Coordinated control of multifunctional inverters for voltage support and harmonic compensation in a grid-connected microgrid

Abstract In this paper, a coordinated harmonic compensation and voltage support scheme is presented for distributed generations’ (DGs’) interface inverters in a resistive grid-connected microgrid. Voltage support is performed by reactive power compensation which can mitigate the over/under voltage problem; furthermore, the active power curtailment is proposed in order to mitigate the overvoltage problem when the reactive power compensation is not sufficient. Harmonic compensation is achieved by using virtual admittances in selected harmonic frequencies. Reactive power and harmonic compensation currents are injected with regards to the limited capacity of the interface inverter. If necessary, the reference powers of the grid-tied inverters are changed. Voltage support and harmonic compensation can be achieved based on local or central (communication-based) measurement schemes. The effect of communication delay is also investigated in this study. Experimental and simulation results are obtained in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.