A Small-AC-Signal Injection Based Harmonic Power

Sharing Method for Islanded Microgrids

Baojin Liu, Zeng Liu, Jinjun Liu, Teng Wu, Shike Wang, Xin Meng
State Key Lab of Electrical Insulation and Power Equipment, School of Electrical Engineering
Xi’an Jiaotong University
Xi’an, China
[email protected]

Abstract—This paper proposes a novel control method for both communication-based techniques [17-19] and
harmonic power sharing in an islanded microgrid, without communication-less approaches [11-16] have been proposed,
employing any control interconnections between the distributed and the latter ones are more attractive for microgrid
generation (DG) units. The fundamental real and reactive power application, which will be reviewed as follows.
is shared by implementing conventional P-f and Q-V droop
control. A virtual negative output impedance at harmonic A virtual output resistance at harmonic frequency is
frequency is introduced to control the distribution of harmonic suggested to realize harmonic power sharing in [11]. Then, the
power. Moreover, a small-AC-signal is injected in each DG unit output resistance is made highly simplified by eliminating the
for dynamically regulating the magnitude of its virtual negative band-pass filters using a proportional-multi-resonant voltage
harmonic output impedance to realize evenly sharing of controller in [13]. In [12] the author proposed a control strategy
harmonic power among all DG units according to their available that combines droop control and modified shunt harmonic
harmonic power capacities. This novel method can also provide impedance with programmable harmonic resistance (PR-SHI)
improved load voltage quality and does not need information together to address harmonic current sharing issue. These three
about line impedance. Simulation results on PSCAD are offered techniques can be summarized as virtual harmonic impedance
to validate the proposed method. (VHI) methods [11-13], since a virtual impedance is put in
series with line impedance to regulate the distribution of
Keywords—microgrid; power sharing; harmonic power; small
harmonic power. The VHI methods can achieve equal
signal injection;virtual negative impedance
harmonic power sharing among all DG units. However, there is
an inherent tradeoff between sharing accuracy and load voltage
I. INTRODUCTION quality.
Centralized power generation gradually loses its attraction To improve the load voltage quality as well as share the
with the increasing concern about the environment and energy harmonic power, a droop relationship between harmonic
crisis. Microgrid may be a promising solution for electrical conductance (G) and harmonic power (H) is adopted in [15],
energy revolution, as it can integrate renewable energy which can share harmonic power among paralleled inverters
resources, energy storage systems and distributed loads into a while minimize load voltage distortion. Nevertheless, the
controllable system that provide power reliably, flexibly and influence from the difference between line impedance of each
intelligently [1-3]. In normal condition, microgrid is connected DG unit is not considered. Furthermore, a negative virtual
to the utility grid to supply or consume electrical power harmonic impedance and harmonic power droop (Zh-H droop)
according to power management command. However, technique is proposed recently in [16], where the equivalent
microgrid should be capable of disconnecting from utility grid harmonic impedance in each transmission line is decreased due
and maintaining operation in islanded mode when grid faults to the presence of negative virtual impedance, and thus the load
and contingencies occur [4-5]. voltage distortion in the point of common coupling (PCC) is
During the islanded operation, it is critical to make all load minimized. However, the information about line impedance is
powers, including fundamental power and harmonic power, needed to design the droop coefficients properly.
evenly shared among all the distributed generation (DG) units For avoiding the requirement on the knowledge of line
and thereby no DG unit is overloaded. For fundamental power impedance, [14] developed a voltage loop bandwidth and
sharing, there are already several control methods [6-10]. distortion power droop relationship to share harmonic power.
Droop control is the most widely adopted one among them, as Meanwhile, each DG unit injects a small ac voltage signal,
it can provide real and reactive power sharing without using whose frequency is controlled by the harmonic power, into the
communication link. However, the conventional droop method microgrid as a control signal. The frequency of injected small-
is not able to share harmonic power because the droop unit AC-signal is identical in steady state, so the harmonic power is
doesn’t take it into account. Harmonic power, which is equally shared. Though small-AC-signal injection is an artful
produced by nonlinear loads, could be a significant part in load technique as it can achieve communication among DG units
power, especially in low voltage microgrid. The uneven through power line, the variation of voltage loop bandwidth
sharing of harmonic power may also lead to overloading of will affect the dynamic performance and stability of the
certain DG units. To address the harmonic power sharing issue, inverter.
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of
China under Grant 51437007, and the Power Electronics Science and
Education Development Program of Delta Environmental & Educational
Foundation under Grant DREM2014002.

978-1-5090-0737-0/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE

 To overcome the limitations of aforementioned approaches, respectively, Ȧ0 is the frequency reference when output real
this paper proposes a novel harmonic power sharing method, power equals to P0, E0 is the reference amplitude when output
which combines the benefit of the virtual negative harmonic reactive power equals to Q0, kp and kq (defined as positive) are
impedance (VNHI) used in [16] and the small-AC-small the droop coefficients. In the output power calculation unit of
injection used in [14], and the small-AC-signal is injected for traditional droop control, we usually put a low pass filter to
dynamically regulating the magnitude of the VNHI. This novel eliminate the ripple and get the average power. Furthermore,
method mainly has four distinctive features: firstly, harmonic the control variables of (1) are fundamental frequency and
power is equally shared among all DG units according to their amplitude. So, traditional droop control can neither measure
available harmonic power capacitances; secondly, this method nor control harmonic power. Hence, extra control strategy
can provide lower THD in load voltage; thirdly, no line should be employed to share the nonlinear load.
impedance information is needed; fourthly, no communication
link is employed. At harmonic frequencies, we can consider the inverter as
short circuit with a small output impedance in series. A
simplified equivalent circuit of a two-inverter-parallel system
II. PROPOSED METHOD at harmonic frequencies is shown in Fig.2. The nonlinear load
is represented by a harmonic current source ih. Zinv1 and Zinv2
A. System Analysis are the output impedance of each inverter at harmonic
Most of the DG units in microgrid are coupled to PCC bus frequencies. Usually Zinv1 and Zinv2 are much smaller than the
through power electronic interfacing inverters. So a microgrid line impedance ZL1 and ZL2. Therefore, the harmonic power
can be simplified to an inverter-parallel system, feeding absorbed by each DG is mainly determined by the ratio of line
common loads as illustrated in Fig.1. ZL is the line impedance impedance when no load sharing technique is employed. The
that can be resistive, inductive or complex. It is usually mismatched line impedance can result in uneven sharing of
different for each DG unit due to the distributed feature. The harmonic power.
analysis in this paper is based on inductive line impedance for
brevity. The load can be linear, nonlinear or the combination of ZL1 ZL2
both. A microgrid usually contains lots of power electronic
load devices, so the harmonic power can be significant and
should not be omitted. In order to avoid overloading of certain
DG unit, both fundamental and harmonic power should be Zinv1 ih Zinv2
equally shared.
DG1 DG2 DGn

E1ğį1 E2ğį2 Enğįn Fig. 2. Simplified equivalent circuit of a two-inverter-parallel system at

harmonic frequencies.

B. Vitual Negative Harmonic Impedance

ZL1 ZL2 ZLn The initial purpose of virtual output impedance is to
minimize the cross-coupling effect between real and reactive
Uğ0°
PCC power when line impedance is neither purely inductive nor
resistive [20]. In [11-13], the virtual harmonic output
Linear Load Nonlinear Load impedance (VHI) is introduced to realize harmonic power
sharing. The VHI methods modify the inverter output voltage
reference by subtracting a voltage drop across the VHI as
shown in (2).
*
vref = vref − ih ZVHI (2)
Fig. 1. Simplified configuration of a microgrid.
The VHI methods are then developed to virtual negative
For linear power sharing, the conventional droop method harmonic output impedance (VNHI) recently as illustrated in
has been proven to be an effective solution. In this method the (3) [16]. By adding a negative virtual impedance, the
inverter emulates the behavior of synchronous generator by equivalent line impedance in Fig.2 becomes ZL minus ZVNHI.
drooping amplitude with reactive power and frequency with Lower line impedance can provide better PCC voltage quality
active power. The droop characteristics are mathematically [16].
expressed as,
*
vref = vref − ih ( − ZVNHI ) (3)
ω * = ω0 − k p ( P − P0 )
(1) In this paper, the implementation of VNHI can be
E * = E0 − kq ( Q − Q0 )
expressed as (4) for inductive line impedance.
where Ȧ* and E* are the reference command of frequency and
¬ªihn ( − jωn LVNHI ) ¼º
*
amplitude, P and Q are the output real and reactive power vref = vref − ¦ (4)
n = 5,7,11"
where vref* is the voltage reference calculated by droop power is shared. According to this principle, a small AC signal
equation (1), n is the order of harmonic current, ihn is the nth is injected by each DG as a control signal. The amplitude of the
harmonic current extracted from output current, LVNHI small signal is fixed at 1% of the fundamental voltage
represents the virtual harmonic inductance. The distribution of amplitude, so as not to deteriorate output voltage. The
harmonic power can be regulated by adjusting the value of harmonic power (H) controls the frequency of the small signal.
LVNHI. For example, when LVNHI becomes larger, the total We measure the real power due to the small signal (Pss) at DG
effective line impedance will become smaller, the DG will output terminal and use it to adjust the VNHI. (7) and (8)
absorb more harmonic power. mathematically represent the control mechanism.
For resistive line impedance, reference voltage is modified ωss* = ωss 0 − k1 H (7)
by:
LVNHI = LVNHI 0 + k2 Pss (8)
*
vref = vref − ih ( − RVNHI ) (5)
where Ȧss* is the reference frequency of the injected small
The range of VNHI need to be carefully designed to avoid signal, H represent the output harmonic power of this DG unit,
stability issue. Usually we can keep the value of VNHI Ȧss0 is the frequency of small signal when no harmonic power
between 0-80% of real line impedance. The VNHI proposed in is drawn, LVNHI is the virtual negative harmonic inductance
this paper is similar to that in [16]. However, the procedure to command (positive value but behaves like a negative
determine the value of virtual impedance is different. In [16] inductance), LVNHI0 is a predetermined bias, Pss is the measured
the VNHI is calculated by a Zh-H droop relationship as shown output real power due to the small signal, k1 and k2 are
in (6). H is the output harmonic power. b is droop coefficient coefficients (defined as positive).
which is designed according to line impedance. So precisely
measuring line impedance is necessary in [16]. In this paper, As an example, if the inverter outputs more harmonic
the VNHI is determined by injecting a small signal which is power (larger H), it will inject small signal with lower
explained in section C. frequency. Then the real power Pss produced by small signal
will decrease, and the LVNHI will also decrease, the equivalent
Z h = Z h* − b ( H 0 − H ) (6) line impedance (LL minus LVNHI) is increased, so the harmonic
power drawn from this DG will get smaller. Eventually, all the
C. Small-AC-Signal Injection paralleled inverters will reach a steady state operating point,
where the frequency of injected small signal in each DG is
In conventional P-f droop control, there’s a self-regulating identical. Thus the harmonic power can be shared.
mechanism: when output real power increases, the frequency is
decreased and then the phase angle of this DG relative to the The overall control block diagram is illustrated in Fig.3.
rest of the system will reduce, the power drawn from this DG The small signal voltage and current, the harmonic currents are
will decrease with the phase angle. Eventually, all the DG units extracted from output voltage and current by using multiple
in the system will have the same frequency and load active synchronous reference frames (MSRF) technique. The first

L PCC
Udc LL1
Linear Load

iLabc C iabc vabc

PWM vref _ ss Ess* = 1V
Modulator ωss*
= Ess* sin ωss* t
H
Nonlinear Load
ω *
P
Voltage and vref _ f Power
Current Loop E* Q vss
= E sin ω t
* *
Calculation Small Signal
iss
Pss Extraction

iLabc vabc -LVNHI

ihn
Harmonic
Current
DG1 Extraction

LLn
DGn
Fig. 3. Overall control structure of the proposed method
droop block indicates equation (7), the second and third droop 2
S remaining = S rated − ( P2 + Q2 ) (12)
blocks represent (1), and fourth droop block shows (8). The
harmonic power is calculated by (9), where S is the output
The coefficient k1 is designed according to:
apparent power.
k1_1 k1_ 2 k1_n
H = S 2 − P2 − Q2 (9) = ="= (12)
S remaining _1 Sremaining _ 2 S remaining _n
The apparent power S can be derived by multiplying
current and voltage rms values as (10) shows. Here we assume • This method does not affect the sharing of real and
the system is three phase balanced. reactive power because the virtual impedance is only
valid for harmonic frequencies.
S = 3Vrms I rms (10)
• No communication link is needed; the small signal is
The voltage reference consists of three parts: fundamental transmitted through power transmission line.
voltage reference, injected small signal reference and voltage • Do not need to measure the line impedance. Rough
drop on the virtual output impedance. The voltage and inner estimation is enough.
current control loop track this composite voltage reference,
which is given by the following equation: • The equivalent line impedance is lower due to the
presents of negative virtual impedance, so the PCC
vref _ composite = E * sin ω *t + Ess* sin ωss* t voltage distortion is minimized.
(11)
− ¦ ¬ªihn ( − jωn LVNHI ) ¼º
n = 5,7,11"

This proposed method operates in the following steps: Inverter A 5ȍ

3mH
• Measure the output harmonic power H. 10mH

• Droop the frequency of small signal according to the

measured H and inject the small signal into the system.
• Measure the output small signal voltage and current, 4mH
then calculate the real power produced by small signal Inverter B
(Pss).
Fig. 4. System topology developed in simulaton
• Adjust the virtual negative harmonic impedance
according to the real power produced by small signal.
There are some important considerations in the proposed III. SIMULATION RESULTS
control scheme. The frequency of small signal should be Simulations on PSCAD/EMTDC are conducted to verify
selected carefully. Higher frequency would simplify the design the proposed method. System topology developed in the
of extraction filter. But the maximum frequency is limited by simulation is shown in Fig.4. A three phase diode rectifier is
the bandwidth of the voltage loop and the output LC filter. In employed as the nonlinear load. Two inverters are tied to PCC
this paper, we set the frequency of small signal at 100Hz through mismatched line impedance. Several chief simulation
(fundamental frequency is 50Hz). When design the droop parameters are given in Table I.
coefficients k1 and k2, both dynamic response and stability
should be taken into account. Larger coefficient can provide
TABLE I. SIMULATION PARAMETERS
fast dynamic response, however, may cause some stability
issue. Smaller coefficient, on the other hand, may slow down Parameters Values Parameters Values
the dynamic process and even fails to share the harmonic Ȧ0 50.0Hz E0 100V
power. The predetermined VNHI bias restricts the range of k1 0.0006 k2 0.002
virtual impedance. As we mentioned before, the value of VNHI kp 10-4 kq 10-4
ɘss0 100Hz LVNHI0 0.001mH
should be kept between 0~80% of the real line impedance to
avoid stability issue. Here we can roughly estimate the line
impedance, instead of measuring it precisely. Then, the virtual At the beginning, only conventional droop control is
impedance bias LVNHI0 can be determined. implemented. At 7 second, the proposed method is enabled.
The proposed method mainly has five advantages: Simulation results are depicted in Fig.5 and Fig.6.
Before 7 second, we can see that harmonic power is
• Harmonic power can be shared among all DG units
distributed based on line impedance according to Fig.5. When
according to their available capacities, as long as
the proposed control mechanism is enabled at 7 second, the
designing k1 according to the remaining capacity. The
harmonic load power is shared equally between two inverters.
remaining capacity can be calculated by:
 Nonlinear Power
extended to share other quantities, such as unbalanced power,
H_A H_B
1.20k by following the same procedure in this paper, which will be
discussed in future publications.
1.10k

Inverter
1.00k

0.90k

0.80k

0.70k Filter and

time /s 4.0 6.0 8.0 10.0 12.0 14.0 16.0 18.0 20.0 Sampling

Fig. 5. Harmonic power Fig. 7. Experimental setup

Linear Power
PmesA PmesB QmesA QmesB
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