Improving the performance of grid-connected inverters during asymmetrical faults and unbalanced grid voltages

Abstract

The increasing penetration of the distributed energy resources (DER) in the power grid, which, while having significant advantages, also pose significant challenges. The behaviors of DERs differ from those of synchronous generators, particularly in abnormal conditions. For this reason, the power grid enforces grid codes to ensure that DERs perform properly in different conditions. For instance, short circuit faults and unbalanced grid voltage are severe transient events that inverters need to be able to pass through without disconnecting from the grid. Furthermore, the inverters are required to support the grid voltage by regulating the active and reactive power injections. This article proposes a voltage support control scheme to support grid voltage during asymmetrical voltage drop by utilizing an optimization problem. In this optimization problem, the active and reactive powers injected into the grid will be obtained optimally by considering constraints such as instantaneous active and reactive power oscillation magnitudes and peak current limitation. To aid in this purpose, the corresponding mathematical formulations such as instantaneous active and reactive power oscillation magnitudes will be obtained by using the currents and voltages in stationary reference frame. The proposed scheme will be verified by simulating it in MATLAB/Simulink under three different scenarios and tested on a real-time experimental Opal-RT platform.