Communication-Less Power Sharing Strategy for Microgrids Using Oscillations Generated by Inertia-Enabled Power Sources

Abstract

Microgrids have extended their use when connected to or isolated from the grid, where decentralized control architectures are increasingly being used due to their inherent advantages. Among controllers, the non-communicated type allows the problems introduced by the use of communication systems to be avoided; however, these type of controllers are generally limited to performing first-level control actions, precisely due to the lack of information caused by the absence of a communication network. This work proposes an algorithm for a non-communicated controller to (a) identify which of the power sources are connected to a microgrid and (b) calculate the load power; both of these actions only require local measurements and allow the microgrid performance to be improved. The proposal aims at identifying the power sources by analyzing the electromechanical oscillations that occur in microgrids that are fed by inertia-enabled inverters and synchronous generators using droop controllers. This is used to automatically adjust the power sharing ratio between sources based on the generation capacity and load of a microgrid. Numerical simulations that clearly show the advantages are used to support the effectiveness of the proposal.