Control of Parallel Connected Inverters in Stand-Alone AC Supply Systems
M. C. Chandorkar D. M. Divan
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Wisconsin-Madison
1415 Johnson Drive
Madison, WI 53706
Abslrucl -A scheme for controlling pnrallei conncctcd
inverters I n a stand-alone AC supply system i s prcsentcd in
this paper. A key feature of this schcme I s that it uses only
those variables which can be measured locally at the lnvertcr,
and docs not need communication of control signals between
the inverters. This feature i s important I n high reliability
Uninterruptibie Power Supply (UPS) systems, and i n large
DC power sources conncctcd to an AC distribution system.
Real and reactive power sharing between inverters can be
achieved b y controlling two independent quantities at the
inverters- the power angle, and the fundamental inverter
voltage magnitude.
I. INTRODUCTION
As DC to AC power converters feeding power to AC
supply systems become more numerous, the issues relating to
their control need to be addressed in greater detail. Examples
of such inverters feeding power to AC supply systems include
large, distributed Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS)
systems and Photovoltaic systcms. In addition, over the past
several years, there has been considerable interest in applying
inverter technology to low voltage DC (LVDC) meshed
power transmission systems. The feasibility from the conlrol
view-point of an LVDC mesh has been demonstrated in [l].
The transmission system could typically consist of inverters
connected at several points on the LVDC mesh, and providing
power to AC systems which could be interconnected as well.
Multiple inverters connected to a common AC system
essentially operate in parallel, and need to be controlled in a
manner which ensures stable operation and prevents inverter
overloads. Although inverter topologies used for power
transmission have traditionally been currcnt sourced, in
recent years Voltage Source Inverters (VSI) have been
increasingly used for high power applications like electric
traction and mill drives, photovoltaic power systems and
battery storage systems. Control schemes for VSI's in power
system environments have formed the topic of reccnt work
[2]. Further, with inverter topologies like the Neutral-Point
Clamped (NPC) inverter [3], it is possible to achieve
substantial harmonic reduction at reasonably low Pulse Width
Modulation (PWM) switching frequcncics.
A stand-alone AC system may be described as one in
which the entire AC power is delivered to the system through
inverters. Thus, there are no synchronous alternators present
in the system which would provide a refcrence for the system
frequency and voltage. All invertcrs in the systcm necd to be
operated to provide a stable frequency and voltage in the
prcscnce of arbitrarily varying loads. This paper first
dcvclops a control nicthod for an invcrtcr fccding rcal and
reactive power into a stiff AC system with a defined voltage,
as shown in Figure 1. This forms the basis of a control
@7803-O453-5/91$1
.o@1991IEEE
R. Adapa
Electric Power Research Institute
Palo Alto, CA
method suitable for stand alone operation. The invcrtcr is a
VSI with Gate Turn-off thyristor (GTO) switches, and
operating from a DC power source and feeding into the AC
system through a filter inductor. In a stand-alone system, a
filter capacitor is needed to suppress the voltage harmonics of
the inverter. The requirements for controlling such an
interface are described in the next section. Later sections
describe the development of an effective control scheme to
meet these requirements, and present simulation results
obtained from the study of a power distribution system with
parallel connected inverters.
11. REQUIREMENTS OF THE CONTROL SYSTEM
The control of inverters used to supply power to an AC
system in a distributed environment should be bascd on
information available locally at the invertcr. In typical
power-systems, large distances between inverters may make
communication of information between inverters impractical.
Communication of information may be used to enhance
system performance, but must not be critical for systcm
operation. This essentially implies that inverter control
should be based on terminal quantities.
-Inverter
Lf
-
V T E
Stiff AC
System
Figure 1: Inverter Connected to Stiff AC System
It is well known that stable operation of a power system
needs good control of the real power flow (P) and the
reactive power flow (Q). The P and Q flows in an AC system
are decoupled to a good extent [4]. P depends prcdominantly
on the power angle, and Q depends predominantly on the
voltage magnitude. This is illustrated in Figure 2. It is
essential to have good control of the power angle and the
volhage level by means of the inverter. Control of frequency
dynamically controls the power anglc, and thus thc real
power flow. To avoid overloading the inverters, it is
important to ensure that changes in load are takcn up by the
inverters in a prcdctcrmincd manner, without
communication. This is achicvcd in conventional power
systems with multiple generators by introducing a droop in
the frequency of each generator with the real power P
1003
 delivered by the generator [4]. This permits each generator to
take up changes in total load in a manner determined by its
frequency droop characteristics, and essentially utilizes the
system frequency as a communication link between the 1 2 3 4
generator control systems. The same philosophy is used in
this paper to ensure reasonable distribution of total power
bctween parallel-connected inverters in a stand-alone AC
system. Similarly, a droop in the voltage with reactive power
is used to ensure reactive power sharing.
-
V Figure 3b: Inverter Switch Positions

3
I
I 2
p==sins
0 Lf

Q= 2 - Y-E- cos6
0 Lf 0 Lf

Figure 2 Real and Reactive Power Flows

111. CONTROL OF SINGLE INVERTER FEEDING INTO

A STIFF SYSTEM
The power schematic of Figure 1 shows a single
inverter connected to a stiff AC system through a filter 5 6
inductor. The inverter is assumed to be a six-pulse GTO VSI.
This section details the control of the inverter based on
feedback of quantities measured locally at the inverter. The
d
real and reactive power fed into the AC system are the two
variables that are controlled by the inverter. Given set points 1 : Invater Voltage Vector I
for the real and reactive power, P* and Q*. the real and
reactive power, P and Q, fed by the inverter into the AC
0: Sector I For Choice of Inverter Voltage Vector
system can be controlled by a method that controls the time- Figure 3a: Inverter Output Voltage Vectors
integral of the inverter output voltage space vector. This
concept has previously been applied extensively to AC motor
drives [5, 61. The entire control of the inverter is performed
in the stationary d-q reference frame, and is essentially vector voltage space vector is called the 'Inverter Flux Vector' for
control. The transformation from the physical a-b-c short. The flux vector does not have the same significance as
reference frame to the stationary d-q-n reference frame is in motor applications. Rather it is a fictitious quantity related
described by the following equations [7]. to the volt-seconds in the filter inductor. The d and q axis
components of the inverter flux vector YV are formally
defined as:
...(1)

...(4)
...(3)
In these equations, the quantity 'fgenerically denotes a
physical quantity, such as a voltage or a current. In the ...(5 )
absence of a neutral connection, the quantity 'fn ' is of no -
interest. For a six-pulse VSI, the inverter output voltage The magnitude of '+'vis:
space vector can take any of seven positions in the plane
specified by the d-q coordinates. These are shown in Figure 3
as the vectors 0 - 6. The time-integral of the inverter output ...(6 )

1004

-
 PI
Regulator
Figure 4: Inverte~Con~rolScheme
-
The angle of WV with respect to the q-axis is:
6, =w-l (w-)
vgv
The d ann q axis components of the AC system voltage flux
vector, ye, its magnitude anAangle,are defined in a similar
manner. The angle between y v and w e is defined as:
$=S, -6e
Control of the flux vector has been shown to have
good dynamic and steady-state performance [5. 61. It also
provides a convenient means to define the power angle, since
the inverter voltage vector switches position in the d-q plane,
while there is no discontinuity in the inverter flux vector. It
is useful to develop the power transfer relationships in terms
of the flux vectors. The basic real power transfer relationship
for the system of Figure 1 in the d-q reference frame is:
In (9). eq and ed are the q and d axis components
respectively of the AC system voltage vector E. Also, iq and
id are the components of the current vector i. When iq and id
are expressed in terms of the fluxes, the equation is expressed
as:
Taking into account the spatial relationships bctwecn
the two flux vectors and assuming the AC system voltage to
be sinusoidal, (10) can be expressed as:
-
Lhoica
of
V, i e.
vb eb
Vc 1 ec
FEEDBACK
Po & Q*: Set Points for Real & Reactive Power
..(11)
In this expression, we and WV are the magnitudes of the
...(7)
AC system and the inverter flux vectors respectively, and S,
is the spatial angle between the two flux vectors. o is the
frequency of rotation of the two flux vectors. The expression
for reactive power transfer for Figure 1 can be derived in a
similar manner. This is:
...(8)
...(12)
Equations (11) and (12) indicate that P can be
controlled by controlling 6, , which can be defined as the
power angle, and Q can be controlled by controlling y v . The
cross-coupling between the control of P and Q is also
apparent from these equations.
The control system for the inverter is given in Figure
4. The two variables that are controlled directly by the
...(9) inverter are '+'v and S, . The vector y v is controlled so as to
have a specified magnitude and? specified position relative to
the AC system flux vector '4%. This control forms the
innermost control loop, and is very fast. It is noted that both
the inverter and the AC system voltage space vectors are
obtained by measuring instantaneous voltage values which arc
available locally. The set points for the controller are P* and
Q*, and the set points for the innermost control loop, y; and
are derived from these. The actual values of P and Q
calculated from the feedback are compared with the set
values. The error drivcs a Proportional-Integral (P-I)
regulator, which generates the sct points d
and 6*, for the
 I

-
innermost control loop. The control of the invertcr to inverter flux vector YV.The locus is sccn to be close to a
generate the specified Vv and 6p is detailed in the next sub- circle, since the magnitude v v very tightly controlled. Figure
section. 6 shows the inverter line-to-line voltage v& and the invcrtcr
line current ia for P* = 1 MW and Q* = 500 kVAR. Figure
A. Control of vvand 6,
7 shows the response of the inverter to step changes in Q*
The control of Vvand 6p forms the first level of and P* successively. It is noted that there is a disturbance in P
when Q* is changed and a disturbance in Q when P* is
control, and directly controls the inverter switching. The
changed. In each case, the P-I regulators modify the set
choice of the inverter switching vector is made on the basis of
values of 6*, and $ to maintain the P and the Q at thc set
the deviations of wv and 6p from the set values Y': and ,
values. Also, the tight control of P and Q within limits is
and the position of the inverter flux vector in the d-q plane. apparent from Figure 7.
.
given by & If the deviation of 6p from 6*p is more than a
specified limit, a zero switching vector is chosen. If this
deviation is less than a specified limit, or if YVdeviates from
4'6 by more than a specified amount, a switching vector is
chosen which increases 6, and changes yrv in the correct
direction. This is essentially accomplished by hysteresis
comparators for the set values, and then using a look-up table
to choose the correct inverter output voltage vector . The
considerations for developing the look-up table are dealt with
in [5].The choice of inverter switching vector is dictated by
.
the value of 6v The d-q plane is divided into six sectors for
6~ as shown in Figure 3a, which also shows the inverter
switching vectors. The inverter switch positions for the
vectors are shown in Figure 3b. The value of 6v determines
the choice of two possible inverter switching vectors, apart
from the zero vector. One vector increases the magnitude Vv
and the other decreases it, while both tend to increase 6,.
Thus, to decrease S, , the zero switching vector is chosen. To - ,
L10.O -6.00 -i,oo i 00 6.00 1'0 0
correct the value of vv, one of the two active switching YCP
vectors is chosen depending on the sign of the correction
required. Table-1 gives the choice of active vectors for given Figure. 5 : Invcrter RUXVector
.
positions of the inverter flux vector, specified by 6v In this
manner, Vv and 6 p are tightly controlled to lie within IV. CONTROL OF INVERTERS IN A STAND-ALONE
specified hysteresis bands by means of inverter switching. SYSTEM
The tip of the inverter flux vector is guided along an almost
The control of a single inverter feeding a stiff AC
circular path. Control of Yv' and S, in this manner results in a system based only on instantaneous mcasurement of terminal
PWM voltage waveform at the inverter output. quantities now forms the basis of the control scheme for
multiple inverters in stand-alone system environments. The
Table-1: Choice of Switchine Vector
essential difference in the control scheme is that in the stand-
alone system, there is no AC side voltage available for
Sector NO. (Location of WV reference. The inverters themselves produce the AC system
voltage, which is fcd back to control the inverters. There is
thus a possibility of controlling the voltage and the frequcncy
of the AC system by inverter control. Figure 8 shows two
inverters feeding into a stand-alone AC system. The invertcrs
are interfaced to the AC systcm through LC filters. The two
inverters are connccted by a tie line, and each invertcr has a
local load. The DC power source rcprescnts a 10 kV DC
(The zero vector is chosen to decrease Ep) power transmission mcsh. The nominal voltage on the AC
systcm is 3.6 kV rms linc-to-line, and the nominal frcqucncy
B . Sitnulalion Results is 60 Hz. Each inverter is a six pulse VSI made up of GTO
Simulation results of the control scheme of Figure 4 switches.
applied to the power system of Figure 1 are presented in As in the single inverter case, the two variables that are
Figures 5.6, and 7. The DC bus voltage is taken to bc 10 kV directly controlled are YVand 6p for each invertcr. Outcr
and the line-to-line voltage of the AC system is taken to be
3.3 kV rms. Figure 5 gives the plot of the locus of the
 0 ul
0
v)
Figure 6 Inverter Voltage and Cunent Waveforms
control loops are then used to control the magnitude and
angular frequency of the AC system voltage vector E. Thhe set
points for the magnitude and angular frequency of E a r e
obtained from the outermost loop, which implements
specified droop characteristics for the frequency with P and
magnitude with Q,as mentioned in Section 11. and detailed in
Section IV. The entire control is thus a three level structure.
The innermost control level controls 4' % and 6p , and is the
same as that described in the previous section. The second
level controls the AC side frequency and the voltage at each
inverter, and provides set points 6*p and v': for the innermost
level. The third level computes the set points for frequency
and voltage for each inverter. The two outer control levels
are described below.
Rai
Inverter 1
Figure 8: Stand-Alone AC System
A. Control of Frequency and Voltage
The frequency controller determines the sctpoint 6*p
that is needed to attain the specified frequency. The structure
0
N
r*:
a
>
WLn
E!N-
U
0
0
I I
T---rl
0
0 I I
Figure 7: Inverter Real and Reactive Power
I
of the frequency controller is given in Figure 9. The
frequency setting, a*,is integrated to obtain a reference for
the position &*=of the AC system voltage vector E across the
filter capacitor. This is compared with the actual position 6~
of E. The error is used to drive a P-I regulator, which
produces the setpoint 6*p which is given to the innermost
control loop described previously. This scheme achievcs a
very tight control of the output frequency since the regulator
attempts to control the output voltage vcctor angle at cvcry
instant.
*
The voltage controller determines the setpoint y v that
is needed to attain the specified AC system voltage magnitudc.
The voltage controller needs to take care of the filtcr
dynamics to determine the exact value of d.
The structure
of the voltage controller is given in Figure 10. The controller
-
command input is E*, the specified value of the magnitude of
E. The controller consists of a command feed-forward tcrm
and a voltage magnitude feedback term. The command feed-
forward term is given by
E* [I d Lf c f ]
a
The command fccd-forward gives the value of d
needed to achieve the spccified E* with an unloadcd filter,
and is intcndcd to speed up the voltage control loop. Thc
voltage magnitude feedback term is used to generate an error
si nal which actuates a P-I controller. The resultant value of
8
YV is used as a sctpoint for the innermost control loop
described in the previously. The AC system frequency o is
computed six times in one cycle. For this purpose, six axes
are defined in the d-q plane. The time taken by the vector E
to cross from one axis to the next consecutive axis is used to
compute the frequency. For parallel operation of multiple
inverter units, the setpoints O* and E* need to be chosen to
 * To
To
K*+% Inverter
Controller
I
From Filter Output
Figuro 9: Frcqucncy Controller for Stand-hlonc Systcm
ensure the correct P and Q sharing bctwcen the inverters in
response to arbitrary load changes. This has to be done
without communication of the setpoints between the two
inverter systems. The next sub-section describes the
outermost control loop, which determines the setpoints o*
and E* for each inverter system independently without any
signal communication. This is done on the basis of the real
and reactive power loading of' the inverter systems.
B. Computing a*and E* for parallel operation
The outermost loop determines the setpoints for o*
and E* to ensure correct real and reactive power sharing
between the parallel connected inverters. This action is
similar to that used in conventional power systems to ensure
the correct load sharing between generators feeding to a
common AC system [4]. For the frequency set point, a droop
is defined for the P-o* characteristic of each inverter. The
frequency set point is thus made to decrease with increasing
real power supplied by the inverter. The P-a* droop
characteristic can be described by:
4 =O.Q-mipoi -pi)
In this expression, i = 1 for inverter 1 and i = 2 for
inverter 2 (Figure 8). 6% is the nominal operating frequency
of the AC system, and is taken to be 377 radians/second (60
Hz).P a is the power rating of the 'i'th inverter, and Pi is its
actual loading. The slope of the droop characteristic is mi ,
and is numerically negative. The values of mi for different
inverters determine the relative power sharing between the
inverters. In typical systems, the P-o*characteristics are
stiff, and the frequency change from no load to full load is
extremely small. If the slopes mi for different inverters are
chosen such that
ml Pol =m2P02 = ... =mnPOn
then for a total power P, the load distribution between the
inverters satisfies the relationships:
ml P1 =m2P2 = ... =mnPn
Pi +P2 + ...+Pn= F
By choosing the slopes according to (14), it can be
ensured that load changes are taken up by the inverters in
proportion to their power ratings. The power sharing
mechanism can be best understood by considering the two
inverter system shown in Figure 8. An increase in power
drawn by the load near Inverter 2 results in increased power
from both inverters. If the magnitude of m2 is larger than
.Inverter
Controller
figurc 10: Voltage Conirollcr for Simid-hloncSystcm
*
that of gl,% would tend to dfpp lower than O1. Hence, the
vector E2 would lag the vector E l , and the power flow in the
tie-line from Inverter 1 to Inverter 2 would increase. Thus,
Inverter 1 would take up a larger proportion of the load. It is
possible to define a composite power-frequency curve for all
the inverters in the system. The composite load curve is
likewise defined. At the steady-state operating point on the
composite load-frequency curve, the total power delivered by
the inverters matches the power consumed by the loads.
Depending on the stiffness of the composite power-frequency
curve, the steady-state system frequency will change on
changing loads. The frequency may then be restored to its
nominal value by a slowcr outer loop. To restore the
frequency, the value of Poi , (13) has to be modified for the
inverters. This is equivalent to shifting the power-frcqucncy
curve vertically up or down.
In a similar manner, the sctpoints %* for the AC system
voltages at the inverter systems can be determined from
drooping reactive power-voltage characteristics (Q-E) for the
inverters. This droop ensures the desired reactive powcr
...(13)
sharing between the inverter systems, and is described by:
...(17)
The scheme described in this paper uses P-Iregulators
to determine the set points for 6*, and $ . Howcver, the
dynamic performance of the system can bc substantially
improved if an observer structure is used to determine the
frequency. The position of the AC system voltage vector can
be determined very accurately at any time. This information
can be used to set up a frequency obscrvcr, the output of
which would be an estimated frequency. The time-integral of
the estimated frcquency can be compared to the actual
position of the voltage vector, and the estimated frequency
...(14)
can be modified accordingly. Feedback of the observer states
results in a system with very good dynamic response and
disturbance rejection properties.
The control system dcscribcd above has bccn applicd to
...(15) the stand-alone system of Figure 8. The results of simulation
studies are presented below.
...(16) C . Simulation Results
For the simulation studies, the droops of the two
inverter systems are characterized by the following
parameters:
Pol = 0.75 MW P02= 0.6 MW
m l = -1.4 x 10-5 m2 = -1.75 x 10-5
 0 0
0 lrl

0 0
0 In

' 1
Figure 11: Inverter Real and Reaaive Power (Stand-Alone System) I

Q o l = 0.2MVAR Q02 = 0.1 MVAR
n i =-1.0 x 10-4 n2 =-2.0 x 10-4
The nominal voltage is 3.6 kV rms line-to-line and the
nominal frequency is 60 Hz. The filter components for the
two invcrter systems are identical. Figure 11 shows the
rcsponse of the inverters when the resistance RE2 (Figure 8)
is decreased suddenly to half its value. Figure 11 shows the
rcal and reactive powers supplicd by the two invericr systems
to the load. Figure 11 shows that Inverter 1 carries a larger
share of the real power, since it has a stiffer slope. Figure 12
shows the line-to-line voltage across the filter capacitor of
Inverter 1. The plot for the reactive powers in Figure 11
shows oscillations. These oscillations occur in the absence of
active damping of the loop formed by the two filter
capacitors and the tie-line inductance.
Figure 1 2 Voltage across Inverter 1 Filta Capacitor
V. CONCLUSIONS
This paper has dcscribcd a method to effectively
control inverters in a stand-alone AC supply system, without
any form of signal communication. The simulation results
presented indicate that the scheme effectively achieves the
goals of power sharing in the presence of arbitrarily
changing loads. Active damping in the loop formed by the
filter capacitors and the tie line, and the use of a frcqucncy
observer would enhance the performance further. Thcse
form the goals of a later paper.
VI. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This project is currcntly funded by grant #8818339 of
the National Science Foundation and Agreement RP79 11-12 of
the Electric Power Research Institute.
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Source Converter in High Power Applications", To be presented at the
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[3] A. Nabae, I. Takahashi, 11. Akagi. "A Neutral-Point-Clamped PWM
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1981.
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