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Power theories are advancing signal decomposition approaches used for electrical power signal analysis. Currently, they are key tools for designing reliable and efficient power electronic interface controllers. Due to the inherent uncertainty in the power generation within new technology of distributed generation units (such as renewable-based microgrids), most of these theories are not directly applicable in the era of new power engineering systems. Furthermore, the traditional formulations are not appropriate once we face the nonlinearity in the consumption along a weak grid that may not maintain steady voltage or frequency. Therefore, a new signal decomposition method with a higher level of selectivity must be developed to modify the traditional power theories and improve the control strategies from a design viewpoint. This paper describes a novel formulation of an instantaneous power theory, enhanced instantaneous power theory (EIPT), for unbalanced and nonlinear three-phase power systems. EIPT establishes a proper decomposition of current components for cases of balanced, unbalanced, and distorted voltage sources. In addition to mathematical analysis, this research provides comprehensive simulations under different loads and source conditions, which supports the performance of the EIPT in the active filtering methods. Moreover, the performance of the proposed method is compared with the state-of-the-art approach widely known as the conservative power theory. Our results indicate that this new comprehensive approach is helpful in optimizing control strategies for power electronic interfaces and power quality compensators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cooperative control of power converters in a microgrid offers power quality enhancement at sensitive load buses. Such cooperation is particularly important in the presence of reactive, nonlinear, and unbalanced loads. In this paper, a multi-master–slave-based control of distributed generators interface converters in a three-phase four-wire islanded microgrid using the conservative power theory (CPT) is proposed. Inverters located in close proximity operate as a group in master–salve mode. Slaves inject the available energy and compensate selectively unwanted current components of local loads with the secondary effect of having enhanced voltage waveforms while masters share the remaining load power autonomously with distant groups using frequency droop. The close proximity makes it practical for control signals to be communicated between inverters in one group with the potential to provide rapid load sharing response for mitigation of undesirable current components. Since each primary source has its own constraints, a supervisory control is considered for each group to determine convenient sharing factors. The CPT decompositions provide decoupled current and power references in abc-frame, resulting in a selective control strategy able to share each current component with desired percentage among the microgrid inverters. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A multifunctional control strategy for a single-phase asymmetrical cascaded H-bridge multilevel inverter (ACHMI), suitable for microgrid systems with nonlinear loads, is presented. The primary advantage of ACHMI is to produce a staircase output voltage with low harmonic content utilizing unequal dc voltages on the individual H-bridge cells. In a grid-connected mode of operation, the control strategy of the ACHMI is based on the conservative power theory, providing selective disturbing current compensation besides injecting its available energy. In autonomous mode of operation, two different control methods along with a damping resistor in the filter circuit are developed for regulation of the ACHMI instantaneous output voltage in a variety of load conditions. The first method is a single-loop voltage control scheme without the need of any current measurement. The second one is a multiloop voltage control scheme with a load current feedforward compensation strategy and preservation of the grid-connected current control scheme. The steady-state response and stability of both voltage control schemes are analyzed, and based on the application requirement, the control schemes are implemented individually. The effectiveness of each control strategy is experimentally verified using a hardware-in-the-loop setup with the control algorithm implemented in the TMSF28335 DSP microcontroller. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Passive filters are widely used in electrical system for power quality improvements. Their first installations from 1940 s and their advantages make them an attractive and standard solution up to nowadays. However, passive filters have their filtering characteristics deteriorated due to parameter variation caused by aging or temperature. In addition, a capacitor bank for power factor correction is designed for specific loads and may not supply the right amount of reactive power when loads keep being added or changed. When these issues make the passive filter and the capacitor bank incapable to keep the system operating within acceptable level of power quality, an inconvenience arises and a solution must be provided. A common one is to replace both of them either by new elements or by active power compensators. However, replacing the passive filter and the capacitor bank may not be economically feasible, because they belong to a past investment. This paper presents a solution to overcome such inconvenience keeping the passive filter and the capacitor bank installed and unchanged. It consists of installing two shunt compensators specially designed for performing what the passive filter and the capacitor bank are incapable to do. The result is a reduced processed power in the compensators. The generation of the references is based on conservative power theory (CPT). A case study is presented to prove the compensators’ efficacy and the power quality improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The increasing implementation of nonlinear devices within residential homes may have a significant impact on feeder-level harmonic distortion. Within this paper, the long-term distortion possibilities on a distribution feeder due to a large number of residential customers producing harmonic currents near and above the IEEE Std. 519 limits are analyzed. To enhance the accuracy of the analysis, field measurements were utilized to define the relationship between the harmonic current produced by a single customer and their corresponding harmonic impedance. To evaluate how increases in harmonic demand over time will affect feeder-level harmonic voltage, the current injection method was applied to models of an actual 13.2-kV distribution feeder and an expanded version of the 4-kV IEEE 13 Node Test Feeder. Residential customers were represented by a Norton equivalent circuit with the developed harmonic impedance function. The evaluation results provide insight into future harmonic distortion levels while also establishing a structure for forecasting feeder-level harmonic distortion based upon system impedance and the existing levels of harmonic demand. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The use of power converters is very important in maximizing the power transfer from renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, or even a hydrogen-based fuel cell to the utility grid. An LCL filter is often used to interconnect an inverter to the utility grid in order to filter the harmonics produced by the inverter. Although there is an extensive amount of literature available describing LCL filters, there has been a gap in providing a systematic design methodology. Furthermore, there has been a lack of a state-space mathematical modeling approach that considers practical cases of delta- and wye-connected capacitors showing their effects on possible grounding alternatives. This paper describes a design methodology of an LCL filter for grid-interconnected inverters along with a comprehensive study of how to mitigate harmonics. The procedures and techniques described in this paper may be used in small-scale renewable energy conversion systems and may be also retrofitted for medium- and large-scale grid-connected systems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]