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The increasing share of distributed energy resources poses a challenge to the distribution network operator (DNO) to maintain the current availability of the system while limiting the investment costs. Related to this, there is a clear trend in DNOs trying to better monitor their grid by installing a distribution management system (DMS). This DMS enables the DNOs to remotely switch their network or better localize and solve faults. Moreover, the DMS can be used to centrally control the grid assets. Therefore, in this paper, a control strategy is discussed that can be implemented in the DMS for solving current congestion problems posed by the increasing share of renewables in the grid. This control strategy controls wind turbines in order to avoid congestion while mitigating the required investment costs in order to achieve a global cost-efficient solution. Next to the application and objective of the control, the parameter tuning of the control algorithm is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For islanded microgrids, droop-based control concepts have been developed both in single and three-phase variants. The three-phase controllers often assume a balanced network; hence, unbalance sharing and/or mitigation remains a challenging issue. Therefore, in this paper, unbalance is considered in a three-phase islanded microgrid in which the distributed generation (DG) units are operated by the voltage-based droop (VBD) control. For this purpose, the VBD control, which has been developed for single-phase systems, is extended for a three-phase application and an additional control loop is added for unbalance mitigation and sharing. The method is based on an unbalance mitigation scheme by DG units in grid-connected systems, which is altered for usage in grid-forming DG units with droop control. The reaction of the DG units to unbalance is determined by the main parameter of the additional control loop, viz., the distortion damping resistance, Rd. The effect of Rd on the unbalance mitigation is studied in this paper, i.e., dependent on Rd, the DG units can be resistive for unbalance (RU) or they can contribute in the weakest phase (CW). The paper shows that the RU method decreases the line losses in the system and achieves better power equalization between the DG unit's phases. However, it leads to a larger voltage unbalance near the loads. The CW method leads to a more uneven power between the DG unit's phases and larger line losses, but a better voltage quality near the load. However, it can negatively affect the stability of the system. In microgrids with multiple DG units, the distortion damping resistance is set such that the unbalanced load can be shared between multiple DG units in an actively controlled manner rather than being determined by the microgrid configuration solely. The unit with the lowest distortion damping resistance provides relatively more of the unbalanced currents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microgrids are able to provide a coordinated integration of the increasing share of distributed generation (DG) units in the network. The primary control of the DG units is generally performed by droop-based control algorithms that avoid communication. The voltage-based droop (VBD) control is developed for islanded low-voltage microgrids with a high share of renewable energy sources. With VBD control, both dispatchable and less-dispatchable units will contribute in the power sharing and balancing. The priority for power changes is automatically set dependent on the terminal voltages. In this way, the renewables change their output power in more extreme voltage conditions compared to the dispatchable units, hence, only when necessary for the reliability of the network. This facilitates the integration of renewable units and improves the reliability of the network. This paper focusses on modifying the VBD control strategy to enable a smooth transition between the islanded and the grid-connected mode of the microgrid. The VBD control can operate in both modes. Therefore, for islanding, no specific measures are required. To reconnect the microgrid to the utility network, the modified VBD control synchronizes the voltage of a specified DG unit with the utility voltage. It is shown that this synchronization procedure significantly limits the switching transient and enables a smooth mode transfer. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

With the standstill frequency-response (SSFR) test, accurate electrical-machine models can be identified. However, it can be a time-consuming method, particularly in case the machine has to be identified at low frequencies. To shorten the required time for identification, in this paper, the response on a broadband signal is measured, resulting in a multisine SSFR test. To generate the broadband signal, a high-power linear amplifier can be applied as a waveform generator. As this signal generator is not commonly available in the field, the application of a voltage-source inverter (VSI) is discussed. The multisine SSFR test with a VSI allows swift evaluation of the influence of frequency, saturation, and cross saturation on the q- and d-axis parameters with a signal generator that is often already available to control the machine. Extensive measurements are performed on several permanentmagnet synchronous machines and the method can be extended to synchronous machines with rotor-field winding. By applying a switching converter instead of a linear amplifier, it can be expected that the identification results are affected by the switching actions. Therefore, multisine SSFR tests with either a VSI or a high-power linear amplifier as well as conventional tests as described in the IEEE standard are performed, and the results are compared. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]