1 C2019 - Simulation of Grid-Forming Inverters Dynamic Models - Sandia Lab
1 C2019 - Simulation of Grid-Forming Inverters Dynamic Models - Sandia Lab
SAND2019-7187C
Abstract — Modern power grids include a variety of renewable peer-to-peer coordination between devices. This is typically
Distributed Energy Resources(DERs)as a strategy to comply with accomplished by the use ofdroop control schemes in frequency
new environmental and renewable portfolio standards (RPSs)
imposed by state and federal agencies. Typically, DERs include the
and voltage [7].
use of power electronic(PE)interfaces to interact with the power Recently, a workshop related to GFMIs for low inertia power
grid. Recently this interaction has not only been focused on systems [8] gathered members of academia, researchers of
supplying maximum available energy, but also on supporting the national laboratories, utility engineers, and representatives of
power grid under abnormal conditions such as low inverter and protective relaying manufacturers. In this
voltage/frequency conditions or non-unity power factor. Over the
last few years, grid-following inverters(GFLIs) have proven their
workshop, presenters addressed the state-of-the-art in GFMI
value while providing these ancillary grid-support services either power electronics, reliability, and control. Furthermore, design
at residential or utility scale. However, the use of grid-forming engineers of protective relaying equipment expressed their
inverters(GFMIs) is gaining momentum as the penetration-level concerns about the negative influence of the Phase Locked
of DERs increases and system inertia decreases. Under abnormal Loop (PLL) of GFLIs in terms of protection, loss of
operating conditions, GFMIs tend to better preserve grid stability
due to their intrinsic ability to balance loads without the aid of
synchronism, and inability to supply negative sequence current
coordination controls. In order to gain and propose fundamental during fault scenarios. Even though protective relay
insights into the interfacing of GFMIs to real time simulation, this manufacturers are able to design protective relays for both types
paper analyzes the dynamics of two different GFMI simulation ofinverters either at transmission or distribution level [9],[10];
models in terms of stability and load changes using a Power design engineers clearly expressed their preference towards
Hardware-in-the-Loop(PHIL)simulation testbed.
protection of GFMIs scenarios, since these inverters inherently
Index Terms — grid-forming inverter, grid-following inverter,power
behave in a similar way as synchronous machines without the
hardware-in-the-loop,photovoltaic systems.
need ofPLL for synchronization purposes.
To date, almost all GFMI behavior and incident operational
I. INTRODUCTION benefits have been shown in simulation. More research into
Existing interconnection standards for DERs [1], [2], [3] hardware demonstration is needed. While demonstration of
mandate regulations for the dynamics of grid-tied power GFMI in application environments is ideal, it is difficult to
converters in terms oftransient and steady-state behavior. They tractable test hardware in a wide variety of operation
require DERs to be capable ofassisting the grid under abnormal conditions. Power Hardware-In-Loop (PHIL) is a hybrid
condition such as: low voltage conditions, voltage imbalance, simulation/hardware testbed that can apply simulated grid
and frequency perturbations. DERs perform such assistance conditions to actual hardware. It is a flexible, high fidelity
through the use of ancillary functions such as: volt-var, extension of simulation results that are more tractable to
frequency-watt, and high/low voltage ride-through [4]. implement for a wide variety of operating conditions than a
In scenarios where intentional islanding is desired in order to pure hardware testbed.
energize critical loads, the anti-islanding functionality of the Even with a very broad and in-depth analysis ofthe benefits
DER equipment is disabled with permission of the electric of GFMIs, topics about testing such devices using PHIL are
power system operator. In these cases, without additional often not discussed. While there is abundant literature that
generator sources, GFLIs cannot be used, as they require the explain the different methods of interfacing GFLIs using PHIL
presence of an external voltage signal to synchronize and interfaces [11],[12],[13],[14],[15], the process of interfacing
operate. GFMIs are necessary in such islanded operation since GFMIs using PHIL interfaces presents its own challenges in
they can regulate the voltage magnitude and the frequency terms ofstability and control. These challenges, so far, have not
similarly to synchronous generators. As the increasing been properly addressed in literature.
penetration ofrenewable energy resources is starting to displace This paper presents simulation results of two GFMI
synchronous generators, the amount of inertia in such systems simulation models interfaced with physical GFLIs using a PHIL
is decreased. For these low inertia scenarios, GFMIs models setup. The main idea behind these simulations is to recognize
have been proposed and tested to enhance grid stability [5],[6]. and understand the intrinsic dynamics ofthe simulation models
One of the most important features of GFMIs is their in terms oftransient stability, voltage and frequency regulation,
capability to instantaneously balance load changes without and load sharing capabilities. Results of the PHIL tests will
Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC, a wholly owned
subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA0003525.
provide technical feedback to inverter manufacturers that can This setup provides a flexible platform for the proposed
further discussions and analyses regarding errors between validation tests of GFMI models since all the aforementioned
simulation models and actual GFMIs available in the market. simulation metrics can be implemented in software inside the
Metrics of the validation process focus mainly on the RTS box. Furthermore, any type of abnormal grid condition
following dynamics• i) transient stability during and after that involves significant amounts of energy, such as faults or
interconnection to the grid and under abrupt load changes, ii) large loads, takes place merely at simulation level, thus
grid-forming capabilities under islanded conditions in protecting the DUT against potential catastrophic damages.
distribution systems with low inertia, and iii) proper load
sharing during islanding cases with more than one GFMI is III. DESCRIPTION OF SIIVIULATION MODELS
present in the system.
The simulation models used in this paper are presented and
After a brief PHIL overview, this paper describes, in a
described in this section. Both models have the same generic
detailed manner, the two proposed GFMIs to be tested under
GFMI control scheme shown in Fig. 2, but they differ in the
the PHIL setup. Later, the experimental setup consisting of a
voltage regulation scheme. Notice that droop control is a
low inertia PHIL system is described, followed by the
fundamental part of the control scheme if the inverters are to
experimental results analyses and conclusions.
share loads with other generating sources connected to the
system. The equations ofthe droop characteristics are based on
II. PHIL OVERVIEW the power flow equations from the circuit in Fig. 3:
Advances in parallel computing have allowed the EV EV
proliferation ofstate-of-the-art real-time simulators(RTS)[13], P = —sin g —8 (1)
XL XL
which, in turn, provide the means to implement a systematic
process for testing a variety of devices, including power = E2 — EV cos g E(E —V)
converters. Such testing not only facilitates the rapid Q (2)
prototyping of hardware and its respective control schemes via XL XL
Hardware-in-the-Loop(HIL), but also permits the use ofpower
Where the accuracy of the approximations shown in (1) and
amplifiers while testing commercial devices such as inverters.
(2)are valid only if the X/R ratio ofthe coupling impedance of
The inclusion ofpower amplifiers allows the devices under test
the GFMI is sufficiently large (z10) to a point where only the
(DUTs)to transfer real and reactive power in a process called
inductive reactance can be considered in the analysis [7].
Power Hardware-in-the-Loop (PHIL).
Experiments were performed in the PHIL testbed located at Q
the Distributed Energy Technologies Laboratory (DETL) at
Sandia National Laboratories. Fig. 1 shows a simplified NvVo Vo vdci
diagram ofthis testbed, where a distribution feeder is simulated re 10
—> Droop Voltage
— Cric 444-y-yY\4_Vo
inside the RTS box. The RTS box, in turn, exchanges current Power Control and/or Emod Lf
Calculation current —
and voltage measurements with the DUT to incorporate the
measured signals into the simulated distribution feeder. Notice
Eref
—> control SPWM cT
A
4% 4% A generator H-Bridge
also that the RTS controls the power amplifier according to the o
¡0
-Pg-
feeder dynamics,this allows the proper power flow between the Vset--'
4
1\11\10
power amplifier and the DUT.
For cases where the X/R ratio does not meet the
DUT
aforementioned assumption, different droop characteristics
Simulator
(inverter need to be implemented([6],[16], and [17]) to counteract for
analog the low X/R. Therefore, if the linearity of the approximations
output
Power in(1) and (2)hold, the real power provided by the inverter can
Amplifier
be controlled by the frequency, whereas the reactive power can
Simulator be controlled by the voltage amplitude, as depicted in the plots
analog of Fig. 3.
inputs
Current & Voltage
The first model (called Model A), uses the CERTS control
measurements and scheme described in [5], whereas the second model (called
scaling
Model B)performs voltage and current control in the dq-frame
Fig. 1. PHIL test setup.
[17].
introducing a second control loop that reduces the inverter's
frequency in cases where it may become overloaded [5]. For
simplicity, this control loop will be omitted since proper
precautions will be taken (moderate loads) during simulations
to avoid overloading the inverter under steady state conditions.
TABLE I shows the main simulation parameters ofModel A,
where all the droop-control and PI regulators are tuned based
Pset = 0.5 p.u. on per unitized quantities.
fo set = 1 p.u.
0 q
MP TABLE I
SIMULATION PARAMETERS OF MODEL A.
-->
Prated = 1 AU. Qmin Qmax Sbase 50 kVA KP,oi 6.1
Fig. 3. Power flow circuit and droop characteristics diagrams for Vbase 480 Vrms Kiwi 0.001
generic GFMI controls with droop. inp 0.01 Lf 0.8 mH
mq 0.05 Cf 1500 i.tF
A. Description ofControl Scheme ofModel A Cd, 1000011F Vdr 900 V
The control scheme of Model A is shown in Fig. 4. This grid-
forming controller uses frequency-droop and voltage droop
B. Description ofControl Scheme ofModel B.
characteristics to regulate the real and reactive power,
respectively. Before the droop control takes place, the output The control scheme of Model B is shown in Fig. 5. As with
variables io and vo are mapped into the a[3-frame. Such Model A, the frequency-droop scheme dictates the frequency
transformed values of voltage and current are used to calculate of the system according to the load demands. However, in
P and Q in real time, as per the following expressions [18]. Model B, this scheme also provides the system's angular
displacement (A) needed to perform the dq-frame
P =-3[vo io -E vo io ] (3) transformation in the output voltages and currents, which in
2 a a ß ß return are used to calculate the real and reactive power in real
time as per the following expressions [18]:
r
Q = 2 I.— Vocti013 +1;013i0a] (4)
r
P =— ly0diOd + VOqi0q] (6)
Also,a PI controller is used to regulate the voltage reference 2
provided by the voltage droop stage, this improves voltage
Q =-
r (7)
regulation by minimizing circulating currents throughout the
2 I.— vOdiOq + VOqi0d 1
Vaabc a -wOal3
one order of magnitude faster than the droop and voltage
e cos —
J _41 regulators.
abc 1_3 p,Q,
iOabc co _r> Vopeak E„,o
,
Since a dq-reference frame is used, compensation of the
—.> q PI cross-coupling toLf terms must be implemented in order to
abc 64 ---
VOpeak decouple the dynamics of each current control loop from each
vs„ ) other. This compensation reduces the order of each current
s___,
Voltage control
control loop to one single variable, which in return facilitates
Fig. 4. Control scheme of Model A(CERTS droop control).
and simplifies the current compensators design and stability
analysis [18], [19]. TABLE II shows the main simulation
A more advanced feature of the CERTS control scheme parameters of Model B.
includes the use of an overload mitigation regulator, which
helps to prevent the GFMI from DC bus voltage collapse by
lOdy
P,Q, Hardware
devices
calculation
abc HI L Simulator Box
in dq-frame iOd VOd I $t4/1
TL TL2 Power
'dee
Pse VOabc Amplifier 1 GFLI
- 3-phase
NZ
Vdre
1
Iq PV
Vsei Vod
Simulator
Droop Control Vq
VOa
E 260
— CERTS GFMI
V. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS. 240 — DQ GFMI
35 40 45 50 55 65
The first set of results are related to the dynamics of the time (s)
as depicted in Fig. 9. Before t1, since the GFLI is disconnected, Fig. 10. Voltage and frequency ofthe GFMIs under load changes.
each one ofthe GFMIs supply the required 24 kW ofLi, while
also dictating the voltage and frequency ofthe system. At tl, the Another way to visualize the dynamics ofGFMIs is using the
GFLI connects and follows a period of transition. Since the power-frequency (P-f) plane as shown in Fig. 11, where the
GFLI is closer to L1,it supplies most ofthe required real power. different time stages of the load change test are plotted with
Notice also that the power provided by the GFMI droops different colors following the sequence: green(before GFLI
significantly, but still regulates the voltage and the frequency of connects)-blue(after GFLI connects)-red(after L2 connects).
the system so the GFLI stays online. At t2, the second load L2 The colored arrows indicate the direction of the trajectories as
connects, forcing the GFMI to provide the required real power time elapses. The starting point(t=0) of the trajectories is also
while sharing the loads with the GFLI. marked in both plots
60
The fault current contribution of each GFMI is depicted in
59.95 -
Fig. 13. As previously mentioned, the lower fault current
59 9 - 1
contribution from the DQ GFMI is due to its intrinsic current 119.98 120 120.02 120.04 120.06 120.08
regulation scheme, which also reflects a lower real power time (s)
injection during the fault when compared against the CERTS Fig. 14. Frequency dynamics of GFMIs under a 3-phase fault.
GFMI. The parameter AI, shown in Fig. 13, reveals a current
difference of about 200 A. between the two fault current A. Single-phase case results.
contributions. This current difference must be taken into For this case, the SWTDI experimental setup previously
account when designing the protection scheme for this system. described was used as a validation platform. Due to a limited
Moreover, if overcurrent relays are used, adaptive protection number of sensors, only voltage and frequency were recorded
might be a possible solution to overcome relay misoperation during these experimental tests at SWTDI. Also for safety
[9]. reasons, both commercial GFMI had their frequency-droop
From Fig. 13, it can be observed that the control scheme of characteristics deactivated. To comply with this constraint, the
the GFMI plays an important role in the design ofthe protection frequency-droop control ofthe models was deactivated as well.
scheme for low inertia systems. Where CERTS GFMIs seemed Fig. 15 shows the frequency response of the GFMI when L1
easier to protect using overcurrent relays than their DQ GFMIs and L2 are simultaneously connected to the system as shown in
counterpart. in Fig. 7 and Fig. 8. Both loads demand real and reactive power
(P=4.5 kW and Q=1 kVar, each). Since the droop A low inertia PHIL testbed was introduced to perform the
characteristics are deactivated, the frequency experiences a different testing scenarios. Such a testbed allows for the
transient and then goes back to the commanded value of60 Hz. application ofload changes along with low impedance faults to
The frequency spike is similar in magnitude for both models, the tested GFMI models. In order to preserve the low inertia of
but the CERTS dynamics respond much faster than the the system, a commercially available GFLI inverter was
commercial inverter. interfaced with the PHIL.
Simulation results showed that a GFMI model with DQ
current control shows an intrinsic slower response offrequency
60 and voltage regulation when compared to the response of a
59.9 - -COMMERCIAL GFMI
CERTS GFMI model. It was also shown that under fault
-CERTS GFMI scenarios, the DQ controlled GFMI performed better in terms
59.8 - -DQ GFMI
N of limitation of fault current contribution due to its inherent
59.7 - current control scheme.
a-
g 59.6 - The single phase models were validated against
59.5 -
commercially available inverters. The PHIL results showed
accurate results in steady state, but further research and
59.4 -
experiments are required to validate the corresponding
59.3 differences between experimental and PHIL results during
100 101 102 103 104 105
time (s) transients.
Fig. 15. GFMIs frequency response to a load change. The use of validated, generic models which can accurately
replicate the behavior of real GFMIs under several dynamic
Fig. 16 shows the voltage response of the GFMIs to the load operating conditions allow inverter manufacturers, integrators,
change previously described. CERTS GMFI shows a short and systems operators to obtain technical feedback about the
negative voltage spike, whereas the commercial GFMI shows a dynamic performance of GFMIs under a variety of abnormal
well voltage-regulated transient response. In steady state both operating conditions.
dynamics converge to the same voltage level, which is less than
the voltage before the loads connects. This is due to the V-Q ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
droop control and the presence of reactive power demanded by
Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-mission laboratory
the loads.
managed and operated by National Technology and
Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC. a wholly owned
subsidiary of Honeywell International, Inc., for the U.S
Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security
-COMMERCIAL GFMI
-CERTS GFMI Administration under contract DE-NA-0003525.
-DQ GFMI
90
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