PNNL-32278

Model Specification of
Droop-Controlled, Grid-
Forming Inverters
(REGFM_A1)
September 2023

Prepared for the U.S. Department of Energy

under Contract DE-AC05-76RL01830
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 Contributors
Name Organization
Wei Du Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Robert H. Lasseter University of Wisconsin-Madison
Christian Hardt SMA Solar Technology AG
Song Wang Portland General Electric
Songzhe Zhu GridBright
Yuan Liu Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Quan Nguyen Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Jinho Kim Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Hongtao Ma North American Electric Reliability Corporation
Pouyan Pourbeik Power and Energy, Analysis, Consulting and
Education (PEACE) PLLC
Deepak Ramasubramanian Electric Power Research Institute
Juan Sanchez General Electric
Jayapalan Senthil Siemens PTI
James Weber PowerWorld
Jeff Bloemink PowerTech Labs
Doug Tucker Western Electricity Coordinating Council
Sophie Xu Pacific Gas and Electric
Zhenyu Huang Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Francis K. Tuffner Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Renke Huang Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
 Acknowledgement
This material is based upon work supported by PNNL’s Laboratory Directed Research and
Development (LDRD) program, and the Universal Interoperability for Grid-Forming Inverters
(UNIFI) consortium. UNIFI consortium is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of
Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) under Solar Energy Technologies Office
(SETO) Award Number 38637.
1.0 Objective
This document describes a positive-sequence model of droop-controlled, grid-forming (GFM)
inverter-based resources (IBRs). It can be considered as an initial model for evaluating the
impacts of GFM IBRs on the transients and dynamics of transmission systems.

2.0 Grid-Forming Inverter Concept

A grid-forming inverter behaves as a controllable voltage source behind a coupling reactance as
shown in Fig. 1. The internal voltage magnitude E and angular frequency ω are controlled by
the droop controller.
E δE V δV
XL AC
E
ω Grid

P, Q, I φ
Fig. 1 Basic model of grid-forming inverter.
The coupling reactance, XL, is important for the droop controller design. By properly sizing XL,
for example, between 0.05 and 0.15 pu on an inverter rating base, the inverter output active
power, P, and reactive power, Q, can be approximately decoupled. As shown by (1) to (3), P is
approximately linear with the phase angle difference δP, and Q is approximately linear with E.
The well-developed droop control is based on this decoupling characteristic.

 p =  E − V (1)

EV EV
P= sin  p  p (2)
XL XL
E 2 − EV cos  p E ( E − V )
Q=  (3)
XL XL

3.0 Positive-Sequence Model of Droop-Controlled, Grid-

Forming Inverters
This section introduces the positive-sequence model of droop-controlled, grid-forming inverters,
including the inverter main circuit representation, the droop control, and the fault current limiting
function.

3.1 Inverter Main Circuit Representation

The inverter main circuit is modeled as a voltage source behind the coupling reactance XL, as
shown in Fig. 2 (a). The grid-forming controller will adjust the internal voltage magnitude E and
phase angle δE. When interfacing with the network solver, the voltage source will be converted
to its Norton equivalent current source, as shown in Fig. 2 (b).

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 XL V δV V δV

P, Q, I φ P, Q, I φ

E δE IN φN YL

(a) (b)
Fig. 2 Inverter equivalent circuits. (a) Inverter internal voltage source and the coupling
reactance. (b) Norton equivalent current source.

3.2 Grid-Forming Droop Control Model

Fig. 3 (a) and (b) show the P-f droop control and Q-V droop control, which regulate the inverter
internal voltage magnitude and phase angle during normal operations. Table 1 shows the
inverter and controller parameters.
Table 1 Parameters of the Droop-Controlled, Grid-Forming Inverters on the Inverter Rating Base
Symbol Description Example Value Normal Range
XL Inverter coupling reactance 0.15 pu 0.05 pu–0.25 pu
mq Q-V droop gain 0.05 pu 0 pu–0.20 pu
Vref Voltage set point Initialized by power flow NA
Qref Reactive power set point Initialized by power flow NA
kpv Proportional gain of the voltage controller 0 pu 0 pu–0.01pu
kiv Integral gain of the voltage controller 5.86 pu/s 3 pu/s–15 pu/s
Emax Upper limit of the output of the voltage loop 1.15 pu 1 pu–1.25 pu
Emin Lower limit of the output of the voltage loop 0 pu 0 pu
mp P-f droop gain 0.01 pu 0.005 pu–0.05 pu
Pref Power set point Initialized by power flow NA
Pmax Upper limit of the inverter active power output 0.9 pu 0.1 pu – 1 pu
Should be negative
when representing
Pmin Lower limit of the inverter active power output 0 pu
energy storage
systems
kppmax Proportional gain of the overload mitigation controller 0.01 pu 0.005 pu–0.05 pu
kipmax Integral gain of the overload mitigation controller 0.1 pu/s 0.05 pu/s–0.2 pu/s
ω0 Rated angular frequency 376.99 rad/s NA
Time constant of the low-pass filter for P
TPf 0.01 s 0.01 s–0.1 s
measurement
Time constant of the low-pass filter for Q
TQf 0.01 s 0.01 s–0.1 s
measurement
Time constant of the low-pass filter for V
TVf 0.01 s 0.01 s–0.1 s
measurement
Qmax Upper limit of the inverter reactive power output 0.44 pu 0.44 pu–1 pu
Qmin Lower limit of the inverter reactive power output -0.44 pu -0.44 pu– -1 pu
Voltage control mode selection. The controller can
VFlag either regulate the point of interconnection (POI) 1 0 or 1
voltage V or the inverter internal voltage E
Decides whether Qref or Vref should be used to
QVFlag 1 0 or 1
interact with the plant controller
VFlag=1 3 pu 1 pu – 5 pu
kpqmax Proportional gain of the Qmax and Qmin controller
VFlag=0 0.1 pu 0 pu – 0.5 pu
VFlag=1 20 pu/s 3 pu/s – 30 pu/s
Kiqmax Integral gain of the Qmax and Qmin controller
VFlag=0 10 pu/s 3 pu/s – 30 pu/s
ImaxF Inverter maximum transient output current 2 pu 1.5 pu–3 pu

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The P-f droop control ensures that the phase angles of multiple grid-forming inverters are
synchronized during normal operations. When two grid-forming inverters operate in parallel
under P-f droop control, any disturbance causes an increase in the output power of one inverter.
This, causes its P-f droop control to reduce the angular frequency ω of the internal voltage so
that the phase angle, δdroop, is reduced, preventing the inverter from further increasing its output
power. This negative-feedback control mechanism guarantees the synchronization when
multiple grid-forming inverters work in parallel. In addition, the controller shown in Fig. 3 (a) also
prevents the output power of the inverter from exceeding Pmax or dropping below Pmin. The P-f
droop control also achieves load sharing between grid-forming inverters.
The Q-V droop control prevents large circulating reactive power between grid-forming inverters.
As shown in Fig. 3 (b), the Q-V droop control can either directly regulate the inverter internal
voltage Edroop, or regulate the point of interconnection (POI) voltage V by regulating Edroop
through a proportional-integral controller. The VFlag will determine which control mode will be
selected. The QVFlag decides whether Qref or Vref should be used to interact with the plant
controller. In addition, there is a Qmax and Qmin controller to prevent the inverter reactive power
output from exceeding Qmax or dropping below Qmin.

Pinv ω δdroop
-
mp ω0 1/s
+ ++
Pref
+ ω
0 +
Pmax ω0
kppmax
+- +
0 +
kipmax/s
Pinv +
+
kipmax/s
0
Pmin +- kppmax ++ Plant controller changes Pref

0
(a)

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 VFlag Emax
Qref Vref Edroop
0
Qinv - + +
mq Emin
++
Emax
Vcmd + Edroop
0 1 kpv
Qmax - ++
+- kpqmax + Emin
Vinv Emax
0 +
kiqmax/s kiv/s
Qinv +
Emin
+
kiqmax/s
0
Qmin +- +
+ QVFlag=1: Plant controller changes Vref and the initialization sets Qref=0
kpqmax QVFlag=0: Plant controller changes Qref and the initialization set Qref=Qinv

0
(b)
Fig. 3 Droop control. (a) P-f droop control and overload mitigation control. (b) Q-V droop control.
When interacting with the transmission network solver, the per unit values of P, Q, V on the
system rating base returned by the network solver need to be converted to the per unit values
on the inverter rating base and pass through a low-pass filter as shown by (4) to (6), where Sbase
is the base value of the system rating, Mbase is the base value of the inverter rating, and Pinv,
Qinv, and Vinv are the per unit values of inverter output active power, reactive power, and voltage
magnitude on the inverter rating base. The outputs of the controller, Edroop and δdroop, are used to
determine the inverter internal voltage EδE.
1 S
Pinv = P base
1 + TPf s M base (4)

1 S
Qinv = Q base
1 + TQf s M base (5)

1
Vinv = V
1 + TVf s (6)

3.3 Fault Current Limiting Function

During normal operations, the droop control will control the inverter voltage magnitude and
phase angle. However, during short circuit faults, the fault current limiting function will be
activated to limit the output current of the inverter. Fig. 4 shows the fault current limiting function.
The inverter works in the droop control mode during normal operations and keeps monitoring its
output current Iφ. The output current Iφ is calculated using (7) in each simulation step. When
the magnitude of the output current I is smaller than the inverter maximum transient current limit
ImaxF, the inverter internal voltage is governed by the droop control so that EδE = Edroopδdroop.
However, once I exceeds ImaxF because of severe faults, the inverter internal voltage EδE will
be calculated based on the inverter terminal voltage VδV, the coupling reactance XL, and the

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new current phasor ImaxFφ as shown by Fig. 4. By doing so the magnitude of the inverter
output current I will be limited at ImaxF during faults, but its phase angle φ will remain unchanged
compared to the case without the fault current limiting function. Once the fault is cleared, the
inverter output current will drop below ImaxF so that the operation mode will autonomously switch
back to the droop control mode.

Edroop  droop − V V

I  = (7)
jX L

Edroop δdroop I < ImaxF

E δE
I ImaxF
V δV+jXLImaxF φ
Fig. 4 Fault current limiting function.

4.0 Interface with the Transmission Network Solver

When interfacing with the transmission network solver, the inverter internal voltage source
needs to be converted to its Norton equivalent circuit for the network solution, as shown in Fig. 2
(a) and (b). Equation (8) and (9) are used for the conversion.

E E
I N  N = (8)
jX L
1
YL = (9)
XL

The flowchart in Fig. 5 shows the process of how the developed positive-sequence phasor
model interacts with the transmission network solver.

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 P, Q, V δV, I φ
Droop Control
(Fig. 3)

Edroop δdroop
V δV, I Fault Current Limiting
(Fig. 4)

E δE
Inverter Internal
Voltage Source

Eq. (7)-(8)
Norton Equivalent
Circuit (Fig. 2)

IN φ N , Y L

Network Solver

No
Converged ?

Yes

Fig. 5 Interaction between the grid-forming inverter model and the transmission network solver.

5.0 Applicability and Limitation of REGFM_A1 Model

The REGFM_A1 model includes a voltage source behind impedance representation, P-f and Q-
V droop controls, active and reactive power limiting controls, and a transient fault current limiting
function. Therefore, this model can be used to study events such as the frequency response,
islanding and islanded operation, and typical faults with a normal clearing time, etc. The
REGFM_A1 model does not include the steady state current limiting control and advanced
voltage ride-through control that might have already been implemented by some original
equipment manufacturers. The steady state current limiting control and advanced voltage ride-
through control will be included in the future version of generic GFM IBR model.

References

[1] Y. Lin et al., "Research roadmap on grid-forming inverters," National Renewable Energy Lab.(NREL),
Golden, CO (United States), 2020.
[2] R. Lasseter, Z. Chen, and D. Pattabiraman, "Grid-Forming Inverters: A Critical Asset for the Power Grid,"
IEEE Journal of Emerging and Selected Topics in Power Electronics, pp. 1-1, 2019, doi:
10.1109/JESTPE.2019.2959271.
[3] R. H. Lasseter et al., "CERTS Microgrid Laboratory Test Bed," IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, vol.
26, no. 1, pp. 325-332, 2011
[4] M. C. Chandorkar, D. M. Divan, and R. Adapa, "Control of parallel connected inverters in stand-alone AC
supply systems," in Industry Applications Society Annual Meeting, 1991.

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[5] B. J. Pierre et al., "Bulk Power System Dynamics with Varying Levels of Synchronous Generators and Grid-
Forming Power Inverters," in the 46th IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, Chicago, Illinois, USA,
2019.
[6] M. E. Elkhatib, W. Du, and R. H. Lasseter, "Evaluation of Inverter-based Grid Frequency Support using
Frequency-Watt and Grid-Forming PV Inverters," in 2018 IEEE Power & Energy Society General Meeting
(PESGM)
[7] W. Du, Y. Liu, R. Huang, K. F. Tuffner, J. Xie, and Z. Huang, "Positive-Sequence Phasor Modeling of
Droop-Controlled, Grid-Forming Inverters with Fault Current Limiting Function," IEEE PES Innovative
Smart Grid Technologies (ISGT) North America (NA) Meeting, 2022.

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