DC microgrids (MGs) have been gaining a continually increasing interest over the past couple of years both in academia and industry. The advantages of dc distribution when compared to its ac counterpart are well known. The most important ones include higher reliability and efficiency, simpler control and natural interface with renewable energy sources, and electronic loads and energy storage systems. With rapid emergence of these components in modern power systems, the importance of dc in today's society is gradually being brought to a whole new level. A broad class of traditional dc distribution applications, such as traction, telecom, vehicular, and distributed power systems can be classified under dc MG framework and ongoing development, and expansion of the field is largely influenced by concepts used over there. This paper aims first to shed light on the practical design aspects of dc MG technology concerning typical power hardware topologies and their suitability for different emerging smart grid applications. Then, an overview of the state of the art in dc MG protection and grounding is provided. Owing to the fact that there is no zero-current crossing, an arc that appears upon breaking dc current cannot be extinguished naturally, making the protection of dc MGs a challenging problem. In relation with this, a comprehensive overview of protection schemes, which discusses both design of practical protective devices and their integration into overall protection systems, is provided. Closely coupled with protection, conflicting grounding objectives, e.g., minimization of stray current and common-mode voltage, are explained and several practical solutions are presented. Also, standardization efforts for dc systems are addressed. Finally, concluding remarks and important future research directions are pointed out.

/pdf/dc-microgrids-part-ii-a-review-of-power-architectures-69j8nn2rpd.pdf

DC Microgrids—Part II: A Review of Power Architectures, Applications, and Standardization Issues

In this paper, a novel wireless load-sharing controller for islanding parallel inverters in an ac-distributed system is proposed This paper explores the resistive output impedance of the parallel-connected inverters in an island microgrid The control loops are devised and analyzed, taking into account the special nature of a low-voltage microgrid, in which the line impedance is mainly resistive and the distance between the inverters makes the control intercommunication between them difficult In contrast with the conventional droop-control method, the proposed controller uses resistive output impedance, and as a result, a different control law is obtained The controller is implemented by using a digital signal processor board, which only uses local measurements of the unit, thus increasing the modularity, reliability, and flexibility of the distributed system Experimental results are provided from two 6-kVA inverters connected in parallel, showing the features of the proposed wireless control

Decentralized Control for Parallel Operation of Distributed Generation Inverters Using Resistive Output Impedance

In this paper, a novel wireless load-sharing controller for islanding parallel inverters in an ac distributed system is proposed. The paper explorers the resistive output impedance of the parallel-connected inverters in an island microgrid

Decentralized control for parallel operation of distributed generation inverters using resistive output impedance

This paper addresses voltage control of distributed DC power systems. DC power systems have been discussed as a result of the introduction of renewable, small-scale power generation units. Also, telecommunication power systems featuring UPS properties might benefit from a broader introduction of DC power systems. Droop control is utilized to distribute the load between the source converters. In order to make the loading of the source converters equal, in per unit, the voltage control algorithm for each converter has to be designed to act similar. The DC side capacitor of each converter, needed for filtering, is also determined as a consequence. The root locus is investigated for varying DC bus impedance. It is found that the risk of entering converter over-modulation is a stronger limitation than stability, at least for reasonable DC bus cable parameters. The stationary and dynamic properties during load variations are also investigated.

DC bus voltage control for a distributed power system

This paper addresses load current sharing and cir- culating current issues of parallel-connected dc-dc converters in low-voltage dc microgrid. Droop control is the popular technique for load current sharing in dc microgrid. The main drawbacks of the conventional droop method are poor current sharing and drop in dcgrid voltage due tothe droop action. Circulating current issue will also arise due to mismatch in the converters output voltages. In this work, a figure of merit called droop index (DI) is introduced in order to improve the performance of dc microgrid, which is a function of normalized current sharing difference and losses in the output side of the converters. This proposed adaptive droop con- trol method minimizes the circulating current and current sharing difference between the converters based on instantaneous virtual resistance Rdroop .U singRdroop shifting, the proposed method also eliminates the tradeoff between current sharing difference and voltage regulation. The detailed analysis and design procedure are explained for two dc-dc boost converters connected in paral- lel. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by detailed simulation and experimental studies.

Adaptive Droop Control Strategy for Load Sharing and Circulating Current Minimization in Low-Voltage Standalone DC Microgrid

There is a fairly large number of methods for paralleling power converters. This paper classifies and examines these paralleling schemes, focusing on the active current-sharing approaches. Based on this classification, some new paralleling schemes can be achieved. Emphasis is placed on discussion and assessment of merits and limitations of these schemes. Finally, the prominent features of the dominant paralleling schemes are verified by simulation of a two-paralleled buck converter system.

Shiguo Luo

Papers

A classification and evaluation of paralleling methods for power supply modules