Coordinated control of three- and single-phase inverters coexisting in low-voltage microgrids

Highlights: • Coordinated control of three- and arbitrarily connected single-phase energy sources. • Accurate power flow regulation at the microgrid's point-of-common-coupling. • Unbalance compensation by single- and three-phase inverter-interfaced resources. • Active and reactive power sharing proportional to local power availabilities. • Compliance with constraints and limits of distributed energy resources. This paper proposes the third generation of the Power-Based Control, that is, an approach to effectively coordinate the operation of single- and three-phase inverter-interfaced distributed energy resources that can be arbitrarily connected among the phases of three-phase four-wire low-voltage microgrids. The aim of the approach is to precisely regulate the power exchanged with the main grid by fairly exploiting the available distributed resources while respecting their own local constraints. This allows to achieve demand-response, unbalance compensation, and improved voltage profiles, which is valuable for limiting stress conditions to the distribution infrastructure. The technique is based on a master/slave microgrid architecture where the distributed inverters act as slave units driven by a centralized master controller. This latter employs the Power-Based Control in order to steer the contribution of the inverters on the basis of the microgrid power status. In particular, active, reactive, and unbalance power terms are processed by the master controller and the corresponding microgrid's power needs shared among the distributed energy resources, to achieve the compensation target at the point-of-common-coupling with the main grid. The strategy proposed herein drives the three-phase inverters to operate balanced, which avoids unwanted voltage fluctuations at the DC-side of the inverters; instead, single-phase inverters, which can be connected arbitrarily among the phases of the distribution grid, are exploited to compensate any residual unbalances (i.e., negative- and zero-components). The control technique is analyzed and demonstrated by computer simulations considering a real urban meshed distribution network. Steady-state and dynamic results and performances are reported and discussed considering typical demand and generation profiles.