1374 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 49, NO.

3, MAY/JUNE 2013

Autonomous Control of Interlinking Converter With

Energy Storage in Hybrid ACDC Microgrid
Poh Chiang Loh, Senior Member, IEEE, Ding Li, Yi Kang Chai, and Frede Blaabjerg, Fellow, IEEE

AbstractThe coexistence of ac and dc subgrids in a hybrid
microgrid is likely given that modern distributed sources can
either be ac or dc. Linking these subgrids is a power converter,
whose topology should preferably be not too unconventional. This
is to avoid unnecessary compromises to reliability, simplicity, and
industry relevance of the converter. The desired operating features
of the hybrid microgrid can then be added through this inter-
linking converter. To demonstrate, an appropriate control scheme
is now developed for controlling the interlinking converter. The
objective is to keep the hybrid microgrid in autonomous operation
with active power proportionally shared among its distributed
sources. Power sharing here should depend only on the source
ratings and not their placements within the hybrid microgrid. The
proposed scheme can also be extended to include energy storage
within the interlinking converter, as already proven in simulation
and experiment. These findings have not been previously discussed
in the literature, where existing schemes are mostly for an ac or a
dc microgrid, but not both in coexistence.
Index TermsAC microgrid, active power sharing, dc micro-
grid, droop control, hybrid microgrid.
I. I NTRODUCTION
A MICROGRID is a small grid formed by grouping mul-
tiple distributed sources together to better merge their
advantages [1], [2]. The formed microgrid can either be con-
nected to the mains grid or operated like an isolated island.
For the former, the voltage and frequency variations of the
microgrid are fixed by the mains grid, which usually is treated
as an infinite bus with much larger generation capacity. Because
of that, distributed green sources are more like controlled
current sources at their maximum power points. The energy
thus generated would either be consumed by the local loads
or channeled to the mains if there is a surplus. The scenario
would be different when islanded, which usually is linked to
rural grids or any grids during faults. Strictly, it can represent
Manuscript received December 3, 2011; revised April 12, 2012; accepted
June 24, 2012. Date of publication March 12, 2013; date of current version
May 15, 2013. Paper 2011-IPCC-738.R1, presented at the 2011 IEEE Energy
Conversion Congress and Exposition, Phoenix, AZ, USA, September 1722,
and approved for publication in the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY
APPLICATIONS by the Industrial Power Converter Committee of the IEEE
Industry Applications Society. This project was supported by the Agency for
Science, Technology and Research, Singapore, under the Intelligent Energy
Distribution Systems program.
P. C. Loh and D. Li are with the School of Electrical and Electronic
Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 639798 (e-mail:
epcloh@ntu.edu.sg; e080010@ntu.edu.sg).
Y. K. Chai is with the Singapore PowerGrid Ltd., Singapore 117438 (e-mail:
CHAI0054@ntu.edu.sg).
F. Blaabjerg is with the Department of Energy Technology, Aalborg Univer-
sity, 9220 Aalborg, Denmark (e-mail: fbl@et.aau.dk).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIA.2013.2252319
the grid-connected mode too if the mains grid is no longer
infinite, probably caused by a significant increase in microgrid
capacity [3][5]. Regardless of its nature though, the voltage
and frequency of an islanded microgrid are negotiated by its
distributed sources, which might no longer be at their maximum
power points if the loads are not large enough to absorb the
generated power.
Continuous tuning of the source outputs is thus needed and
can be achieved with or without external communication links
[6]. The former is usually viewed as less reliable since any link
malfunctions will likely lead to instability. Communicationless
or wireless control based on the classical droop operating
principles is therefore preferred. Various methods have since
been proposed with [7] and [8] focusing on the line impedance
effect and output impedance design, respectively. Marwali et al.
[9] and Prodanovic and Green [10], on the other hand, con-
tributed by combining low bandwidth and droop control with
some considerations given to nonideal loads. More emphasis on
nonideal load compensation could be found in [11] and [12],
followed by stability improvement of droop control found in
[13] and [14]. Other efforts include [15] where different load
placements were considered and [16] where different control
methods were discussed for multiple converters. These methods
were mostly confined to an ac microgrid, which might not be
the most efficient since modern sources and loads can either be
ac or dc.
Forming a dc microgrid [17] might therefore be of interest, as
reinforced by recent studies related to stability [18], industrial
[19], commercial [20], [21], and offshore wind [22] applica-
tions of a dc grid. A dc microgrid is, however, not likely to
replace an existing ac microgrid because of its long historical
development. A more likely architecture would hence be the
coexistence of ac and dc subgrids intertied by an electroni-
cally controlled power converter shown in Fig. 1. The formed
hybrid microgrid has so far not been studied for distributed
generation even though the same grid-connected and islanded
control objectives would apply. They are, however, tougher to
realize, particularly for the islanded mode, where autonomous
operation demands controlling the interlinking converter ap-
propriately. This unresolved challenge is now discussed with
either capacitor or energy storage added to the dc link of the
interlinking converter.
II. D ROOP C ONTROL W ITHIN AC AND DC S UBGRIDS
Mirroring classical synchronous generation theory, power
sharing among sources in an ac microgrid can be achieved by
droop control during the islanded mode. The droop control of

0093-9994/$31.00 2013 IEEE

LOH et al.: AUTONOMOUS CONTROL OF INTERLINKING CONVERTER WITH ENERGY STORAGE IN MICROGRID
Fig. 1. Example hybrid acdc microgrid.
Fig. 2. Generalized illustration of droop control for a two-source grid.
a dc microgrid can also be done and was, in fact, tried nearly
two decades back [17] even though it has since been stagnant.
These droop concepts are now reviewed since they are applied
to source control within individual subgrids of the proposed
hybrid microgrid.
A. AC Subgrid
Referring to the ac subgrid drawn in Fig. 1, the droop control
of its two sources is performed by applying those two droop
lines shown in Fig. 2. Units 1 and 2 in Fig. 2 then represent
ac sources 1 and 2, and for active power control, x and y
represent active power and frequency, respectively (see the
first column of Table I). In the steady state, the ac network
naturally enforces a single common frequency f , which, in
Fig. 2, corresponds to the single horizontal dashed line drawn.
This dashed line intersects the two droop lines at two steady-
state operating points, whose power values sum to give the total
ac load demand exactly if only the ac subgrid is in existence.
The power values are also in proportion to the ac source ratings
if the droop coefficients or gradients of the droop lines (1 and
2 ) are set as
1 Sa1 = 2 Sa2
1375
TABLE I
DEFINITIONS OF PARAMETERS IN FIG. 2 FOR AC SUBGRID, DC SUBGRID,
AND H YBRID M ICROGRID
where Sa1 and Sa2 represent the kilovoltampere ratings of the
two ac sources.
The same droop principles can be applied to reactive power
sharing (see the first column of Table I), but usually with an
error accompanied. The error is caused by different source
terminal voltages, which would almost always be there due to
different system parameters and line impedances (Za1 and Za2 )
[7], [8]. Enforcing a single common terminal voltage is there-
fore tough even though methods for improvement do exist.
The discussion of these methods is not planned here since the
intention is not to create another droop control scheme for an
ac microgrid. Rather, the objective is to develop an autonomous
or decentralized control scheme for coordinating power flow
between ac and dc subgrids in a hybrid microgrid. This attempt
is not straightforward and has never been tried before.
B. DC Subgrid
The droop control of the dc subgrid shown in Fig. 1 can
similarly be performed. The resulting scheme would compa-
rably be simpler because of the absence of reactive power and
frequency. The axis assignments of those droop lines drawn in
Fig. 2 would then be in accordance to the second column of
Table I (x to active power and y to terminal voltage). In the
steady state, the dc network will force the dc source terminal
voltages to be close, but usually not equal because of different
line impedances (Zd1 and Zd2 ) [17]. This mismatch causes
active power sharing error, which, in principle, is similar to the
reactive power sharing error experienced by the ac subgrid.
III. C ONTROL OF I NTERLINKING C ONVERTER
Power converters have long been used for tying distributed
sources to the grid. Their source-tying mechanisms are there-
fore well established and hence not the topic of concern here.
Rather, the challenge is to design an autonomous control
scheme for the interlinking converter whose responsibility is
to link the ac and dc subgrids together to form the proposed
hybrid microgrid. The control objectives demanded here can
better be visualized by grouping the ac and dc sources into two
consolidated sources tied to the same interlinking converter,
like in Fig. 1. Quoting the ac subgrid in Section II-A as an
example, if the interlinking converter can be controlled to
(1) behave like the ac grid network, proportional active power
1376 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 49, NO. 3, MAY/JUNE 2013
Fig. 3. Control scheme for interlinking converter.
sharing can be enforced between the two consolidated sources,
and hence their individual sources located within.
So far, the existing literature has only tried to imitate syn-
chronous generator droop control using power converters. The
idea of emulating the grid network using an interlinking con-
verter has never been tried before. The identification of this
analogy and its implementation with either dc-link capacitor or
energy storage are therefore new contributions of this paper.
Relevant details are now provided as follows.
A. General Methodology
Recalling from Section II-A again as an example, droop
variables used by the ac sources must be of the same type
(ac frequency f ) before the ac grid network can force them
to be equal. The difficulty faced by the interlinking converter
is thus the different droop variables used by the two consoli-
dated sources (ac frequency f and dc terminal voltage VI in
Fig. 1). These variables must first be brought to a common per
unit (p.u.) range like 1 to 1 or other preferred numbers by
applying the following two expressions:
f 0.5(fmax + fmin )
fpu =
0.5(fmax fmin )

VI 0.5(VI,max 
+ VI,min )
  
VI,pu = (2)

0.5 VI,max 
VI,min
where subscripts max and min have been added to represent
the upper and lower limits of the accompanied variable.

The error of the normalized variables (fpu VI,pu ) can then
be passed to a proportional-integral (PI) controller, numbered
as PI1 in Fig. 3. In the steady state, the error input of the
PI1 controller would be zero. That simply means that the two
normalized variables have been equalized just like what the
ac grid network would have naturally done in the ac subgrid.
The grid network analogy has hence been realized, allowing the
two subgrids to share active power proportionally, regardless of
where the load change is triggered. Individual sources within
each subgrid will also share active power proportionally since
they are controlled by the established droop control method
reviewed in Section II.
The aforementioned sharing principles will, of course, re-
quire the interlinking converter to transfer active power between
the two subgrids. The necessary amount PI is given by the
output of the PI1 controller, which will be positive for dc-to-
ac transfer and negative for ac-to-dc transfer. Reference PI can
next be converted to an active current command II,d for the ac

subgrid and another (II ) for the dc subgrid based on
II,d = 2PI /(3VI ); (II ) = PI /VI (3)
where VI and VI are the voltage amplitudes sensed at the ac and
dc terminals of the interlinking converter, respectively.
A reactive current command II,q
can further be determined
by measuring the ac terminal voltage VI of the interlinking
converter and then using it with the standard droop equation
in (4) for determining QI and II,q
QI = (VI VI,max )/I ; II,q
= 2QI /(3VI ) (4)
where I is the droop coefficient for reactive power sharing.
The nonzero II,q
should only be used when active power trans-
fer reference PI is positive. For negative transferred power,
II,q = 0 should be used instead for unity power factor opera-
tion. The explanation for that can be found in [23] written by
the authors. The description there is equally applicable here for
reactive power sharing.
The current references formed for the ac and dc terminals
of the interlinking converter can therefore be summarized
as (II,d + jII,q ) and (II ) . The former can be tracked by
a synchronous PI2 controller since it is already in the dq
frame. The latter can be tracked by a PI3 controller, but
in the stationary frame. In theory, both controllers would keep
the tracking errors at zero, while yet maintaining simplicity.
The latter is certainly an advantage in terms of easier industry
acceptance. The described control scheme must, however, be
LOH et al.: AUTONOMOUS CONTROL OF INTERLINKING CONVERTER WITH ENERGY STORAGE IN MICROGRID 1377

Fig. 4. Topology and parameters of interlinking converter used in simulation and experiment.

modified slightly in practice depending on the type of dc-link

medium added to the interlinking converter. Relevant details
can be found in the next two sections.

B. With DC-Link Capacitor

The interlinking converter considered here is assembled by Fig. 5. Storage charging (negative) and discharging (positive) control.
connecting a standard dcdc boost converter to a standard dcac
inverter, as shown in Fig. 4. Such arrangement allows voltage teristic (or other chosen characteristics) like PS,min and PS,max
levels within the ac and dc subgrids to be flexibly decided, while should rightfully be set according to the storage state of charge
yet allowing bidirectional active power flow. At their common  

dc link, either an electrolytic capacitor or an energy storage can vI = fpu + VI,pu /2 (5)
be added for buffering, filtering, or storage purposes. For the
PS,min , vI vt
case of a dc-link capacitor, a fourth PI4 controller must be added PS = I (vI vz ), 1 vI < vt
to the control scheme shown in Fig. 3. The intention is to keep P vI < 1
s,max ,
the dc-link voltage constant by producing a small active current
reference (II ) for compensating losses in the dc-link circuit. PS,min < 0(Charging, N egative)
This reference can be added to the active dc current command PS,max > 0(Discharging, N egative)
(II ) and hence drawn by the dcdc boost converter from the dc
subgrid. The modified ac and dc current references can then be I (PS,min PS,max )/(1 + vt )

summarized as (II,d + jII,q ) and ((II ) + (II ) ), respectively. vz = (PS,min + PS,max vt )/(PS,min PS,max ). (6)

C. With Energy Storage

Instead of a capacitor, an energy storage can be added to the
dc link of the interlinking converter. The control scheme shown
in Fig. 3 must then be modified to provide for storage charging
and discharging based on the following criteria.
1) The storage should charge only when the loads are low. In
other words, there should be excess generation capacities
from the sources not demanded by the loads.
2) It should discharge when the sources cannot or can only
marginally meet the load demands. In other words, the
sources have no excess generation capacities.
The aforementioned two criteria require sensing of excess
generation capacities from the sources, which, in principle,
 1) PI1 for equalizing two normalized variables fpu and
can be done by measuring the dc terminal voltage VI,pu and
network frequency fpu in their common p.u. range. Their mean
I can then be computed using (5), before substituting it into
(6) to get the chargingdischarging power reference PS . The
graphical illustration of (6) is shown in Fig. 5, where the
storage is defined to charge at its maximum (negative) power
PS,min only when I is high. When I falls, the charging
power gradually decreases until the storage starts to discharge
and eventually reaches a maximum (positive) discharging limit
PS,max . Parameters linked to this chargingdischarging charac-
Incorporating the chargingdischarging power reference PS
to the active power transferred PI , the modified ac and dc active
current references are given by (7). The ac reactive current
reference II,q , on the other hand, remains unchanged
II,d = 2 (PI + 0.5PS ) /(3VI )
(II ) = (PI + 0.5PS ) /VI . (7)
D. PI Controller Gain Selection
In total, four PI controllers are used. Their respective func-
tionalities are recalled as follows:

VI,pu ;
2) PI2 for tracking the ac current reference in the syn-
chronous frame;
3) PI3 for tracking the dc current reference in the stationary
frame;
4) PI4 for regulating the voltage of the dc-link capacitor.
PI2 and PI3 are faster inner current regulators, whose pro-
portional and integral gains are chosen as Kp2 = Kp3 = 0.3
and Ki2 = Ki3 = 2000, respectively. Tuning of these gains is
1378 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 49, NO. 3, MAY/JUNE 2013

presently well established and can, in fact, be done in Matlab

after setting the desired closed-loop bandwidth to be a fifth of
the switching frequency or lower [24]. The inner PI2 and PI3
controllers can then be modeled by a time-lap and a low-pass-
filter block for representing computational delay and capacitor
charging dynamics like in [25]. Doing this helps to simplify
the outer PI4 design, whose proportional and integral gains are
chosen as Kp4 = 0.1 and Ki4 = 10, respectively.
The last step is to design the PI1 controller, which, unlike the
earlier three (PI2 to PI4 ), is unique to the proposed interlinking
control. Its proportional gain can be determined by first defining
an acceptable error band eB for the two normalized variables

(e.g., 0.5eB fpu VIk,pu 0.5eB ). For error greater than
eB during the initial transient, the interlinking converter is
designed to transfer its maximum active power PI,max between
the subgrids to rapidly bring down the transient error. The
proportional gain of PI1 acting on the initial transient error can
then be tuned as Kp1 = 2PI,max /eB , where the factor of 2 is
for accounting bidirectional active power transfer. The transient
error eventually approaches zero because of the integral term
of the PI1 controller. Its corresponding integral gain is set as
Ki1 = 1000 to make it slower than the inner current regulators.

IV. S IMULATION R ESULTS
The simulation was performed in Matlab/Simulink using
building blocks from the PLECS libraries for assembling the
network and converter shown in Figs. 1 and 4. The voltage
and current sensors added were oriented such that, when their
sensed values were used to calculate active and reactive pow-
ers, positive power values corresponded to those directions
indicated in Fig. 4. For the ac subgrid, its total ratings were
chosen as 10 kW and 5 kVAr over the ranges of 49 Hz f
51 Hz and 255 V VI 270 V. The voltage range chosen
was mainly based on the assumption that standard 600 V
semiconductor switches (or 1200-V switches if a safety margin
of two was preferred) and hence a dc-link voltage of 600 V were
used. The decided range then gave a modulation index range
of 0.85 M 0.9 (M = VIK /300), which was quite typical
in practice. Individual source ratings within the subgrid were,
however, not explicitly given here since the main intention was
more to demonstrate correct active power flow through the
interlinking converter, and not within the subgrids.
For the dc subgrid, its total rating was chosen as 10 kW
over the voltage range of 393 V VI 410 V. The ac and
dc subgrids studied therefore had the same rating, which in
practice could be other ratios depending on the types of sources
and operating conditions considered. The subgrids were then
intertied by a converter rated at 8 kW and 2 kVAr with a
3 kW energy storage at its dc link. Ratings of the converter
were mainly decided by the amount of power that the ac and
dc subgrids agreed to share. Their values were therefore always
smaller or equal to those of the lowest rated subgrid. The
formed microgrid was eventually tied to a dc load and a three-
phase ac load, whose power demands were spelled later, while
describing the simulation results. This load arrangement was
planned mainly for testing purposes. In practice, load placement
Fig. 6. Simulated active and reactive power flows with energy storage added
to interlinking converter.
is not important and will not affect the performance of the
proposed control scheme.
A transient step was subsequently introduced to the modeled
system with its results shown in Fig. 6. A comprehensive
overview of Fig. 6 could also be found in Table II, from which
a few important observations were described as follows.
Before Transient, t = 0 to 0.4 s
AC and dc loads were initially set as {9 kW, 5.2 kVAr}
and 2 kW, respectively.
Since the dc subgrid was underloaded, the interlinking
converter automatically drew 5 kW from it. Out of this
amount, 2 kW was passed to the ac subgrid with the
remaining 3 kW used for storage charging.
Storage charging was appropriate since the total load
demand was only 11 kW out of a total source genera-
tion capacity of 20 kW.
Each subgrid therefore correctly generated about
7 kW for meeting the total load and storage demand.
Reasonable reactive power sharing was observed with
the ac subgrid and interlinking converter, producing
3.2 and 2 kVAr, respectively.
After Transient, t > 0.4 s
AC and dc loads were changed to {8 kW, 5 kVAr} and
11 kW, respectively.
The dc subgrid was loaded more, prompting the in-
terlinking converter to inject 2 kW into it. Of this
amount, only 1 kW was drawn from the ac subgrid.
The remaining 1 kW was discharged from the storage.
LOH et al.: AUTONOMOUS CONTROL OF INTERLINKING CONVERTER WITH ENERGY STORAGE IN MICROGRID
TABLE II
SUMMARIZED POWER FLOWS OBTAINED THROUGH TESTING (SEE FIG. 4
FOR P OWER N OTATIONS , IC I NTERLINKING C ONVERTER )
Fig. 7. Simulated voltages and currents for transient event shown in Fig. 6.
Storage discharging was appropriate since the total
load demand of 19 kW was near the total source
generation capacity of 20 kW.
Each subgrid therefore correctly produced about
9 kW for meeting 18 kW of the load (19 kW in
total). The remaining 1 kW demanded by the load was
discharged from the storage.
Since active power was flowing into the ac terminal
of the interlinking converter, it produced no reactive
power according to Section III-A.
Relevant voltage and current waveforms measured at the ac
and dc terminals of the interlinking converter were also plotted
in Fig. 7. Observations noted from there were summarized as
follows.
1379
Before Transient
DC voltage and current were positive. That correctly
represents the active power drawn by the dc terminal
of the interlinking converter.
The phase shift between the ac voltage and current
was lesser than 90 . That correctly gives the positive
active and reactive powers injected by the ac terminal
of the interlinking converter.
After Transient
DC voltage and current were of opposite polarities.
Negative active power was thus correctly reflected
(interlinking converter injecting active power to the
dc subgrid).
The phase shift between the ac voltage and current
was 180 , implying negative active power and zero
reactive power drawn by the ac terminal of the inter-
linking converter. These were in accordance to those
observations noted from Fig. 6.
V. E XPERIMENTAL R ESULTS
A scaled-down experimental setup was built for testing the
proposed control scheme. For full verification, the number of
waveforms monitored simultaneously was enormous and was
therefore tough to show in a synchronized series of plots.
Because of that, only active power flows and their related
voltage and current waveforms were shown. That was not
restrictive since the main intention of this paper was to prove
the proportional active power sharing between the subgrids. The
number of waveforms monitored was eventually reduced to 11
and was displayed using three four-channel digital scopes.
Returning to the physical setup, the ac subgrid was emulated
with a droop-controlled dcac inverter having a power rating of
1.2 kW and a frequency range of 47 Hz f 51 Hz. The dc
subgrid, on the other hand, was realized with a programmable
dc power supply programmed with a rating of 1 kW and
a voltage range of 180 V VI 200 V. The experimental
frequency and voltage ranges were generally set wider than
those in simulation because of noises unintentionally picked
up by the experimental system. The noises can be reduced
in practice with better shielded sensors and surrounding. The
ratings of the subgrids were also intentionally set different to
reflect their different kilowatt generations in the steady state.
Their p.u. values, normalized with respect to their ratings, were,
however, still equal because of the implemented proportional
active power sharing.
Linking the subgrids was an interlinking converter, whose
configuration was shown in Fig. 4. At its dc link was a battery
storage governed by those expressions in (6). The parameters
chosen for (6) were PS,min = 0.3 kW, PS,max = 0.375 kW,
and I = 2.25 kW. With this setup, 11 waveforms were plotted
in Fig. 8, whose meanings and represented variables in Fig. 4
were clarified as follows.
1380 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 49, NO. 3, MAY/JUNE 2013

Fig. 8. Experimentally captured waveforms for hybrid acdc microgrid (refer to third paragraph of Section V for description of each waveform).

1) Upper plot: C1 ac subgrid source power (P ),1 C2
ac terminal voltage of interlinking converter (VI ), C3
ac current flowing out of interlinking converter (II ), and
C4 ac load current.
2) Middle plot: C1 dc-link voltage (VI ), C2 ac power
flowing out of interlinking converter (PI ), and C3
negative battery power (PS ). The negative sign accom-
panying PS was caused by the fixed reverse orientation of
the current sensor found in the battery.
3) Lower plot: C1 dc terminal voltage of interlinking
converter (VI ), C2 dc subgrid source power (PD ), C3
dc power flowing into interlinking converter (PI ), and
C4 dc load current.

A. Load Step-Up Transient

1 AC subgrid source power was not measured but computed by applying
instantaneous power theory and then filtering. Computational errors might have Observations noted from the three left plots of Fig. 8 for
caused those oscillations observed with trace C1 in the upper plot of Fig. 8. the load step-up transient were summarized in Table II to give
LOH et al.: AUTONOMOUS CONTROL OF INTERLINKING CONVERTER WITH ENERGY STORAGE IN MICROGRID
a more comprehensive overview. Results from Table II were
described as follows.
Before Transient
AC and dc loads were initially at 1.03 and 0.1 kW,
respectively.
Since the dc subgrid was underloaded, the interlinking
converter automatically drew 0.55 kW from it. Out
of this amount, 0.25 kW was transferred to the ac
subgrid. The remaining 0.3 kW was directed to charge
the storage, as intended.
The total source generations were then 0.78 kW for
the ac subgrid and 0.65 kW for the dc subgrid. Both
gave the same p.u. value of 0.65, as anticipated.
After Transient
AC and dc loads were changed to 1.03 and 1.1 kW,
respectively.
The dc subgrid was loaded slightly more, hence
prompting the interlinking converter to inject 0.2 kW
into it. Of this amount, 0.05 kW was drawn from
the ac subgrid. The remaining 0.15 kW was correctly
discharged from the storage.
The corresponding source generations were 1.08 kW
for the ac subgrid and 0.9 kW for the dc subgrid.
They again had the same p.u. value of 0.9 because
of proportional active power sharing based on ratings
and not placements.
B. Load Step-Down Transient
The load step-down transient was triggered by returning the
ac and dc loads to their initial values of 1.03 and 0.1 kW,
respectively. The captured waveforms were plotted on the right
of Fig. 8, which, in general, conveyed the same power flow
conclusions. They were thus not repeated here. Rather, attention
should be focused at an event that occurred immediately after
the load step-down transient. During that event, the interlinking
converter had not yet lowered its earlier dc power injection
(lower C3) even after the dc load lowered (lower C4). The
dc subgrid therefore had a temporary energy surplus, which
caused the dc programmable supply to trip because of energy
backflow (lower C2). This problem could be resolved in prac-
tice by adding some energy storages within the dc subgrid for
temporary cushioning purposes. The supply power (lower
C2) eventually rose back to its new steady-state value after the
interlinking converter changed from injecting to absorbing dc
power (lower C3).
The same problem was not faced by the ac subgrid, which
was supplying power to a high ac load (upper C4) and the
interlinking converter (middle C2) before the transient. The ac
source power (upper C1) could therefore lower immediately
to its new steady-state value, while the interlinking converter
changed from absorbing to injecting power to the ac subgrid.
The injected power first came from the dc-link storage (middle
C3) but was gradually shifted to the dc subgrid after it recovered
fully. When that happened, the storage returned to its charging
state with 0.3 kW absorbed.
1381
VI. C ONCLUSION
An interlinking control scheme has been presented here for
regulating power flows in a hybrid acdc microgrid. The results
show that proportional active power sharing can be enforced
based on ratings and not placements of sources within the
hybrid microgrid. Proper charging and discharging of energy
storage placed at the dc link of the interlinking converter
have also been demonstrated without affecting the accuracy of
proportional active power sharing. These findings have not been
previously investigated and would definitely be of relevance
since modern green sources can either be ac or dc.
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Poh Chiang Loh (S01M04SM12) received the
B.Eng. (Hons.) and M.Eng. degrees in electrical en-
gineering from the National University of Singapore,
Singapore, in 1998 and 2000, respectively, and the
Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Monash
University, Clayton, Australia, in 2002.
During the summer of 2001, he was a Visiting
Scholar with the Wisconsin Electric Machine and
Power Electronics Consortium, University of Wis-
consin, Madison, WI, USA, where he worked on
the synchronized implementation of cascaded multi-
level inverters and reduced common-mode carrier-based and hysteresis control
strategies for multilevel inverters. From 2002 to 2003, he was a Project
Engineer with the Defence Science and Technology Agency, Singapore, man-
aging defense infrastructure projects and exploring new technology for defense
applications. From 2003 to 2009, he was an Assistant Professor with Nanyang
Technological University, Singapore, and since 2009, he has been an Associate
Professor at the same university. In 2005, he was visiting staff, first at the
University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, and then at Aalborg University, Aalborg,
Denmark. In 2007 and 2009, he again returned to Aalborg University, first as
visiting staff working on matrix converters and the control of grid-interfaced
inverters and then as a guest member of the Vestas Power Program.
Dr. Loh received two third paper prizes from the Industrial Power Converter
Committee of the IEEE Industry Applications Society in 2003 and 2006. He is
now serving as an Associate Editor of the IEEE T RANSACTIONS ON P OWER
E LECTRONICS.
Ding Li received the B.Sc. degree in electrical
engineering from Wuhan University, Wuhan, China,
in 2007 and the M.Sc. degree in power engineering
from Nanyang Technology University, Singapore, in
2008, where he is currently working toward the Ph.D.
degree.
From July to October 2009, he was a Visiting
Scholar with the Institute of Energy Technology,
Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark. His research
fields include multilevel inverters, Z-source invert-
ers, renewable energy interfacing technology, and
current source inverters.
Yi Kang Chai received the B.Eng. degree in electri-
cal and electronic engineering from Nanyang Tech-
nological University, Singapore, in 2012.
He is currently working on the operation and
maintenance of high-voltage distribution switch-
gears, transformers, and cables with Singapore
PowerGrid Ltd., Singapore.
Frede Blaabjerg (S86M88SM97F03) rece-
ived the Ph.D. degree from Aalborg University,
Aalborg, Denmark, in 1992.
He was employed at ABB-Scandia, Randers,
Denmark, from 1987 to 1988. He became an As-
sistant Professor at Aalborg University in 1992, an
Associate Professor in 1996, and a Full Professor
of power electronics and drives in 1998. He was a
part-time Research Leader at the Research Center
Risoe, working on wind turbines. In 20062010, he
was the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Science
and Medicine, and he became a Visiting Professor at Zhejiang University,
Hangzhou, China, in 2009. His research areas are power electronics and
applications such as wind turbines, photovoltaic systems, and adjustable-speed
drives.
Dr. Blaabjerg has been the Editor in Chief of the IEEE T RANSACTIONS
ON P OWER E LECTRONICS since 2006. He was a Distinguished Lecturer of
the IEEE Power Electronics Society in 20052007 and of the IEEE Industry
Applications Society from 2010 to 2011. He received the 1995 Angelos Award
for his contributions to modulation technique and the Annual Teacher Prize
at Aalborg University. In 1998, he received the Outstanding Young Power
Electronics Engineer Award from the IEEE Power Electronics Society. He
has received ten IEEE prize paper awards and another prize paper award at
PELINCEC Poland 2005. He received the IEEE PELS Distinguished Service
Award in 2009 and the EPE-PEMC 2010 Council Award.