Enhanced voltage source converter control strategy for improved grid resilience: A 2DOF-PI approach

Abstract

This paper presents a control strategy for voltage source converters connected to weak grids. The proposed approach is based on slight modifications to the conventional vector current control strategy, including the use of two degrees of freedom proportional-integral controllers, with reference weighting factors, in the inner current loop and a proportional controller in the outer loop, resulting in the introduction of only three additional parameters. The paper analyses the effect of these additional design parameters on the robustness improvement and studies the limitations of the proposal, providing design steps to achieve given performance prescriptions such as speed response, noise amplification, delays and phase-locked loop bandwidth, and the ability to face weak grids. Simulations are conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, which demonstrates that it is possible to achieve a more robust behaviour compared with the conventional vector current control strategy when facing weak grids.

Keywords

• Vector current control
• Voltage source converter
• Weak grid
• Stability
• 2DOF-PI controller
• Weighting factors