Phasor Measurement Unit Assisted Inverter—A Novel Approach for DC Microgrids Performance Enhancement

Abstract

DC microgrids are set to change the landscape of future energy markets. However, a wide-scale deployment faces three major issues: initial synchronization of microgrid with the utility grid, slip management during its operation, and mitigation of distortions produced by the inverter. This paper proposes a Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU) Assisted Inverter (PAI) that addresses these three issues in a single solution. The proposed PAI continually receives real-time data from a Phasor Measurement Unit installed in the distribution system of a utility company and keeps constructing a real-time reference signal for the inverter. A well-constructed, real-time reference signal plays a vital role in addressing the above issues. The results show that the proposed PAI is 97.95% efficient.

Keywords

• DC microgrid
• synchronization
• zero crossover distortion
• inverter
• Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU)
• slip management