A unified distributed hierarchal control of a microgrid operating in islanded and grid connected modes

Abstract To guarantee an uninterruptable power supply, a microgrid must be able to operate in both islanded and grid‐connected modes. Hence, it is required to synchronize the voltage phasor of the point of common coupling of the microgrid with the utility grid. Therefore, a distributed cooperative hierarchal control structure is proposed that seamlessly synchronized an islanded microgrid with the utility grid. A proposed method uses a leader‐follower based consensus to regulate the voltage phasor while ensuring proportionate load sharing. A synchronization controller is designed that uses an adjustable parameter to eliminate the voltage magnitude and phase mismatch, and transmit the regulated compensation signal to the leader DGs. The leader DGs transmits these signals to the follower DGs through a cyber‐channels. Moreover, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology rule and Lyapunov function based adaptive controllers are designed to update the secondary control law parameters in case of any disturbance or uncertainty. These adaptive techniques do not require prior knowledge about the microgrid topology, loads, and impedances thus enhancing the system performance. Furthermore, a small signal stability analysis is presented to facilitate the controller parameter design criteria. Finally, the robustness and effectiveness of proposed structure is verified through simulation results in different scenarios.