strategy, a prototype DC
microgrid rated at 100 V is developed and its layout is shown
in Fig. 9. As seen from Fig. 9, two TIs TMS320F2812 DSPs
are used for controlling the system. The G-VSC is rated at 1
kW and is controlled by DSP 1. A three-phase PMSG rated at
500 W driven by a DC machine is used to simulate the vari-
able wind generation. The output from the PMSG is rectified
and connected to the common DC link via a boost DC/DC con-
verter whose output power is controlled according to pre-spec-
ified curves to simulate variable power generation under dif-
ferent wind conditions. A battery rated at 36 V and 20 Ah is
connected with a bi-directional DC/DC converter to act as the
ESS. The two DC/DC converters are controlled by DSP 2. How-
ever, the control algorithms implemented in DSP 2 for the two
DC/DC converters are completely independent with no infor-
mation exchange between them. The total DC capacitance is
3000 F which is split into (2000 F) and (1000 F)
as shown in Fig. 9. Four resistive DC loads are rated at 410 W,
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 27, NO. 4, NOVEMBER 2012
Fig. 10. Operation without ESS power smoothing (0.1 s/div). (a) (108
W/DIV). (b) (54 W/DIV). (c) (5 V/DIV). (d) (360 W/DIV).
290 W, 180 W, and 100 W, respectively. Switching frequency
of 2.5 KHz is used for all the converters.
A. Mode 1 Power Sharing Test
During this test, in order to simulate the random wind condi-
tion, a random power order of 0.5 s is given to the W-converter.
Due to the controllers limited memory, the random order is re-
peated every 0.5-s period. The parameters for the DC voltage
controllers are identical to those used for the Bode diagrams in
Section III.
Fig. 10 shows the system operation without using ESSs
power smoothing function and the DC voltage is solely con-
trolled by the G-VSC with the battery power staying at 0. As
shown, the power oscillation produced by the wind generation
is transmitted to the grid as evident in Fig. 10(a) and (b).
The DC voltage also contains certain ripples due to the power
oscillation.
Based on the same condition, Fig. 11 shows the test results
when the power sharing scheme is applied to the system and the
ESS absorbs the high frequency power ripples. It can be seen
CHEN AND XU: AUTONOMOUS DC VOLTAGE CONTROL OF A DC MICROGRID WITH MULTIPLE SLACK TERMINALS
Fig. 11. Operation with ESS power smoothing (0.1 s/div). (a) (108
W/DIV). (b) (54 W/DIV). (c) (5 V/DIV). (d) (360 W/DIV).
from Fig. 11(b) that is significantly smoothed as the power
fluctuation of higher frequency is mostly absorbed by the bat-
tery ESS system shown in Fig. 11(d). The DC voltage as shown
in Fig. 11(c) also becomes much smoother due to higher band
width of the voltage loop. From Fig. 11(d), it can also be seen
that the average ESS power is around zero, i.e., no DC offset
due to the use of the high-pass filter. Without such filter, test re-
sults show significant ESS power offset which can quickly push
the ESS into its power limit and disrupt its normal operation.
B. Mode 1 Load Step Test
The tests carried out during load steps are shown in Figs. 12
and 13. The oscillating power generated from the wind gener-
ator stays the same as previous tests. At the time around 2.5 s,
a load of 410 W is switched in as shown in Fig. 12 causing an
immediate DC voltage dip of 4.5 V. To maintain the voltage,
both slack terminals, the G-VSC and ESS system, start to output
more power upon the detection of the DC voltage dip. A power
limit of 180 W was added to the ESS at Mode 1 operation and
thus the ESS initially shares 180 W of load demand as Fig. 12(c)
1903
Fig. 12. Operation during load switch in (0.5 s/div). (a) (270 W/DIV). (b)
(5 V/DIV). (c) (360 W/DIV).
shows. The rest of the power deficit is provided by the G-VSC
and the DC voltage quickly goes back to its nominal value. Due
to the high-pass filter in the ESS controller, its average power
gradually drops back to 0. Similar operation can be observed
during load switch off tests shown in Fig. 13. As can seen, the
combination of the G-VSC and ESS provide satisfactory con-
trol and operation during power and load variation.
C. Islanding (Mode 2) Test
The test results during islanding are shown in Fig. 14. During
the test, an extra 0.2 resistor is inserted in series to the pos-
itive DC line at point A shown in Fig. 9 to simulate DC
cable resistance. This effectively separates the DC microgrid
into two groups each having a common DC bus, i.e., one being
the G-VSC and load, and the other being the ESS and genera-
tion. The system starts from Mode 1 operation with light gen-
eration and a large load, i.e., average generation of 320 W and
total load of 700 W. To balance the power, the G-VSC imports
around 430 W from the AC grid. The DC voltage is controlled
by the G-VSC at 100.1 V at its terminal as shown in Fig. 14(b).
As the generator and ESS group exports power and a DC cur-
rent of 3.3 A flows through the 0.2 resistor which results a
slightly higher DC voltage at the ESS/generation terminal of
around 100.8 V. When an AC fault occurs at , the DC grid is
effectively islanded and the power exchange drops to 0. As
can be seen from Fig. 14(b) and (c), the DC voltages at both ter-
minals drop significantly. Upon detection of voltage lower than
0.95 V (i.e., ) at the ESS terminal, the ESS switches
1904 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER SYSTEMS, VOL. 27, NO. 4, NOVEMBER 2012

Fig. 13. Operation during load switch off (0.5 s/div). (a) (270 W/DIV). (b)
(5 V/DIV). (c) (360 W/DIV).

to Mode 2 operation to maintain the DC voltage at 95 V with

a droop of 90 W/V. Due to the nature of droop controller, the
actual voltage is around 91 V as Fig. 14(c) shows. Since the gen-
eration contains around 220 W oscillations, so is the power pro-
vided by the ESS. This results in oscillation of around 2.4 V Fig. 14. Islanding Operation (1 s/DIV). (a) (270 W/DIV). (b) on
(220/90) during islanding as seen from Fig. 14(c). The total DC G-VSC side (5 V/DIV). (c) on ESS side (5 V/DIV). (d) (360 W/DIV).
current flowing from the ESS/generation to the DC load (i.e.,
via the 0.2 resistor) is around 5.6 A which results in a lower
DC voltage appearing at the G-VSC (load terminal) of around and coordinated control between grid connected converter and
90 V, as shown in Fig. 14(b). energy storage system during normal and islanding operation
After about 1.75 s, the AC system is reconnected at . The is outlined. The impact of control parameters on power spec-
G-VSC starts to import power to drive back to 100 V. The trum flown through the AC grid and energy storage system is
investigated. Test results on a prototype DC microgrid system
ESS reduces its output power accordingly and when the DC
validate the satisfactory performance of the proposed strategy
voltage reaches 95 V (0.95 V ), its power becomes zero. The
during both power smoothing, load switching, and island oper-
ESS switches back to Mode 1 operation after the DC voltage
ation. The proposed strategy can also be applied to DC system
reaches 98 V according to the setting based on
with different configurations.
Fig. 8. As can be seen from Fig. 14, system operation during is-
landing is very smooth and the DC microgrid is well controlled.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The DC resistance is also shown to have minimum impact on
system control and operation during both normal and islanding Mr. D. Chen would like to thank the Chinese Scholarship
conditions. Under Mode 1 operation, the G-VSC power is again Council (CSC) for sponsoring his Ph.D. study in Queens Uni-
smoothed as previously studied. versity of Belfast, Belfast, U.K.

REFERENCES
V. CONCLUSION
[1] N. Hatziargyriou, H. Asano, R. Iravani, and C. Marnay, Microgrids,
This paper proposes a voltage control strategy for a DC mi- IEEE Power Energy Mag., vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 7894, Jul.Aug. 2007.
[2] C. L. Chen, Y. Wang, J. S. Lai, Y. S. Lee, and D. Martin, Design
crogrid with variable generation and multiple slack terminals. of parallel inverters for smooth mode transfer microgrid applications,
A power sharing scheme based on frequency band is proposed, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 615, Jan. 2010.
CHEN AND XU: AUTONOMOUS DC VOLTAGE CONTROL OF A DC MICROGRID WITH MULTIPLE SLACK TERMINALS
[3] F. Katiraei and M. R. Iravani, Power management strategies for a mi-
crogrid with multiple distributed generation units, IEEE Trans. Power
Syst., vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 18211831, Nov. 2006.
[4] A. Seon-Ju, P. Jin-Woo, C. Il-Yop, M. Seung-Il, K. Sang-Hee, and N.
Soon-Ryul, Power-sharing method of multiple distributed generators
considering control modes and configurations of a microgrid, IEEE
Trans. Power Del., vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 20072016, Jul. 2010.
[5] I. J. Balaguer, Q. Lei, S. Yang, U. Supatti, and F. Z. Peng, Control
for grid-connected and intentional islanding operations of distributed
power generation, IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 58, no. 1, pp.
147157, Jan. 2011.
[6] J. A. P. Lopes, C. L. Moreira, and A. G. Madureira, Defining con-
trol strategies for MicroGrids islanded operation, IEEE Trans. Power
Syst., vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 916924, May 2006.
[7] E. Sortomme, S. S. Venkata, and J. Mitra, Microgrid protection using
communication-assisted digital relays, IEEE Trans. Power Del., vol.
25, no. 4, pp. 27892796, Oct. 2010.
[8] H. J. Laaksonen, Protection principles for future microgrids, IEEE
Trans. Power Electron., vol. 25, no. 12, pp. 29102918, Dec. 2010.
[9] A. Sannino, G. Postiglione, and M. H. J. Bollen, Feasibility of a DC
network for commercial facilities, IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl., vol. 39, no.
5, pp. 14991507, Sep.Oct. 2003.
[10] D. Salomonsson, L. Soder, and A. Sannino, An adaptive control
system for a DC microgrid for data centers, IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl.,
vol. 44, no. 6, pp. 19101917, Nov.Dec. 2008.
[11] H. Kakigano, Y. Miura, and T. Ise, Low-voltage bipolar-type DC mi-
crogrid for super high quality distribution, IEEE Trans. Power Elec-
tron., vol. 25, no. 12, pp. 30663075, Dec. 2010.
[12] R. Kadri, J. P. Gaubert, and G. Champenois, An improved maximum
power point tracking for photovoltaic grid-connected inverter based on
voltage-oriented control, IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 58, no. 1, pp.
6675, Jan. 2011.
[13] E. Koutroulis and K. Kalaitzakis, Design of a maximum power
tracking system for wind-energy-conversion applications, IEEE
Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 53, no. 2, pp. 486494, Apr. 2006.
[14] T. Zhou and B. Francois, Energy management and power control of a
hybrid active wind generator for distributed power generation and grid
integration, IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron., vol. 58, no. 1, pp. 95104,
Jan. 2011.
[15] W. Tang and R. H. Lasseter, An LVDC industrial power distribution
system without central control unit, in Proc. IEEE 2000 Power Elec-
tronics Specialists Conf. (PESC 00), 2000, vol. 2, pp. 979984.
[16] P. Karlsson and J. Svensson, DC bus voltage control for a distributed
power system, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 18, no. 6, pp.
14051412, Nov. 2003.
[17] D. Salomonsson, L. Soder, and A. Sannino, An adaptive control
system for a DC microgrid for data centers, IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl.,
vol. 44, no. 6, pp. 19101917, Nov.Dec. 2008.
[18] Y. Ito, Y. Zhongqing, and H. Akagi, DC microgrid based distribution
power generation system, in Proc. IPEMC, Xian, China, Aug. 2004,
pp. 17401745.
[19] M. Datta, T. Senjyu, A. Yona, T. Funabashi, and C.-H. Kim, A fre-
quency-control approach by photovoltaic generator in a PV-diesel hy-
brid power system, IEEE Trans. Energy Convers., vol. 26, no. 2, pp.
559571, Jun. 2011.
1905
[20] S. Teleke, M. E. Baran, A. Q. Huang, S. Bhattacharya, and L. An-
derson, Control strategies for battery energy storage for wind farm dis-
patching, IEEE Trans. Energy Convers., vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 725732,
Sep. 2009.
[21] L. Xu, L. Yao, and C. Sasse, Grid integration of large DFIG-based
wind farms using VSC transmission, IEEE Trans. Power Syst., vol.
22, no. 3, pp. 976984, Aug. 2007.
[22] L. Xu, B. R. Andersen, and P. Cartwright, VSC transmission operating
under unbalanced AC conditionsAnalysis and control design, IEEE
Trans. Power Del., vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 427434, Jan. 2005.
[23] O. M. Mikic, Variance-based energy loss computation in low voltage
distribution networks, IEEE Trans. Power Syst., vol. 22, no. 1, pp.
179187, Feb. 2007.
[24] E. Sortomme, M. M. Hindi, S. D. J. MacPherson, and S. S. Venkata,
Coordinated charging of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles to minimize
distribution system losses, IEEE Trans. Smart Grid, vol. 2, no. 1, pp.
198205, Mar. 2011.
[25] D. Zhi, L. Xu, and B. Williams, Improved direct power control of grid
connected DC/AC converters, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 24,
no. 5, pp. 12801292, May 2009.
[26] J. Q. Chen, A. Prodic, R. W. Erickson, and D. Maksimovic, Predictive
digital current programmed control, IEEE Trans. Power Electron.,
vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 411419, Jan. 2003.
Dong Chen received the B.Eng. degree from South-
east University, Nanjing, China, in 2006 and the
M.Sc. degree from Zhejiang University, Hangzhou,
China, in 2008. He is currently pursuing the Ph.D.
degree in the School of Electronics, Electrical Engi-
neering and Computer Science, Queens University
of Belfast, Belfast, U.K.
His research interest includes power electronics
applications in power grid, DC network, and motion
control.
Lie Xu (M03SM06) received the B.Sc. degree
from Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, in
1993, and the Ph.D. degree from the University of
Sheffield, Sheffield, U.K., in 1999.
Currently, he is with the School of Electronics,
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science,
Queens University of Belfast, Belfast, U.K. He
was previously with the University of Strathclyde,
Glasgow, U.K., and ALSTOM T&D, Stafford, U.K.
His current research interests include power elec-
tronics, wind energy generation and grid integration,
and application of power electronics to power systems.