Received: 26 November 2020 Revised: 24 March 2021 Accepted: 5 April 2021 IET Renewable Power Generation

DOI: 10.1049/rpg2.12191

ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

An integrated control algorithm of power distribution for islanded

microgrid based on improved virtual synchronous generator

Liang Zhang1 Hao Zheng2 Tao Wan3 Donghan Shi4 Ling Lyu1 Guowei Cai1

1
Key Laboratory of Modern Power System Abstract
Simulation and Control & Renewable Energy
Virtual synchronous generator technology can effectively improve the anti-interference
Technology, Ministry of Education (Northeast
Electric Power University), Jilin, China characteristics of the system frequency and bus voltage in the microgrid, and solve the
2
Jining Power Supply Company, State Grid
problems of insufficient damping and low inertia of the system. However, in an islanded
Shandong Electric Power Company, Jining, China microgrid with multiple distributed generation, the difference in line impedance will cause
3
State Grid Information & Telecommunication local voltage deviations, which in turn leads to a series of problems, such as reducing
Group Co., Ltd., Beijing, China power distribution accuracy and increasing bus voltage drop. Therefore, for the island-type
4
School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, microgrid multi-inverter distributed power generation parallel system, in order to solve the
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore problem of low power distribution accuracy and large frequency oscillation caused by sys-
tem parameters in virtual synchronous generator control, an improved virtual synchronous
Correspondence generator control algorithm based on adaptive droop coefficient is proposed in this paper,
Liang Zhang, Key Laboratory of Modern Power
System Simulation and Control & Renewable Energy which not only eliminates the resistance component of the line impedance, makes the sys-
Technology, Ministry of Education (Northeast tem impedance characteristic present a purely inductive nature, but also realises real-time
Electric Power University), Jilin 132012, China. adjustment of active and reactive power. While maintaining the stability of the bus volt-
Email: xiaozhanghit@163.com
age and system frequency, it maintains high power distribution accuracy and improves the
Funding information
dynamic performance and operational stability of the power grid system.
Jilin City Science and Technology Innovation
Development Project, Grant/Award Number:
20190104138

1 INTRODUCTION bus voltage in the microgrid and solve the problems of under-
damping and low inertia of traditional droop control [4].
Microgrid is an effective form of distributed generation (DG) At present, VSG control is mostly used in grid-connected
efficiency and important means to solve the problem of large- inverters of traditional distribution networks, and direct cur-
scale renewable energy access in future smart grid systems, rent control based on the principle of phase-locked loop
which is conducive to improving social and economic bene- synchronization is used to achieve voltage tracking and power
fits [1,2]. Since the synchronous generator has the advantage transmission of the power grid [5–10]. However, with the
of being naturally friendly to the power grid, its self-balancing increase of the scale of new energy grid connection and the
capability, droop characteristics, large rotational inertia and transmission distance, the grid connection point gradually
other characteristics are conducive to the stable operation of shows a weak grid state, which affects the dynamic tracking
the power system and the reasonable distribution of load power. performance of the phase locked loop, reducing the stability of
Therefore, virtual synchronous generator (VSG) technology current and power control [11, 12]. Because the microgrid VSG
came into being [3], which can not only make the microgrid control inherits the advantages of traditional droop control
inverter have the steady-state characteristics of droop control, and provides inertial support for the system to maintain the
but also can make it exhibit dynamic frequency response char- stability of active power [13,14], VSG control technology has
acteristics similar to synchronous motors, effectively improve gradually begun to be applied to microgrids in recent years. Ref.
the anti-disturbance characteristics of the system frequency and [15,16] proposed a virtual capacitance algorithm, which only

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is
properly cited.
© 2021 The Authors. IET Renewable Power Generation published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of The Institution of Engineering and Technology

IET Renew. Power Gener. 2021;1–12. wileyonlinelibrary.com/iet-rpg 1

2 ZHANG ET AL.

requires the output voltage amplitude and reactive power of

each inverter, and does not need to detect the line impedance
value and other parameters, so it has the advantages of simple
implementation and strong applicability. However, although
this virtual capacitor value-setting algorithm can improve the
accuracy of reactive power sharing, it cannot achieve accurate
reactive power sharing. In the study of parallel operation control
of islanded microgrid using VSG technology, ref. [17] combines
the advantages of virtual impedance strategy and virtual capac-
itor strategy, and through reasonable configuration of virtual
impedance and virtual capacitor parameters, which achieved the
control purpose of reducing the error of steady-state reactive
FIGURE 1 Basic VSG control schematic
power distribution, improving the accuracy of voltage control,
and the stability of the system. Ref. [18] realised that the VSG
power of different capacities was distributed in proportion to the original VSG control. The power frequency oscillation has
the capacity based on the improved droop control and virtual certain advantages in the current research.
complex impedance by adjusting the PI controller parameters, The rest of this article is divided into the following sections.
and eliminated the influence of power coupling, and could First, the traditional VSG control algorithm and its shortcom-
accurately distribute the active and reactive power at the same ings are analysed. Secondly, an improved VSG control algorithm
time. Ref. [19] proposed an improved VSG control method. based on fuzzy rule system is proposed. By introducing adap-
The stator reactance regulator and reverse droop control were tive droop coefficient and frequency compensation, real-time
developed through state space analysis, respectively, which adjustment of active power and reactive power can be realised,
achieved accurate distribution of active power and reactive which improves the frequency oscillation of the system. Finally,
power without being affected by line impedance and power simulation and experiment verify the effectiveness of the con-
coupling. However, this method does not consider the devia- trol strategy proposed in this paper.
tion caused by the bus voltage. Ref. [20] proposed a new VSG
control strategy that combines improved governor control and
coupling compensation to further enhance the inertia of the 2 BASIC VSG PRINCIPLE ANALYSIS
angular frequency and reduce the governor control difference
from the diesel generator. The influence of uncontrollable In the traditional droop control, the inverter has a fast response
coupling of DG unit on power regulation is reduced, the speed, almost no rotational inertia, and is difficult to participate
steady-state characteristics and power distribution accuracy are in the grid adjustment. It cannot provide the necessary voltage
better than the basic VSG controlled microgrid. Ref. [21] estab- and frequency support for the active power distribution network
lished a virtual diesel generator unit, which solved the problem with distributed generation, nor can it provide a relatively poor
of uneven transient power distribution caused by the inconsis- stability. The grid provides the necessary damping effect. There-
tency of the transient characteristics of the inverter controlled fore, on the basis of droop control, this article adds the virtual
by the traditional VSG and the diesel generator unit, which inertia link and adopts the virtual synchronous generator tech-
effectively improve the transient stability of the independent nology to make the microgrid inverter have frequency character-
power supply system including diesel generators and inverters. istics similar to the synchronous generator, which can effectively
Ref. [22] studied the microgrid containing VSG and ordinary increase the system frequency and the frequency in the micro-
synchronous generator (SG), and the dynamic behaviour of grid. The anti-disturbance capability of the bus voltage solves
VSG and standard SG was compared in the islanded microgrid the problems of underdamping and low inertia in the microgrid
by establishing a parallel operation model of multiple VSGs, system.
furthermore, the dynamic response is compared under the Figure 1 is the control block diagram of VSG [23]. It can
average distribution and proportional distribution of load be seen that the active control loop of VSG simulates the pri-
demand. mary frequency regulation characteristics and inertia of the syn-
In summary, this paper proposes an improved VSG con- chronous generator, and the reactive control loop simulates the
trol strategy based on adaptive droop coefficient and frequency primary voltage regulation characteristics. The equations of the
compensation. By dynamically adjusting the droop coefficient VSG active and reactive control loops are as follows:
and frequency compensation amount, accurate active and reac-
tive power distribution can be achieved while suppressing fre- d𝜔
quency oscillation. Compared with the existing VSG control Tset + Dp (𝜔n − 𝜔) − Te = J (1)
dt
algorithm, the improved control algorithm proposed in this
paper not only achieves high-precision power distribution, but Pset = Tset 𝜔 ≈ Tset 𝜔n (2)
also maintains the stability of the frequency under changing
operating conditions, and improves the virtual inertia caused by Pe = Te 𝜔 ≈ Te 𝜔n (3)
ZHANG ET AL. 3

Equations (6) and (7) can be further simplified as

(UokUo − Uo2 ) cos 𝜃k + UokUo sin 𝜃k

Pk = (8)
Rlk + j Xlk

(UokUo − Uo2 ) sin 𝜃k + UokUo cos 𝜃k

Qk = (9)
Rlk + j Xlk

From Equations (8) and (9), it can be seen that the output active
power and reactive power of each VSG are affected by the line
FIGURE 2 Multi-distributed generations parallel equivalent circuit impedance, resulting in the power cannot be divided equally.
When studying the parallel operation of multiple VSGs, this
paper discusses the situation of two VSGs with the same capac-
ity. Since the voltage closed-loop control strategy based on the
𝜃= 𝜔dt (4) virtual impedance of VSG proposed in this paper can adjust
∫
the value of the virtual impedance to adjust the size of its out-
√ put resistance, therefore, ignoring the influence of the line resis-
√ d( 2Em )
Qset + 2Dq (Un − Uo ) − Qe = K (5) tance, the active and reactive power output by the ith DG can
dt be further reduced to Equations (8) and (9) as
Where Pset and Qset are the given active and reactive power; Tset
is the given torque; Te is the electromagnetic torque; DP is the UiUik sin 𝛿i
Pi = (10)
active-frequency droop coefficient; DQ is the reactive-voltage Xlk
droop coefficient; ω is VSG Angular frequency; ωn is the rated UiUik cos 𝛿i − UPCC
2
angular frequency; Uo is the effective value of the output volt- Qi = (11)
Xlk
age; Un is the effective value of the rated voltage; J is the virtual
rotational inertia of VSG. It can be seen from Equations (10) and (11) that the active
Because the output power of the inverter type DG is gen- power P mainly depends on the voltage phase, and the reac-
erally not large and the load capacity is small, it is often nec- tive power Q mainly depends on the voltage amplitude. There-
essary to supply power to the load in parallel. Therefore, the fore, P–f and Q–U can be described as the droop characteristics
parallel operation of multiple inverter power supplies in the described by the following equations.
islanded microgrid has become the key point of the research.
Therefore, the parallel system of two VSGs considering the line ⎧ ∗
impedance can be equivalent to the circuit diagram shown in ⎪ 𝜔n = 𝜔 − mn Pn
Figure 2. ⎪U = U ∗ − n Q
As shown in Figure 2, the excitation electromotive forces of ⎪ n n n
⎨m = 1 (12)
the two VSGs are E1 ∠δ1 , E2 ∠δ2 , and the output voltages of the ⎪ n DP
two VSGs are uo1 , uo2 , and the phase angle difference between ⎪n = 1
uo1 and the common load ZL terminal voltage uo is φ1 , uo2 The ⎪ n DQ
⎩
phase angle difference with the load ZL terminal voltage uo is
φ2 . The line impedances connecting the output terminals of the It can be seen from Equation (12) that if the frequency differ-
two inverters and the load ZL are Zl1 = Rl1 + jXl1 , Zl2 = Rl2 ence and voltage difference of the two inverters are required
+ jXl2 , and their impedance angles are θ1 and θ2 , respectively. to be equal, then Equation (13) only needs to be satisfied, that
Each VSG output active power Pk and reactive power Qk are is, the droop coefficient of active power and reactive power is
respectively: inversely proportional to the power allocated by the power sup-
ply capacity.
(UokUo cos 𝜑k − Uo2 ) cos 𝜃k + UokUo sin 𝜑k sin 𝜃k {
Pk = (6) mA PA = mB PB
Rlk + j Xlk (13)
nA QA = nB QB

(UokUo cos 𝜑k − Uo2 ) sin 𝜃k + UokUo sin 𝜑k cos 𝜃k When the idling frequency ω* and the no-load voltage U* are
Qk = (7)
Rlk + j Xlk the same, if Equation (13) is to be satisfied, it is necessary to
satisfy ωA = ωB , UoA = UoB , then adjust the frequency of
Among them, k represents the number of VSGs. In gen- the two inverters at the same time to make the output voltage
eral, R ≪ X, so the resistance part of the line impedance equal, and finally distribute the power reasonably according to
can be ignored and sinφk ≈ φk , cosφk ≈ 1 can be taken. So, the capacity. Substituting Equation (10) into Equation (12), we
4 ZHANG ET AL.

can get
𝜔∗
𝜔n = mnUonUs
(14)
s+
Xn

Where ωn (s) is the angular frequency under Laplace transform.

According to the final value theorem and Equation (14), the fre-
FIGURE 3 Control structure diagram of inverter with virtual complex
quency difference is impedance
[ ]
e𝜔 = lim sE (s) = lim s 𝜔A (s) − 𝜔B (s) = 0 (15)
s→0 s→0
Among them, ZInvE is approximately pure inductive, ZLine is
In the formula, eω is the frequency difference in the time approximately purely resistive. When the parallel inverters are
domain; E(s) is the frequency difference under the Laplace far apart, Rs and Xs may have the same value, even greater
transform. Substituting Equation (11) into Equation (12), we than Xs , which not only increases the degree of power cou-
get pling, but also increases the bus voltage drop. At the same
√( ) time, the line impedance is also approximated as inductive in
2
Xn Xn Xn the second section of the analysis process, and the line from
Us − + − Us +4 U∗
nn nn nn VSGs to the load is a transmission line, and the line impedance
Uon = (16)
2 should be approximately purely inductive. Therefore, keeping
the line impedance at inductive or purely inductive is essen-
It can be drawn from Equations (14) and (15) that due to
tial for the simulation verification and system operation in this
the existence of the integration link, despite mA UA /XA ≠
article.
mB UB /XB , the frequency of the two inverters will also be pulled
Based on the above analysis, in order to maintain the original
into synchronisation, and the active power P can be calcu-
line impedance inductive, this section sets the virtual resistance
lated according to the active-frequency. The droop coefficient
to a negative value −Rv to offset the resistance component
is distributed inversely proportionally, so the control of active
in the original line, thereby reducing the actual resistance
power is decoupled from the impedance. However, as can be
value in the system impedance. After that, by analysing the
seen from Equation (16), since there is no integral link in volt-
dominant poles and using Bode diagrams to analyse the system
age control, when XA /nA = XB /nB is satisfied, output voltage
impedance characteristics, reasonable line impedance and vir-
of each inverter is equal, and the reactive power is inversely
tual impedance parameters are set, so that the line impedance is
proportional to the voltage droop coefficient, and there is no
close to a purely inductive state, and the power coupling of the
coupling between active power and impedance. Therefore, in
system is reduced.
order to improve the reactive power control strategy, this paper
The inverter control block diagram with the introduction of
proposes an improved VSG control method based on adap-
virtual negative resistance is shown in Figure 3. The expression
tive droop coefficient, which can realise real-time adjustment of
of virtual negative resistance is
active power and reactive power, and overcome the influence of
line impedance on output power.
Zv (s) = −Rv (19)

3 REACTIVE POWER SHARING Where Rv is the virtual resistance value set in this article. By
DESIGN BASED ON FUZZY LOGIC taking a negative value, the original line resistance can be offset
ALGORITHM to change the nature of the original line impedance.
The system impedance Z includes the equivalent output
3.1 Inverter output impedance analysis impedance and line impedance of the inverter including the vir-
and power decoupling design tual negative resistance. Therefore, Z can be written as

The system impedance contains the line impedance ZLine in Z (s) = ZInv (s) + (−Rv ) ⋅ GInv (s) + RLine + sLLine (20)
addition to the equivalent impedance of the inverter itself, which
can be expressed as The system structure of the capacitor current feedback con-
trol inverter with virtual inductance is shown in Figure 3 [24].
ZLine = RLine + sLLine (17) The dotted line is the added virtual resistance, Rv is the vir-
tual resistance value; L, C and r are the circuit filter inductance,
Therefore, the equivalent output impedance of the inverter capacitance and the equivalent series resistance of the circuit; ke
is is the current loop regulator scale factor; kp and ki are the ratio
and integral coefficient of the voltage loop, respectively; GInv (s)
and ZInv (s) are the closed-loop transfer function and equivalent
Z = ZInvE + ZLine =Rs + j Xs (18)
output impedance of the inverter.
ZHANG ET AL. 5

paper, Rv increases from 0.4 to 0.6 Ω, and the distribution of

the dominant poles of the system can be get from Figure 4(b).
Therefore, combined with the stability domain displayed by
the root locus, this paper selects the virtual negative resistance
Rv = 0.5 Ω. That is, when the value of the virtual negative
resistance is −0.5 Ω, the resistance component in the original
line impedance can be cancelled, and the line impedance is
close to pure inductance.
Therefore, the closed-loop control strategy based on the vir-
tual impedance of VSG proposed in this paper realised the
property of adjusting the output impedance of the system by
adjusting the value of the virtual impedance, that is, by introduc-
ing a virtual negative resistance, the original resistive component
of the system is effectively offset, so that the system impedance
works in the inductive part. Therefore, in the analysis process
and experiment process in this paper, the line impedance can
be approximated as purely inductive, and the influence of line
resistance on the system can be ignored.

3.2 Design of adaptive droop coefficient

power distribution

Although the above values of Rv have been improved and

the power coupling of the system has been improved, the
droop coefficient has not been reasonably improved, the reac-
tive power is still difficult to reasonably allocate and it is dif-
ficult to deal with the dynamic characteristics of the system.
In this paper, an adaptive droop coefficient is generated based
on a fuzzy logic algorithm, and the real-time adjustment of the
droop coefficient is realised by detecting unbalanced reactive
power and voltage fluctuations of the system, thereby reducing
the influence of line impedance.
In this paper, the reference value of the bus voltage of the
microgrid is 220 V, and the bus voltage Uo range is set to
±105%, that is, ∼210–230 V; The determination of the reac-
FIGURE 4 Bode diagram and distribution of dominant poles with virtual
tive power offset in the ΔQi range in the DG needs to be based
negative resistance (a) Bode diagram, (b) dominant poles diagram
on the maximum load power and power supply capacity in the
microgrid. The maximum deficit power of the system designed
in this paper is 1 kvar, and there are at least two distributed gen-
When considering power decoupling and reducing voltage erations, with a margin of 1 kvar, so ΔQi ∈ (−2, 2) kvar; fuzzy
drop, the resistance R of the system impedance at the funda- logic output xi is set to xi ∈ (−0.5, 0.5). Considering the adjust-
mental frequency should be much smaller than the inductance ment accuracy, the amount of change of the droop coefficient
X. Therefore, the virtual resistance Rv = RLine . However, in the DQ is set to be an order of magnitude lower than the actual
actual operation of the system, accurate measurement of the droop coefficient value, so this paper takes the integral coeffi-
line impedance is difficult to achieve, and the line resistance will cient k = 0.1.
inevitably drift. Therefore, the value of Rv needs to determine The fuzzy control output xi is used as the adjustment value of
the stable range through bode diagram and root locus analysis the droop coefficient after integration, and the updated droop
[25]. coefficient is
Figure 4(a) is bode diagram of the system impedance after
adding a virtual negative resistance. It can be seen that after ′
DQ = DQ − k ⋅ xi (21)
adding Rv , the impedance of the fundamental system decreases ∫
and changes from biased to resistive to more biased to induc-
tive. The impedance angle goes from the first quadrant (0–π/2) Determine the input and output membership function of the
to the second quadrant (π/2–π). In Figure 4(b), the root locus controller as shown in Figure 5. The voltage Uo contains a total
of the system admittance under the virtual negative resistance is of 7 fuzzy subsets with AG adjustment range from small to
drawn. According to the parameters in [25] and Table 2 of this large; the reactive power offset ΔQi and the output xi contain
6 ZHANG ET AL.

TABLE 1 Fuzzy logic rules

ΔQ

Uo NL NB NS Z PS PB PL

xi

A PL PL PB Z Z Z NB
B PL PL PB Z Z NS NB
C PL PB PS Z NS NB NL
D PL PB PS Z NS NB NL
E PL PB PS Z NS NB NL
F PB PS Z Z NB NL NL
G PS Z Z Z NB NL NL

FIGURE 6 Inference result of fuzzy logic

FIGURE 5 Membership function of fuzzy inference system (a) voltage
membership function, (b) power difference membership function, (c) output
membership function

seven total from NL, NB, NS, Z, PS, PB, PL fuzzy subset
[26].
The establishment of fuzzy logic rules depends on the logi-
cal relationship between output and input. The integral of the
output quantity xi is the adjustment amount of the droop coef-
ficient. Therefore, when the reactive power Qi increases or the
bus voltage Uo increases, the droop coefficient needs to be
increased; when the reactive power Qi decreases or the bus
voltage Uo decreases, the reduction needs to be reduced small
droop coefficient. When the bus voltage stabilises near 220V
and the reactive power approaches the standard value, the droop
coefficient is no longer adjusted. According to the above logic,
the fuzzy logic rules shown in Table 1 can be established, and
then the fuzzy logic inference results shown in Figure 6 can be
obtained [26].
Finally, the characteristic curves of P–ω and Q–U in VSG
control before and after the improvement are shown in Figure 7.

3.3 Inverter output voltage and frequency

recovery

Since the virtual inertia in the virtual synchronous generator will

cause the oscillation of the system frequency, it is particularly FIGURE 7 Characteristic curve before and after improvement (a)
important to ensure the frequency quality of the common bus characteristic curves of P–ω, (b) characteristic curves of Q–U
ZHANG ET AL. 7

TABLE 2 Simulation parameter setting

Parameter Value

DC voltage source 700 V

Inverter resistance 0.3 Ω
Filter inductance 3 mH
Filter capacitor 15 μF
DG1 line impedance 0.5+j2.6×10–4 Ω
DG2 line impedance 0.5+j1.3×10–4 Ω
Bus voltage effective value 220 V
System frequency 50 Hz
Virtual resistance 0.5 Ω
Damping coefficient 5 rad/s
Inertia coefficient 0.057 km⋅m2

zero, otherwise, dω is less than zero. The size of dω is deter-

mined by ΔP, where “negative” and “positive” of ΔP corre-
spond to “little positive” and “positive” of dω, and “positive”
and “negative” of ΔP correspond to “little negative” and “neg-
ative” of dω. Finally, output dω to the VSG controller as the
compensation amount for frequency adjustment.

3.4 Integrated control strategy of islanded

microgrid based on improved VSG
FIGURE 8 Membership function of fuzzy inference system (a) frequency
In the system model established in this paper, the microgrid is
membership function, (b) power difference membership function, (c) output
membership function connected to the 380-VRMS rated low-voltage grid through a
circuit breaker (CB) and the main transmission line. The CB can
operate during disturbances, allowing the microgrid to continue
for an AC microgrid system with island operation. Therefore, to operate in island mode. The load is connected to the point
this paper introduces the secondary frequency adjustment based of common coupling (PCC). The DG interface inverter is con-
on fuzzy logic algorithm to compensate the output frequency. trolled by the proposed control algorithm. The overall control
The proposed fuzzy logic controller has a total of two inputs, block diagram and flow chart of the proposed control scheme
including active power errors ΔP, as well as frequency deviation are shown in Figure 9.
Δω, which can be obtained from the local measurement of DG
[27]. Among them, the frequency deviation Δω are defined by
the following formula: 4 SIMULATION RESULTS
Δ𝜔 = 𝜔o − 𝜔 (22) The parameter design of the system is shown in Table 2.

The active power errors ΔP are defined as follows:

4.1 Case 1: Load switching and power
ΔP = Pref − P (23) decoupling

In the fuzzy controller, this paper uses three triangular This paper uses a microgrid structure with two distributed gen-
membership functions to define Δω, and one triangle and two erations connected in parallel for simulation. Among them,
trapezoidal membership functions to define ΔP as shown in DG1 and DG2 have the same capacity, so the power distribu-
Figure 8(a,b). The input range is [−1, 1]. The output of the tion ratio of DG1 and DG2 is 1: 1, the simulation time is set
fuzzy rule system is shown in the Figure 8(c). to 1.5 s, and the system parameters are shown in Table 2. The
Under the secondary voltage regulation in this article, the microgrid load is a constant power load, the initial active power
fuzzy controller has two outputs: dω. Among them, Δω deter- is 6000 W, and the reactive power is 8000 var. When t = 0.5 s,
mines the sign of dω: when Δω is “positive”, dω is greater than the adaptive droop coefficient control proposed in this paper is
8 ZHANG ET AL.

FIGURE 9 Overall control block diagram of the integrated control strategy

used. When t = 1.0 s, the active power of the load is 4000 W. TABLE 3 Comparison of power distribution accuracy under different
The simulation results are shown in Figure 10. methods
As shown in Figure 10(a,b), under the basic VSG control, the Active power Reactive power
power distribution accuracy is poor, and the fluctuation is more Control strategy allocation error/% allocation error/%
obvious. After t = 0.5 s is put into the control strategy men- Control strategy 0.023 0.106
tioned in this paper, the precision of power distribution is sig- proposed in this paper
nificantly improved, and the active load of 1.0 s is increased, and Control strategy 0.192 0.408
stable power distribution can still be achieved during this period, proposed in [28]
and the fluctuation of reactive power is small, indicating that the Control strategy 0.09 0.23
coupling degree of the power loop is low, so the virtual negative proposed in [29]
resistance and droop coefficient introduced in this article can be
effectively used for power distribution and decoupling.
As shown in Figure 10(c,d), compared with the traditional
droop control and basic VSG control, the voltage and frequency reactive power, and has a better level power sharing effect,
compensation module based on fuzzy logic algorithm proposed which has certain advantages in the current research.
in this paper can effectively shorten the frequency oscillation
time and reduce the voltage drop, and maintain the stability of
voltage and frequency. 4.2 Case 2: Line Parameter Mutation
In order to demonstrate the superior performance of the
control algorithm proposed in this paper in the current research, In this section, the simulation of the line parameter mutation
the improved control algorithm proposed in this paper is now is carried out to verify the effectiveness of the proposed con-
compared with the current existing control strategies, and the trol strategy. When t = 0.5 s, the impedance of the DG1 line is
power distribution accuracy achieved in [28] and [29] is cited and reduced to half of the original, and the impedance of the DG2
compared as a comparison. Also, the power distribution accu- line is unchanged. Figures 11 and 12 show the simulation results
racy in Figure 10 is calculated, and the comparison results are of active and reactive power when the line parameters change
shown in Table 3. suddenly under basic VSG control and improved VSG control
It can be concluded from Table 3 that compared with the strategy, respectively.
power distribution accuracy under the control algorithm in [28] As shown in Figure 11, when the line parameters are abrupt,
and [29], the improved control algorithm proposed in this paper under the basic VSG control, both active power and reactive
significantly improves the distribution accuracy of active and power will change due to the line parameter abrupt change.
ZHANG ET AL. 9

FIGURE 11 Power situation with line parameters under basic VSG

control (a) active power, (b) reactive power

FIGURE 10 Waveform of system load switching (a) active power, (b)

reactive power, (c) frequency, (d) voltage
FIGURE 12 Improve the power of the line parameters under VSG
control (a) active power, (b) reactive power
Among them, the reactive power is more affected by the line
parameters than the active power, leading to a decrease in the
accuracy of active and reactive power distribution. bility in a short time after a short fluctuation, and the accuracy
As shown in Figure 12, when the system line parameters of power distribution is effectively maintained. Therefore, the
change suddenly, under the improved VSG control strategy, the improved virtual synchronous machine control proposed in this
deviation between the active power and reactive power between paper can ensure the accurate distribution of reactive power at
the two DGs is basically zero. When the line impedance changes all times, and significantly reduce the impact of line parameter
suddenly, the active and reactive power can be restored to sta- mutation on the power distribution accuracy.
10 ZHANG ET AL.

FIGURE 14 Experimental platform with hardware in loop based on

RT-LAB

FIGURE 13 Power situation when DGs plug and play (a) active power,
(b) reactive power

4.3 Case 3: Plug and play of distributed

generation

Plug and play is the basic function of a microgrid system with

multiple DGs. In this section, the simulation of DG switching
is conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed con-
trol strategy. The system runs under the improved VSG con-
trol strategy. When t = 0.7 s, DG2 is cut off. When t = 1.1 s,
DG2 is put in. During this process, DG1 and other parameters
remain unchanged. Figure 13 shows the simulation results when
the improved control strategy is used when DG2 fails.
It can be drawn from Figure 13 that at the beginning of
FIGURE 15 Experimental results before and after improved VSG
the simulation, the system operates under the proposed control control is applied (a) active power, (b) reactive power
strategy, which can ensure the accurate distribution of reactive
power. When DG2 is separated from the microgrid system, the
output power of DG2 quickly decreases to zero. After a short parameters are the same as the simulation platform, and the
adjustment, DG1 provides the required power to the load and experimental waveform is shown in Figures 15 and 16.
reaches a new stable point. When DG2 is re-incorporated into Figure 15 shows the power allocation before and after apply-
the system, after a short adjustment process, the system will be ing the improved VSG control strategy. Initially, DG used tradi-
stabilised again, realising the plug and play function of multiple tional VSG control to supply power to public loads. Due to the
DGs. difference of line parameters, the distribution of active power
and reactive power is not accurate. Then, put the algorithm pro-
posed in this paper into t = 0.5 s to adjust the power distribu-
5 EXPERIMENT RESULTS tion error. After a short adjustment time, the power distribution
ratio of the two DGs tends to stabilise, which is consistent with
In order to further verify the effectiveness of the proposed its rated capacity.
control strategy, a hardware-in-the-loop experiment based on Figure 16 shows the experimental results when the sys-
RT-LAB real-time simulation platform was built. The host tem performs load switching under the improved virtual syn-
computer built the main circuit part. The control program chronous machine control strategy. The load is put on at t = 0.5
was written in the control board, and the output I/O port s, as shown in the above simulation. The results show that in
was utilised by the oscilloscope to observe the waveform. the whole process, both active and reactive power can achieve a
The experimental platform is shown in Figure 14. The system good distribution effect.
ZHANG ET AL. 11

4. J. Chen, et al.: Wireless parallel and circulation current reduction of droop-

controlled inverters. Transactions of China Electrotechnical Society 33(7),
1450–1460 (2018)
5. D.D. Li, et al. A self-adaptive inertia and damping combination control of
VSG to support frequency stability. IEEE Trans. Energy Convers. 32(1),
397–398 (2017)
6. D. Zhang, et al.: Grid-connected control strategy of modular multilevel
converter–battery energy storage system based on VSG. J. Eng. 2019(16),
1502–1505 (2019)
7. K.Y. Wang, et al.: Large disturbance stability evaluation of interconnected
multi-inverter power grids with VSG model. J. Eng. 2017(13), 2483–2488
(2017)
8. J. Chen, T. O’Donnell: Parameter constraints for virtual synchronous gen-
erator considering stability. IEEE Trans. Power Syst. 34(3), 2479–2481
(2019)
9. W.H. Wu, et al.: Sequence-impedance-based stability comparison between
VSGs and traditional grid-connected inverters. IEEE Trans. Power Elec-
tron. 34(1), 46–52 (2019)
10. F. Wang, et al.: An adaptive control strategy for virtual synchronous gener-
ator. IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl. 54(5), 5124–5133 (2018)
11. B. Zhang, et al.: Stability control and inertia matching method of multi-
parallel virtual synchronous generators. Transactions of China Electrotech-
nical Society 32(10), 42–52 (2017)
12. W. Xu, X.N. Xiao: Real-time operational control of stand-alone micro-
grid based on mode switch. Transactions of China Electrotechnical Society
FIGURE 16 Experiment results under improved VSG control strategy 34(S1), 282–291 (2019)
when load switching (a) active power, (b) reactive power 13. J. Ge, et al.: Analysis and investigation on grid-connected operation adapt-
ability of virtual synchronous generators. Automation of Electric Power
Systems 42(9), 26–35 (2018)
14. N. Soni, S. Doolla, M.C. Chandorkar: Inertia design methods for islanded
6 CONCLUSION microgrids having static and rotating energy sources. IEEE Trans. Ind.
Appl. 52(6), 5165–5174 (2016)
An improved VSG control algorithm based on fuzzy logic algo- 15. H.Z. Xu, et al.: A reactive power sharing strategy of VSG based on vir-
tual capacitor algorithm. IEEE Trans. Indust. Electron. 64(9), 7520–7531
rithm is proposed. By introducing a fuzzy rule system, the (2017)
droop coefficient and frequency compensation are dynamically 16. H.Z. Xu, et al.: Reactive power sharing control strategy for microgrid
adjusted to improve the power distribution accuracy and fre- inverters based on virtual capacitor. Automation of Electric Power Sys-
quency oscillation in real time, so that distributed generation can tems 40(19), 59–65 (2016)
distribute power output in a balanced manner according to its 17. H.Z. Xu, et al.: An improved virtual capacitor algorithm for reactive power
sharing in multi-paralleled distributed generators. IEEE Trans. Power
own capacity. Simulation and experimental results show that the Electron. 34(11), 10786–10795 (2019)
proposed strategy realises the real-time interaction between the 18. S.Y. Altahir, X.W. Yan, A.S. Gadalla: Active and reactive power sharing
fuzzy logic algorithm and the VSG control module, which can control strategy for VSGs in microgrid considering the different capaci-
greatly improve the power distribution accuracy while maintain- ties of distributed energy resources. IET Cyber-Phys. Syst.: Theor. Appl.
ing the stability of the bus voltage and system frequency, and 3(3), 167–173 (2018)
19. J. Liu, et al.: Enhanced virtual synchronous generator control for par-
improve the dynamic performance and stability of the system allel inverters in microgrids. IEEE Trans. Smart Grid 8(5), 2268–2277
effectively. (2017)
20. Z.S. Peng, J. Wang, Y.T. Wen: Virtual synchronous generator control strat-
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS egy incorporating improved governor control and coupling compensation
This research was supported in part by Jilin City Science and for AC microgrid. IET Power Electron. 12(6), 1455–1461 (2019)
21. J.H. Huang, et al.: Transient power equalization control method of vir-
Technology Innovation Development Project, grant number tual diesel generator set for microgrid inverter. Power System Technology
20190104138, the author hereby expresses his gratitude to the 43(8), 2876–2883 (2019)
above-mentioned institution for their support. 22. X.W. Yan, et al.: Parallel operation of virtual synchronous generators and
synchronous generators in a microgrid. J. Eng. 2019(16), 2635–2642 (2019)
ORCID 23. H. Wu, et al.: Modeling of the power loop and parameter design of vir-
tual synchronous generators. Proceedings of the CSEE 35(24), 6508–6518
Hao Zheng https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0062-9338 (2015)
24. P. Zhang, et al.: A control strategy of ‘virtual negative’ impedance for
REFERENCES inverters in low-voltage microgrid. Proceedings of the CSEE 34(12), 1844–
1. C.S. Wang, Z. Wu, P. Li: Research on key technologies of microgrid. Trans- 1852 (2014)
actions of China Electrotechnical Society 29(2), 1–12 (2014) 25. P. Zhang, et al.: Power decoupling strategy based on “virtual negative resis-
2. Z. Lan, C.M. Tu, F. Jiang: The flexible interconnection strategy between tor” for inverters in low-voltage microgrid. IET Power Electron. 9(5),
DC microgrid and AC grid based on virtual electric machinery technology. 1037–1044 (2016)
Transactions of China Electrotechnical Society 34(8), 1739–1749 (2019) 26. L.F. Yan, et al.: Adaptive power allocation strategy based on fuzzy logic
3. J. Yang, et al: Overview on power control technologies in hybrid AC-DC algorithm for hybrid energy storage system in DC microgrid. Proceedings
microgrid. Power System Technology 41(1), 29–39 (2017) of the CSEE 39(9), 2658–2669 (2019)
12 ZHANG ET AL.

27. C. Andalib-Bin-Karim, X.D. Liang, H.G. Zhang: Fuzzy-secondary-

controller-based virtual synchronous generator control scheme for inter-
facing inverters of renewable distributed generation in microgrids. IEEE How to cite this article: Zhang L, Zheng H, Wan T,
Trans. Ind. Appl. 54(2), 1047–1061 (2018) Shi D, Lyu L, Cai G. An integrated control algorithm of
28. X.Y. Li, et al.: Improved droop control strategy for real- time power shar- power distribution for islanded microgrid based on
ing of microgrid based on particle swarm optimization. High Voltage Engi- improved virtual synchronous generator. IET Renewable
neering 44(10), 3425–3432 (2018)
Power Generation. 2021;1–12.
29. L. Zhang, et al.: An adaptive droop control strategy for islanded microgrid
based on improved particle swarm optimization. IEEE Access 8(1), 3579– https://doi.org/10.1049/rpg2.12191.
3593 (2020)