International Journal of Engineering and Technical Research (IJETR)

ISSN: 2321-0869 (O) 2454-4698 (P), Volume-3, Issue-7, July 2015

A Unified Control Strategy in Grid-Tied and Islanded

Operations in Distributed Generation for 3-Phase
Inverter
V. N. Saraswathi, T. Varaprasad
Moreover, the grid current is not controlled directly, and the
Abstract In this paper, a unified control strategy for both issue of the inrush grid current during the transition from the
grid-tied and islanded modes of operations are performed. Here islanded mode to the grid-tied mode always exists, even
we are using a three phase inverter in distributed
though phase-locked loop (PLL) and the virtual inductance
generation..DG delivers power to the utility and the local critical
loads in grid-tied operation and upon the occurrence of utility are adopted. DG is controlled as a current source just by the
outage, the islanding is formed. The inverter is regulated as a inner current loop. Upon the occurrence of the grid outage,.
current source in grid-tied operation and a voltage source in The detailed operation principle of DG with the proposed
islanded operation. The waveforms of grid current in grid-tied control strategy is illustrated in Section III. Section IV
mode and load voltage in islanding mode are distorted under investigates the proposed control strategy by simulation
non-linear local loads with conventional strategy. The transients
results.
will be reduced by proposing a unified control strategy. Unified
control strategy makes the current unity in both grid-tied and
islanded operations. A single-phase DG, which injects harmonic
current into the utility for mitigating the harmonic component
of the grid current. This paper also presents the analysis and
parameter design of control strategy.

Index Terms Distributed Generation(DG), unified control,

mitigating, grid-tied, islanded.

I. INTRODUCTION

Distributed generation (DG) is emerging as a viable Fig1. Schematic diagram of the DG based on the proposed
alternative when renewable energy resources are available, control strategy.
such as wind turbines, photovoltaic arrays, fuel cells, micro
turbines. DG is a suitable form to offer high reliable electrical
power supply, as it is able to operate either in the grid-tied II. PROPOSED CONTROL STRATEGY
mode or in the islanded mode. In the grid-tied operation, DG
deliveries power to the utility and the local critical load. Upon
the occurrence of utility outage, the islanding is formed. A. Power Stage:
However, in order to improve the power reliability of some This paper presents a unified control strategy for a three phase
local critical load, the DG should disconnect to the utility and inverter in DG to operate in both islanded and grid-tied
continue to feed the local critical load. The load voltage is key modes. The schematic diagram of the DG based on the
issue of these two operation modes, because it is fixed by the proposed control strategy is shown by Fig1.The DG is
utility in the grid-tied operation, and formed by the DG in the equipped with a three-phase interface inverter terminated with
islanded mode, respectively. a LC filter. The primary energy is converted to the electrical
Droop-based control is used widely for the power energy, which is then converted to dc by the front-end power
sharing of parallel inverters, which is called as voltage mode converter, and the output dc voltage is regulated by it.
control in this paper, and it can also be applied to DG to
Therefore, they can be represented by the dc voltage source
realize the power sharing between DG and utility in the
Vdc in Fig. 1. In the ac side of inverter, the local critical load
grid-tied mode. In this situation, the inverter is always
is connected directly. It should be noted that there are two
regulated as a voltage source by the voltage loop, and the
quality of the load voltage can be guaranteed during the switches, denoted by Su and Si, respectively, in Fig.1, and
transition of operation modes. their functions are different. The inverter transfer switch Si is
controlled by the DG, and the utility protection switch Su is
governed by the utility. When the utility is normal, both
V.N.Saraswathi, PG student [PE&ED], Dept. of EEE, Sri Venkatesa
Perumal College of Engineering & Technology, Puttur, Andhra pradesh,
switches Si and Su are ON, and the DG in the grid-tied mode
India injects power to the utility. When the utility is in fault, the
T.Varaprasad, Assistant professor, Dept. of EEE, Sri Venkatesa switch Su is tripped by the utility instantly, and then the
Perumal College of Engineering & Technology, Puttur, Andhra pradesh,
islanding is formed. After the islanding has been confirmed by
India
the DG with the islanding detection scheme, the switch Si is

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 A Unified Control Strategy in Grid-Tied and Islanded Operations in Distributed Generation for 3-Phase Inverter

disconnected, and the DG is transferred from the grid-tied islanding is confirmed, the load voltage excursion . In the
mode to the islanded mode. When the utility is restored, the proposed control strategy, the output power of the inverter is
DG should be resynchronized with the utility first, and then always controlled by regulating the three-phase inductor
the switch Si is turned ON to connect the Distributed current iLabc while the magnitude and frequency of the load
Generation with the grid. voltage vCabc are monitored. When the islanding happens, the
magnitude and frequency of the load voltage may drift from
the normal range, and then they are controlled to recover to
the normal range automatically by regulating the output
power of the inverter.
C. Control Scheme
Fig.2 describes the overall block diagram for the proposed
unified control strategy, where the inductor current iLabc, the
utility voltage vgabc , the load voltage vCabc, and the load
current iLLabc are sensed. And the three-phase inverter is
controlled in the SRF, in which, three phase variable will be
represented by dc quantity. The control diagram is mainly
composed by the inductor current loop, the PLL, and the
current reference generation module.
In the inductor current loop, the PI compensator is
employed in both D- and Q-axes, and a decoupling of the
cross coupling denoted by
0Lf /kPWM is implemented in order to mitigate the couplings
due to the inductor. The output of the inner current loop ddq
together with the decoupling of the capacitor voltage denoted
by 1/kPWM, sets the reference for the standard space vector
Fig 2. Overall block diagram of the proposed unified control modulation that controls the switches of the three-phase
strategy. inverter. It should be noted that kPWM denotes the voltage gain
of the inverter, which equals to half of the dc voltage in this
paper. The PLL in the proposed control strategy is based on
B. Basic Idea the SRF PLL, which is widely used in the three-phase power
With the hybrid voltage and current mode control, the converter to estimate the utility frequency and phase. If the
inverter is controlled as a current source to generate the current reference is constant, the inverter is just controlled to
reference power PDG + jQDG in the grid-tied mode. And its be a current source, which is the same with the traditional
output power PDG + jQDG should be the sum of the power grid-tied inverter.
injected to the grid Pg + jQg and the load demand Pload
+jQload, which can be expressed as follows by assuming that
the load is represented as a parallel RLC circuit:

In (1) and (2), Vm and represent the amplitude and

frequency of the load voltage, respectively. When the Fig.3. Block Diagram of the current reference generation
nonlinear local load is fed, it can still be equivalent to the module.
parallel RLC circuit by just taking account of the fundamental The block diagram of the proposed current
component. During the time interval from the of islanding reference generation module is shown in Fig. 3, which
happening to the moment of switching the control system to provides the current reference for the inner current loop in
voltage mode control, the load voltage is neither fixed by the both grid-tied and islanded modes. In this module, it can be
utility nor regulated by the inverter, so the load voltage may found that an unsymmetrical structure is used in D- and
drift from the normal range. If both active power Pg and Q-axes. The PI compensator is adopted in D-axes, while the P
reactive power Qg injected into the grid are positive in the compensator is employed inQ-axis. Besides, an extra limiter
grid-tied mode, then Pload and Qload will increase after the is added in the D-axis.
islanding happens, and the amplitude and frequency of the In the grid-tied mode, the load voltage vCdq is clamped by the
load voltage will rise and drop, respectively, according to(1) utility. The current reference is irrelevant to the load voltage,
and (2).With the previous analysis, if the output power of due to the saturation of the PI compensator in D-axis, and the
inverter PDG + jQDG could be regulated to match the load output of the P compensator being zero in Q-axis, and thus,
demand by changing the current reference before the the inverter operates as a current source. Upon occurrence of

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 International Journal of Engineering and Technical Research (IJETR)
ISSN: 2321-0869 (O) 2454-4698 (P), Volume-3, Issue-7, July 2015
islanding, the voltage controller takes over automatically to
control the load voltage by regulating the current reference,
and the inverter acts as a voltage source to supply stable
voltage to the local load; this relieves the need for switching
between different control architectures. Another
distinguished function of the current reference generation
module is the load current feed forward. In the islanded mode,
the load current feed forward operates still, and the
disturbance from the load current, caused by the nonlinear
load, can be suppressed by the fast inner inductor current
loop, and thus, the quality of the load voltage is improved.
The inductor current control in Fig. 2 was proposed vgq is regulated to zero by the PLL, so vgd equals the
in previous publications the motivation of this paper is to magnitude of the utility voltage Vg . As the filter capacitor
propose a unified control strategy for DG in both grid-tied and voltage equals the utility voltage in the gird-tied mode, vCd
islanded modes, which is represented by the current reference equals the magnitude of the utility voltage Vg , and vCq equals
generation module in Fig. 3.The contribution of this module zero, too. In the D-axis, the inductor current reference iLref d
can be summarized in two aspects. First, by introducing PI can be expressed by (6) according to Fig. 3
compensator and P compensatory-axis and Q-axis
respectively, the voltage controller is inactivated in the
grid-tied mode and can be automatically activate upon
occurrence of islanding. Therefore, there is no need for
switching different controllers or critical islanding detection,
and the quality of the load voltage during the transition from
the grid-tied mode to the islanded mode can be improved.

III. OPERATION PRINCIPLE OF DG

The operation principle of DG with the proposed

unified control strategy will be illustrated in detail in this
section, and there are in total four states for the DG, including
the grid-tied mode, transition from the grid-tied mode to the
islanded mode, the islanded mode, and transition from the Fig.4. Simplified block diagram of the control strategy
islanded mode to the grid-tied mode. when DG operates in gried tied mode.

A. Grid-Tied Mode
The first part is the output of the limiter. It is assumed that the
When the utility is normal, the DG is controlled as
given voltage reference Vmax is larger than the magnitude of
a current source to supply given active and reactive power by
the utility voltage vCd in steady state, so the PI compensator,
the inductor current loop, and the active and reactive power
denoted by GV D in the following part, will saturate, and the
can be given by the current reference of D- and Q-axis
limiter outputs its upper value Igref d. The second part is the
independently. First, the phase angle of the utility voltage is
load current of D-axis iLLd, which is determined by the
obtained by the PLL, which consists of a Park transformation
characteristic of the local load. The third part is the
expressed by (3), a PI compensator, a limiter, and an
proportional part0Cf vCq, where 0 is the rated angle
integrator
frequency, and Cf is the capacitance of the filter capacitor. It
is fixed as vCq depends on the utility voltage. Consequently,
the current reference iLref d is imposed by the given reference
Igref d and the load current iLLd, and is independent of the
load voltage. In the Q-axis, the inductor current reference
iLref q consists of four parts as

where kGvq is the parameter of the P compensator, denoted

Second, the filter inductor current, which has been byGV Q in the following part. The first part is the output of
transformed into SRF by the Park transformation, is fed back GVQ, which is zero as the vCq has been regulated to zero by
and compared with the inductor current reference iLref dq , the PLL. The second part is the given current reference Igref q
and the inductor current is regulated to track the reference , and the third part represents the load current in Q-axis. The
iLref dq by the PI compensator GI final part is the proportional part 0Cf vCd, which is fixed
The reference of the inductor current loop iLref dq seems since vCd depends on the utility voltage. Therefore, the
complex and it is explained as below. It is assumed that the current reference iLref q cannot be influenced by the external
utilityis stiff, and the three-phase utility voltage can be voltage loop and is determined by the given reference Igref q
expressed as and the load current iLLq .

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 A Unified Control Strategy in Grid-Tied and Islanded Operations in Distributed Generation for 3-Phase Inverter

With the previous analysis, the control diagram of the

inverter can be simplified as Fig. 4 in the grid-tied mode, and
the inverter is controlled as a current source by the inductor
current loop with the inductor current reference being
determined by the current reference Igref dq and the load
current iLLdq . In other words, the inductor current tracks the
current reference and the load current. When islanding happens, igd will decrease from positive to
zero, and igq will increase from negative to zero. At the same
B. Transition From the Grid-Tied Mode to the Islanded time, the load current will vary in the opposite direction. The
Mode load voltage in D- and Q-axes is shown by (11) and (12), and
When the utility switch Su opens, the islanding each of them consists of two terms. It can be found that
happens, and the amplitude and frequency of the load voltage theload voltage in D-axis vCd will increase as both terms
will drift due to the active and reactive power mismatch increase.However, the trend of the load voltage inQ-axis vCq
between the DG and the load demand. The transition, shown is uncertainbecause the first term decreases and the second
in Fig. 5, can be divided into two time interval. The first time term increases,and it is not concerned for a while
intervals is from the instant of turning off Su to the instant of
turning off Si when islanding is confirmed. The second time
interval begins from the instant of turning off inverter switch
Si .

If it is higher than the lower value of the limiter min, the

PLL can stilloperate normally, and the load voltage in Q-axis
vCq will bezero.Otherwise, if it is fixed at min, the load
voltage in Q-axisvCq will be negative. As the absolute values
of vCd and vCq,at least the one of vCd, are raised, the
magnitude of the loadvoltage will increase finally. And the
inverter is transferred from the current source operation mode
Fig 5. Operation sequence during the transition from the to thevoltage source operation mode autonomously. In the
hybridvoltage and current mode control, the time delay
dried tied mode to the islanded mode.
ofislanding detection is critical to the drift of the frequency
During the first time interval, the utility voltage vgabc is still andmagnitude in the load voltage, because the drift is worse
the same with the load voltage vCabc as the switch Si is in ON withthe increase of the delay time. However, this
state. As the dynamic of the inductor current loop and the phenomenon isavoided in the proposed control strategy.
voltage loop is much faster than the PLL [52], while the load
voltageand current are varying dramatically, the angle
C. Islanded Mode
frequency of the load voltage can be considered to be not
varied. The dynamic process in this time interval can be
described by Fig. 6, and it is illustrated later. In the islanded mode, switching Si and Su are both in
OFFstate. The PLL cannot track the utility voltage normally,
and theangle frequency is fixed. In this situation, theDGis
controlled asa voltage source, because voltage compensator
GV D and GV Qcan regulate the load voltage vCdq . The
voltage references inDand Q-axis are Vmax and zero,
respectively. And the magnitudeof the load voltage equals to
Vmax approximately, which willbe analyzed in Section IV.
Consequently, the control diagram ofthe three-phase inverter
in the islanded mode can be simplified as shown in Fig. 7.

Fig.6. transient process of the voltage and current when the

islandin happens.

In the grid-tied mode, it is assumed that the DG injects active

and reactive power into the utility, which can be expressed by
(8) and (9), and that the local critical load, shown in (10),
represented by a series connected RLC circuit with the lagging
power factor

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 International Journal of Engineering and Technical Research (IJETR)
ISSN: 2321-0869 (O) 2454-4698 (P), Volume-3, Issue-7, July 2015
Fig.7.Simplified Block Diagram of the unified control current reference from 9 A to 5 A with: (b) proposed unified
strategy when DG operates in the islanded mode. control strategy.
In Fig. 7, the load current iLLdq is partial reference of the
inductor current loop. So, if there is disturbance in the load
current, it will be suppressed quickly by the inductor current
loop, and a stiff load voltage can be achieved.

D. Transition From the Islanded Mode to the Grid-Tied

Mode
If the utility is restored and the utility switch
Su is ON, theDG should be connected with utility by turning
on switch Si . As a result, the phase angle of the load voltage
vCabc will follow the grid voltage vgabc. As the voltage
reference Vref equals Vmax, whichis larger than the
magnitude of the utility voltage Vg, so the PI compensator GV
D will saturate, and the limiter outputs its upper value Igref d.
At the same time, vCq is regulated to zeroby the PLL Fig.15(a). Simulation diagram and waveforms of load voltage
according to (5), so the output of GV Q will be zero. vC a , grid current iga, and inductor current iLa when DG is
Consequently, the voltage regulators GV D and GV Q transferred from the grid-tied mode to the islanded mode with:
areinactivated, and the DG is controlled as a current source (a) conventional hybrid voltage and current mode
just by the inductor current loop. control.

IV. SIMULATION RESULTS

Fig.14(a) Simulation waveforms of load voltage vC

a , grid current iga, and inductor current iLa when DG is in the
grid-tied mode under condition of the step down of the grid
current reference from 9 A to 5 A with: (a) conventional
voltage mode control.

Fig.15(b). Simulation waveforms of load voltage vC a , grid

current iga, and inductor current iLa when DG is transferred
from the grid-tied mode to the islanded mode with: (b)
proposed unified control strategy.
To investigate the feasible of the proposed
control strategy, the simulation has been done in PSIM. The
power rating of a three-phase inverter is 3kWin the
simulation. The parameters in the simulation are shown in
Tables I and II. The RMS of the rated phase voltage is 115 V,
and the voltage reference Vmax is set as 10% higher than the
rated value. The rated utility frequency is 50 Hz, and the
upper and the lower values of the limiter in the PLL are given
as 0.2 Hz higher and lower than the rated frequency,
respectively.

TABLE II
PARAMETERS IN THE CONTROL SYSTEM

Fig.14(b) Simulation waveforms of load voltage vC a , grid

current iga, and inductor current iLa when DG is in the
grid-tied mode under condition of the step down of the grid

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 A Unified Control Strategy in Grid-Tied and Islanded Operations in Distributed Generation for 3-Phase Inverter

In the grid-tied mode, the dynamic performance of the

conventional voltage mode control and the proposed unified
control strategy is compared by stepping down the grid
current reference from 9 A to 5 A. The simulation result of the
voltage mode control is shown in Fig. 14(a), and the current
reference is changed at the moment of 14 s. It is found that
dynamic process lasts until around 15.2 s. In the proposed
unified control strategy, the simulation result is represented in
Fig. 14(b) and the time interval of the dynamic process is less
than 5ms.

By comparing the simulation results above, it can be

seen that the dynamic performance of the proposed unified
control strategy is better than the conventional voltage mode
control. During the transition from the grid-tied mode to the
islanded mode, the proposed unified control strategy is
compared with the hybrid voltage and current mode control,
and the simulation scenario is shown as follows: 1) Initially,
the utility is normal, and the DG is connected with the utility;
2) at 0.5 s, islanding happens; and 3) at 0.52 s, the islanding is
confirmed.
Simulate results with the hybrid voltage and
current mode control is shown in Fig. 15(a). It can be seen that
the grid current drop to zero at 0.5 s, and that the load voltage
is seriously distorted from 0.5 to 0.52 s. Then, the load
voltage is recovered to the normal value after 0.52 s. Fig.
15(b) presents the simulate results with the proposed unified
control strategy. Initially, the magnitude of grid current is 9 A
and follows the current reference Igref dq . The magnitude
and frequency of the load voltage are held by the utility. After
the islanding happens, the amplitude of the load voltage
increases a little to follow the voltage reference Vmax, and the
output current of DG decreases autonomously to match the
load power demand.

V. CONCLUSION
A unified control strategy was proposed for three-phase
inverter in DG to operate in both islanded and grid-tied
modes, with no need for switching between two different
control architectures or critical islanding detection. A novel
voltage controller was presented in this paper. It is inactivated
in the grid-tied mode, and the DG operates as a current source
with fast dynamic performance. Upon the utility outage, the
voltage controller can automatically be activated to regulate
the load voltage

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