Adaptive droop control method for suppressing circulating currents in DC microgrids

Abstract

DC microgrids are introduced to reduce the conversion stages needed for connection of DC sources to the DC loads. They employ the droop control algorithm for managing the power flow from sources to the loads. However, the droop control functionality is affected by circuit parameters, especially line resistances. As a consequence, load sharing as the primary objective of the droop controller lacks accuracy. Parallel-connected converters have mismatched output voltages, resulting in circulating currents. This paper proposes an adaptive droop control algorithm for suppressing circulating currents in a low voltage DC microgrid. Line resistances are estimated through mathematical calculations and droop parameters are adjusted accordingly. Moreover, a distributed secondary controller is proposed to improve the load sharing accuracy and eliminate the effect of line resistances. The secondary controller shifts the droop controller voltage setpoint according to the converter current. Both of the proposed methods result in an accurate load sharing; Each of the participating converters has the rated current and consequently circulating current is suppressed. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified through simulation and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) setup.