Distributed Control Architecture for Grid-Interactive Power Converters in Renewable Energy Smart Grids

Abstract

The emergence of the renewable energy sources including solar photovoltaic and wind power in the electrical systems with rapid integration into the modern network has dramatically altered the power system structure and functionality. Although renewable energy enhances sustainability, it lowers carbon emissions, it is not only intermittent and decentralised, its non-linear nature also creates operational issues affecting voltage control and power stability as well as integrating energy in smart grids. Power converters that are grid-interactive are important in facilitating the effective exchange of energy between renewable sources that are distributed and the utility grid. But the traditional centralised methods of control are usually limited by the scale effects and communication bandwidth as well as by the poor reliability characteristic of the mass distribution of energy systems. As a solution to these difficulties, the paper is a proposal of distributed control architecture of power converter at the grid interaction in smart grids of renewable energy. The proposed architecture facilitates the decentralised coordination of various converters using local controllers and consensus mechanisms that are based on communication and enabling the effective power sharing and enhanced system stability. The assessment of the architecture is done through a comprehensive simulation framework that is created in MATLAB/Simulink with conditions of variable load and renewable generation. Based on the analysis of performance, the proposed distributed control strategy is shown to increase the voltage and frequency stability and attain the correct power sharing between the distributed converters. There are also findings of higher system reliability and scalability than the traditional centralised control techniques and as such the method can be applied to future smart grid uses with high renewable penetration.