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Renewable energy sources are growing in importance and reshaping power systems through microgrid (MG) networks. Some relevant issues in the management of an MG need to be addressed, such as voltage and frequency control, power balance between sources (sharing) and distributed loads, stability, security, power quality, etc. As a contribution, this manuscript presents a power management of AC MGs based on concepts of microeconomics theory for market equilibrium. The prices of active and reactive energy are informed through the AC voltage parameters such as magnitude, frequency and angle. This approach allows several sources and loads to operate with no extra communication interface. Experiments are provided to validate operation in many different operational scenarios using a hardware-in-the-loop environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a simplified control technique for a dual three-phase topology of a unified power quality conditioner—iUPQC. The iUPQC is composed of two active filters, a series active filter and a shunt active filter (parallel active filter), used to eliminate harmonics and unbalances. Different from a conventional UPQC, the iUPQC has the series filter controlled as a sinusoidal current source and the shunt filter controlled as a sinusoidal voltage source. Therefore, the pulse width modulation (PWM) controls of the iUPQC deal with a well-known frequency spectrum, since it is controlled using voltage and current sinusoidal references, different from the conventional UPQC that is controlled using nonsinusoidal references. In this paper, the proposed design control, power flow analysis, and experimental results of the developed prototype are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

• Voltage regulation using combined active and reactive power. • Control algorithm for active energy minimization in voltage regulation. • A comparative analysis performed on a battery energy storage system. The voltage drop affecting consumers at the end of distribution lines is one of the problems regarding power quality. The solutions applied to transmission lines are not fully effective in distribution lines, where line parameters are significantly high. In low-voltage distribution network, the reactive power compensation method is not as effective as active and reactive power compensation. This effect occurs on lines where the significant series resistance becomes remarkable in relation to the total line impedance. This paper presents the design and implementation of a four-wire, three-phase voltage source converter (VSC) with output current control for voltage regulation at the point of common coupling (PCC), using active and reactive power injection. A reactive power prioritization and minimization of active power strategy is proposed to overcome the problem of distribution line parameters. Digital design methodology is used to design the management controllers and loops, and a digital signal controller (DSC) is used for the entire implementation. The mathematical analysis results are validated using numerical simulation and proven with the construction of a 3.8 kVA prototype. The results showed that the converter accomplished an effective voltage regulation at the PCC with reduced active power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Series active power filters (APF) are an important solution to deal with power quality issues in weak grids under the presence of non-linear loads. The use of voltage feedback from the critical-load-bus (cload-bus) in the series APF allows for a control strategy that has performance and processing power advantages, when compared to other strategies in literature, but can cause saturation of injection transformers. This paper presents a control strategy that uses cload-bus voltage feedback with an additional control loop of the dc current in the output of the series APF voltage source converter (VSC), to avoid injection transformer saturation. The controlled dc current is additionally used for balancing the split dc-bus capacitors voltage in the VSC. The series APF and the proposed control strategy are modeled using small signal analysis for allowing controller design. Experimental results from a 3 kVA prototype are presented, with cload-bus voltage total harmonic distortion improving from 9% to 3% in each phase, while achieving the objectives of improved cload voltage waveform, controlled transformer dc current, and balanced dc-bus capacitors voltage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]