Reactive Power Management in Islanded Microgrid—Proportional Power Sharing in Hierarchical Droop Control

A microgrid (MG) is a local energy system consisting of a number of energy sources (e.g., wind turbine or solar panels among others), energy storage units, and loads that operate connected to the main electrical grid or autonomously. MGs provide flexibility, reduce the main electricity grid dependence, and contribute to changing large centralized production paradigm to local and distributed generation. However, such energy systems require complex management, advanced control, and optimization. Moreover, the power electronics converters have to be used to correct energy conversion and be interconnected through common control structure is necessary. Classical droop control system is often implemented in MG. It allows correct operation of parallel voltage source converters in grid connection, as well as islanded mode of operation. However, it requires complex power management algorithms, especially in islanded MGs, which balance the system and improves reliability. The novel reactive power sharing algorithm is developed, which takes into account the converters parameters as apparent power limit and maximum active power. The developed solution is verified in simulation and compared with other known reactive power control methods.