A CONTROL HIERARCHY OF INTERCONNECTED

MINI-GRIDS
w. Sinsukthavorn*, E. Ortjohann*, M. Lingemann*, S. Jaloudi*, D. Morton**
*South Westphalia University of Applied Sciences/Division Soest, Ltibecker Ring 2, 59494 Soest, Germany
E-mail: Sinsukthavorn@hotmail.com. Ortjohann@fh-swf.de
**The University of Bolton, Deane Road, Bolton, BL3-SAB, U.K.

Keywords: Distributed Generation, Distributed Energy

Resource, Hierarchy Control, Conventional Power System,
Droop Control Function.

Abstract
Distributed generation (DG) is recently integrating
conventional power systems to assist main power plants to
satisfy customer need. A control hierarchy to interconnect DG
systems to conventional power systems is required to improve
reliability and quality of power supply systems. The main task
is to control the frequency and voltage of the systems. This
task is currently done by using synchronous generators in
many interconnected power systems. Therefore, their control
strategy of conventional power systems can be based and
adapted to be implemented into other DG technologies
through their interface unit to the grid, namely the inverter.
The inverter is the primary interface unit between the energy
source and the grid. This paper presents a flexible control
hierarchy of interconnected mini-grids based on inverters.

1 Introduction
Recently, DG systems have become an option to be integrated
into the conventional power systems. DG has been
increasingly interesting to customers, thus, many electrical
providers are increasing their budgets for DG technologies.
Therefore, the penetration of DG at medium and low voltages
is expected to play a major role in future power systems.
Implementing distributed energy resources (DERs) such as
wind turbines, photovoltaic, gas turbines and fuel cells into
interconnected grids could be part of the solution to meet the
rising electricity demand [I, 3, 5, 7]. DG technologies are
currently investigated and developed in many research
projects to form smart grids.
This paper presents an adaptable and flexible hierarchy
control strategy of interconnected mini-grids based on
inverters. The proposed strategy is based on the conventional
power control structure and is therefore able to handle not
only modern DG sources, but also conventional sources. The
operational hierarchy control structures of interconnected
power systems are analyzed and the functions are identified.
All control functions are examined regarding their ability to
support future sources and power system architectures. These
hierarchical control levels are the primary control at unit
level, the secondary control at local level and the tertiary

control at supervisory level. They lead to an implementation

strategy, especially with the focus on DG systems connected
to the grid by inverters. The proposed strategy is modular,
flexible, and reliable and can be easily integrated in
interconnected grids. Mini-grids, containing inverter-based
distributed energy resources (DERs), can be linked to interact
and operate in parallel [1 - 4]. The main control functions are
structured and hierarchical control levels are defined as
shown in Fig. I.
The proposed control strategy enables maintenance of the grid
voltage and frequency by its primary control and secondary
control at unit and local levels respectively. It also manages
power sharing between the sources along with user settings,
rated power and meteorological forecasting. The border of
each grid contains measurement units to measure the power
and to observe the power flow. These communicating signals
of the measurement units are sent to the tertiary control at
supervisory level through the secondary control. The tertiary
control uses information from the secondary control to
optimize and control power dispatching and load sharing for
the entire power system.
This paper is structured as follows: First, the control
methodology of a grid is introduced including the role of
inverters. Second, the hierarchy control strategy of a
conventional power system is described. Third, the proposed
control strategy of distributed generation in interconnected
grids is described. Finally, the proposed strategy is validated
through the simulation of interconnected grids based on
inverters in grid forming mode and grid supporting modes.

Fig. I. Overview control strategy in interconnected grids.

2 Inverter control methodology

A mini-grid is generally composed of five main components,
which are energy conversion systems (ECSs), energy storage
systems (ESSs), information and communication technologies
(lCTs), connection lines and power electronics interfacing
units (e.g. inverter). The above are discussed in more detail in
[5]. A general philosophy to supply electric energy in isolated
power systems through power electronic inverters, which are
key elements at the grid side of mini-grid, is introduced in [2,
7]. Normally, the power produced by ECSs is DC power. This
is fed to the grid through an inverter that produces an AC
output of a specific voltage magnitude and frequency. This
means, that inverters provide decoupling between the voltages
across the terminals of the ECSs from one side and the grid
voltage from the other side. It also provides a decoupling
between the frequency of the ECSs from one side and the grid
frequency from the other side. The invert control philosophy
including types and functions is shown in Fig. 2. The power
flow from an ECS into the grid may be driven by the grid or
by the ECS itself [7-8].
In a grid driven feeding mode, the power flow from the ECS
is controlled regarding the power requirements of the grid
while in an ECS driven feeding mode, the power flow is
controlled according to the requirement of the ECS itself. A
grid feeding mode can be realized through two different cases
which are grid forming and grid supporting modes. An ECS
driven feeding mode may be realized through a grid parallel
inverter. Grid feeding mode inverters are discussed in more
detail in [2-4]. With the management and control topologies
in [2, 7], a grid can be designed via several inverters with
different operating functions (grid forming, grid supporting
and grid parallel modes) and power ratings as discussed in
[2]. This ensures that the system is expandable and flexible.

3 Control
systems

strategy

of

conventional

power

Conventional power systems, including large power plants,

are widely interconnected and are operated not only to handle
the continuously increasing electricity demand, but also to
increase the reliability and quality of power systems.
Examples are the interconnected grids in Germany and
Europe, and The Seven Countries Interconnection Project
(SCIP). The state variables such as voltage and frequency of
the power system are generally actively controlled in the high
voltage levels.
There are generally three main control levels to manage the
entire power system which are unit level, local level and
supervisory level. These three control levels contain primary,
secondary and tertiary controls respectively. The primary
control is related to the unit level, which is responsible for
control of the state variables (frequency and voltage) and for
the control of the power values of the unit to the grid (active
power and reactive power). This also includes the sharing
power to prevent any generator from taking the entire load in
their local grid.

Fig. 2. Feeding modes related to the grid side.

The secondary control of the local level is responsible for
bringing the frequency back to the nominal value. This can be
achieved by means of power frequency control. Moreover, the
desired power exchange for both active and reactive powers
between grids can also be managed from the secondary
control in the local level. The controlled area of the local level
will be limited at the borders. At the borders, there are
measurement units, which measure all data for control and
communicate it to the secondary control. The set points of the
secondary control are sent by the higher level to get an
optimum operation.
The tertiary control is related to the supervisory level which
organizes the energy management of the overall power
system. (Le. system optimization, dispatch control strategy,
load flow management, meteorological forecasting, network
management and communication management). The tertiary
control collects information of the interconnected grids such
as forecasting data, power profile, load data and etc. The
optimization is processed in this level to get the reference
values to feed in to the local and unit levels. This also
includes the optimized power dispatch between grids.

4 Control strategy of distributed power system

As mentioned above, future power distribution requires
advanced expandability and flexibility in the integration of
DG. The inverters, which are used for interfacing DERs to
the grids, are an important part of DG systems. Therefore, the
control strategy in the interconnected grids should be
combined with the control methodology of inverters (grid
forming, grid supporting and grid parallel modes). Inverter
feeding modes are discussed in more detail in [3-5]. Load
management, synchronization and load sharing with respect
to generation rating, meteorological forecasting and user
settings, are all required in order to implement a control
methodology of inverters into an interconnected system.
Moreover, due to the flexibility and expandability of the
inverters' control strategy, inverters in different feeding
modes can be implemented into interconnected grids. This
paper introduces an example control structure for
interconnected grids including the combination of grid
forming and grid supporting inverters.
A sample layout for a control structure of interconnected
grids including the combination of grid forming mode and
grid supporting mode inverters is shown in Fig. 4. This
example system is controlled by the control strategy adapted
from the conventional power system. Therefore, the control

hierarchy will not be described again in this section. This

section focuses directly on the flexibility of the inverter
control structure that can be implemented along with the
control strategy for grid interconnection.
The role of the grid forming mode inverter is to establish and
maintain the state variables (voltage and frequency) of the
grid. Therefore, in the control scheme of the grid forming
mode inverter, the voltage is controlled by the d-component,
while the frequency is controlled by the q-component. The
power injection in the connection point of the inverter is
related to active and reactive power controllers.
Synchronization and load sharing are also required in the
control systems. Load sharing is handled, using the voltage
and frequency droop control functions, in the primary control
at unit level. The voltage droop is related to the reactive
power variation of the grid and the frequency droop is related
to active power. The secondary control at local level is
included to bring the frequency back to the nominal value.
Moreover, it can be used to exchange active and reactive
power between the grids. To optimize the system, the tertiary
control will calculate and manage the reference values for the
controllers.

The grid supporting mode inverter is used for power

balancing and produces predefined amounts of power. These
predefined amounts of power can be adjusted according to the
system requirements and user settings via the secondary and
tertiary controls. The grid supporting mode inverter feeds the
grid with a specified amount of power, which is active or
reactive power, or a combination of both. The control strategy
for the grid supporting mode inverter using active and
reactive power consists of four controllers, two for the real
part of the grid current ill and imaginary part of the grid
current i", and two for the active power P and reactive power
Q. P is controlled by id, while Q is controlled by i". The
offset power from the secondary control will be fed into the
summation points of the active and reactive power control as
shown in Fig. 3.
For the grid parallel mode inverter, there is no need to have a
secondary control, since it is a power production unit that is
not controlled according to the requirements of the electrical
system. As the control topology of the inverters, which is
introduced in [I], is expandable and flexible, this proposed
control strategy can be implemented into DG power systems,
with different types of DERs, as well as into conventional
power systems.

Inverter

Primary Control
L,.

c,.

To

V1

other
units

....

lV.

Primary Control

Secondary Control

Fig. 3 Example of control strategy in interconnected grids including inverters as sources.

5 Case study
To verify the proposed control strategy, it is tested by the
simulation of two grids including grid forming mode and grid
supporting mode inverters as shown in Fig. 4. The first grid is
supplied by the first grid forming mode and the first grid
supporting mode inverters (OFI and OSI). The Second grid is
supplied by the second grid forming mode inverter and the
second grid supporting mode inverter (OF2 and OS2). The
power system operates at the rated frequency!r(l/(t/ = 50 Hz
and the reference voltage line to line VL.L = 400 V nn.' Rated
apparent power of grid forming mode and grid supporting
mode inverters are Sr = 1 25 kVA and Sr = 80 kVA
respectively. Both grid supporting mode inverters are set to
supply active and reactive power of 6 kW and 3.3 kvar
respectively. The cable line used in the simulation is NAYY
4x50 SE: RI = 0.772 Mm and XI = 0.083 Qlkm. The droop
factors of these inverters are set using the same percentages to
clearly see the load sharing between the inverters. The
secondary control is included in the simulation to control the
power in each grid as well as the power exchange between the
grids. This also leads to the system frequency that can be
brought back to the nominal value.
In Fig. 4, the active power and reactive power loads of the
first grid are the same as those of the second grid. They both
start at 1 6 kW and 7.3 kvar. The total active power and
reactive power of the system are 32 kW and 1 4.6 kvar
respectively. At t = 1 5 s, in the first grid, the active power
steps up to 20.2 kW and reactive power load steps up to 7.37
kvar. Therefore, the total active and reactive powers after the
load step are 36.2 kW and 1 4.67 kvar respectively. The
simulation results including the active power, reactive power,
frequency, three phase of voltages and currents are shown in
Figs. 5 to 8 respectively.

at the first grid to compensate the disturbance of the grid by

itself. Therefore, the active power of the first grid inverters,
which are located close to the additional load, is increased,
while the active power of the inverters at the second grid
remains at its normal state.
Reactive powers of all inverters are shown in Fig. 5.b. At the
beginning, all inverters supply reactive power of
approximately 1 4.6 kvar. At t = IS s, the step load of 70 var is
added to the first grid. As the secondary control of reactive
power is not implemented into this test simulation, the grid
forming mode inverters of both grids supply to compensate
the additional load step while the grid supporting mode
inverters supply the same amount.
The frequency of the system is shown in Fig. 6. The primary
control and the secondary control have direct impact on the
frequency behavior. First, due to the droop control function of
the primary control, at the load step t = IS s the frequency
drops from the nominal frequency as shown in the small
figure in Fig. 6. This frequency drop can be brought back to
the nominal value by the secondary control.
The first grid forming mode inverter (OFI) outputs are shown
in Fig. 7. It can be recognized that it is supplying fixed
voltage output and responds by adapting its current to the load
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Active power of the inverters is shown in Fig. 5.a. At the

beginning, the inverters supply active power of approximately
32 kW; around 20 kW is supplied by each grid forming mode
inverter equally and the rest 1 2 kW is supplied by each grid
supporting mode inverter equally. At t = 1 5 s, the step load of
4.2 kW is added to the first grid. All inverters of the system
directly react to compensate the additional load. After the
load step, the secondary control manages the generating units

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Fig. 4. Two mini-grids including two grid forming mode and

two grid supporting mode inverters.

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steps. At t = 1 5 s, the step load is applied. The three phase

voltages have been kept constant by the controllers all the
time as shown in Fig. 7.a, and the three phase currents as
shown in Fig. 7.b supplied by the first grid forming mode
inverter (GFI) are increased.
Figs. 8.a and 8.b show the three phase voltages and currents
of the load at the first grid respectively. At t = 1 5 s, the step
load is applied. The load voltage has been kept nearly
constant while the current is increased due to the step load at
the first grid.

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Future power supply infrastructure will have DG integrated

into conventional power supply systems. The challenge of
combining with large numbers of DERs to the power systems
has to be carefully planned and managed. The control strategy
and management concept of the interconnected systems
should be flexible and reliable to handle the various DG. The
paper introduces a control strategy for DG interconnected
grids based on the control strategy of conventional power
systems. This proposed strategy is integrating DERs and
managing interconnected grids to operate in parallel. The
power dispatch, exchanged power, frequency control and
voltage control can be automatically managed by the
proposed strategy. The simulation results illustrate that the
strategy can be implemented into the power systems due to its
adaptability, flexibility and efficiency. With the proposed
strategy, mini-grids can be widely interconnected to each
other and existing conventional systems to form huge power
systems.

References

20
15
10
5
o
-5
-10
-15
-20

Fig. 7. (a) Three phase voltages of GFI at step t = 15 s

and (b) Three phase currents of GF I at step t = 1 5 s.

6 Conclusion

14.96

14.98

15
(b)
t[s]

Fig. 8. (a) Three phase voltages of loadl at step t = 1 5 s

and (b) Three phase current of loadI at step t = 1 5 s.

E. Ortjohann, A. Mohd, A. Schmelter, N. Hamsic, D.

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[8]

to

Energy

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