Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 42 (2015) 597–608

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Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/rser

Letter to the Editor

Control strategies for a hybrid renewable energy system: A review

P.G. Arul n, Vigna K. Ramachandaramurthy, R.K. Rajkumar
Power Quality Research Group, Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Putrajaya Campus, Jalan IKRAM-UNITEN, 43000 Kajang, Selangor, Malaysia

art ic l e i nf o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This paper presents a review of a standalone and grid-connected hybrid renewable energy system
Received 15 January 2014; Received in (HRES) to supply AC loads. The configuration of the HRESs and interfacing power converters for
revised form 8 August 2014 connecting the energy sources to the AC bus is extensively discussed. An overview of the control
concepts in an HRES and the application of the appropriate control schemes for system stabilization,
Accepted 20 October 2014 effective injection of high quality power and proper load sharing are discussed. The different approaches
Keywords: for HRES design and control strategies for power converters in the recently published literature are also
Hybrid renewable energy system briefly addressed. Finally, this paper highlights the future developments in HRESs to increase the
Standalone and grid-connected system utilization of power generated from renewable energy sources (RESs).
Power converters & 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Control strategies

Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 597
2. Interfacing configuration of HRES sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 599
3. Control concepts in HRESs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 599
4. Power converter topologies and control strategies for a single inverter interfaced HRES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 601
5. Power converter topologies and control strategies for a parallel inverter interfaced HRES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 606
6. Future trends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 607
7. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 607
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 607

1. Introduction
Power generation by RESs is becoming more popular and
economical than the traditional generation systems to supply
reliable power in areas not served by conventional power grids
[1,2]. RESs are unpredictable and fluctuating in nature and also
typically produce low power compared to traditional generation.
Hence, some means of integrating multiple sources are required to
provide a more reliable and sustainable energy [3]. The integration
of various RESs forms a hybrid renewable energy system (HRES),
which provides continuous power to the consumers versus a
system based on a single source [4,5]. The HRES sources require
power converters for the efficient and flexible interconnection of
RESs to work either in a standalone or grid-connected mode.
n
Corresponding author: Tel.: þ60 123980722/60 3 89212020; fax: þ 60 3 89212116.
E-mail address: pgarul@yahoo.com (P.G. Arul).
However, the HRES with an unpredictable nature for PV and wind
cannot supply sufficient and stable power to meet the power
demand [6]. To ensure the dynamics of the HRES, several stable
power sources, such as batteries, fuel cells (FC) [7], supercapacitors
[8], or diesel generators, must be integrated into the HRES
especially in standalone mode and into the utility in grid-
connected mode. In addition to the various benefits, the HRES
has numerous technical challenges on the system power quality
[9], such as power fluctuation because of the presence of a new
source or plug-and-play feature of RESs, voltage and frequency
deviation caused by the transition from grid-connected to standa-
lone mode and vice versa. Therefore, the HRESs must have the
ability to mitigate the power quality issues to supply high-quality
and more reliable steady power. The power quality and system
stability can be achieved by an appropriate control technique
embedded into the power converter control circuit. However, the
main challenge is to design suitable control strategies for the HRES
to overcome the above challenges. The aim of this paper is to

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2014.10.062
1364-0321/& 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
598 Letter to the Editor / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 42 (2015) 597–608

Fig. 1. Typical configuration of the DC and AC bus linked HRES.

Fig. 2. Modified configuration of the DC and AC bus linked HRES.

Fig. 3. Typical configuration of the AC bus linked HRES.

 Letter to the Editor / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 42 (2015) 597–608
review the power conversion and control strategies of the HRES
for future developments in generating power from RESs. However,
the HRES in this paper is for self-consumption and the power grid
acts as a source of power support.
2. Interfacing configuration of HRES sources
The HRES can be interfaced to an AC bus line and then to the
utility directly or via a common DC bus by using the appropriate
power converters [10]. The typical configuration of a DC and AC
bus linked HRES is shown in Fig. 1. In this HRES configuration, a
group of PV panels are interfaced through a DC–DC converter to
regulate their fluctuating DC output. The wind turbine coupled
with a permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG) gener-
ates a three-phase AC voltage, and its amplitude and frequency
varies with rotor speed. Therefore, the wind turbine generator is
connected to the DC bus via a rectifier and DC/DC converter [11].
Furthermore, the wind turbine coupled with a brushless doubly
fed machine (BDFM) can work with a fluctuating wind speed and
generates a three-phase AC voltage with a constant frequency by
controlling the exciting converter frequency [12]. Hence, the wind
turbine coupled with the BDFM can be directly connected to the
AC bus as shown in Fig. 2. The storage battery is connected to the
DC bus through a bidirectional DC–DC converter to maintain a
stable supply–demand balance at its rated capacity. The common
DC bus collects the regulated power from various RESs to supply
DC loads and maintain a constant DC voltage at the input terminal
of the DC–AC inverter. A single DC–AC inverter is used to interface
the common DC bus to the AC bus. The AC bus feeds the inverted
power to the AC loads and also has the flexibility to integrate with
the utility when the power generated from the HRES sources is not
sufficient to meet the power demand.
In the modified HRES configuration as shown in Fig. 2, the DC
sources and loads are connected to the DC bus, whereas the AC
sources and loads are connected to the AC bus. The DC and AC
buses are integrated with a single bidirectional inverter. The HRES
configuration illustrated in Figs. 1 and 2 has the following
advantages. The power converters in the system require a simple
control algorithm because source side converters are only respon-
Fig. 4. Control concept of the DC and AC bus linked HRES.
599
sible for harvesting the maximum power from the RESs, control-
ling the coordination of the real power output among the RESs or
regulating the DC bus voltage. In addition, the load/utility side
converters are only responsible for controlling the voltage, fre-
quency, real and reactive power and harmonics for maintaining
the power quality. The output of the RESs can be flexibly regulated
(either buck or boost) by the DC–DC converter to meet the
requirement of the DC–AC inverter input [13,14]. Most of the RESs
and storage devices are DC based and can easily be connected to
the DC bus line [15]. Although the HRES configurations illustrated
in Figs. 1 and 2 have significant benefits, the efficiency of the
system is reduced because of losses in a number of power
converter stages. Moreover, the DC–DC converter must be cut off
during low power levels to prevent inefficient operation. Thus, the
generation by the RESs remains unutilized. This may be acceptable
for grid-connected applications but could be a matter of concern
for standalone applications [16]. If the function of the source side
DC–DC converter is merged with the inversion stage, even a small
fraction of the power generated by RESs can be utilized [17]. In
addition, if the single DC–AC inverter fails, the whole HRES will
face blackout.
Fig. 3 shows the typical configuration of the HRES, connecting
various RESs directly to the AC bus line and/or utility through
individual DC–AC inverters. In this configuration, if any one of the
inverters fails, the HRES can still supply the required amount of power
from the remaining sources [18]. Therefore, the HRES configuration
illustrated in Fig. 3 is more reliable and economical and improves the
system's efficiency [19] compared to the HRES shown in Figs. 1 and 2.
However, this system has the disadvantage of requiring a complicated
control algorithm for the DC–AC inverters to regulate the power and
current injected into the AC bus and/or utility.
3. Control concepts in HRESs
The HRES sources must be properly controlled by specific
power converter control schemes to perform voltage and power
regulation in standalone and grid-connected mode.
The control concept of the DC and AC bus linked HRES is shown
in Fig. 4. In standalone mode, one of the sources producing stable
600 Letter to the Editor / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 42 (2015) 597–608

Fig. 5. Control concept of the AC bus linked HRES.

Fig. 6. Proposed HRES configuration in [37].

output power must be operated in voltage-controlled mode to Table 1

regulate the DC bus voltage, and the remaining sources should be Details of the HRES presented in [37].
operated in current-controlled mode to control the coordination of
Source PV (450  250 V), Wind (80–200 V)
power among the RESs [20]. In addition, the inverter on the AC Power converter topology Multi-input DC–DC buck converter,
side must be operated in voltage-controlled mode to keep the Single-phase full bridge inverter
voltage and frequency of the AC bus constant. Therefore, the Controller(s) Not specified
voltage and frequency (Vf) control scheme must be implemented Control technique SPWM
Control device Microcontroller PICI8F4431
in the inverter control circuit to perform the voltage and frequency Implementation topology Experimental
regulation [21–23]. In grid-connected mode, the inverter must be Simulation tool Not applicable
operated in the current control mode [24] to regulate the active Operating mode(s) Grid-connected
and reactive power injected into the grid and to supply the AC
loads. Therefore, the inverter control circuit must be adopted with
an active and reactive power (PQ) control scheme [22,23]. remaining sources can be adopted with the following control
The control concept of the AC bus linked HRES is shown in schemes to regulate the current injected into the AC bus.
Fig. 5. In an AC bus linked HRES, all of the sources are connected in
parallel to the AC bus. In standalone mode, the HRES sources are (i) PQ control scheme
responsible for maintaining the AC bus voltage constant, sharing (ii) Active Power and Voltage (PV) control scheme
the load according to their ratings, and controlling the availability
of power from their energy source [25]. To maintain a constant AC In grid-connected mode, the AC bus voltage and frequency
bus voltage, at least one of the sources producing a stable output reference is fixed by the grid. Therefore, the converter control circuit
power must be operated in a voltage-controlled mode [26]. may be embedded with any of the PQ, PV, or Vf control schemes.
Because all of the HRES sources are connected to the same AC However, in an AC bus linked standalone HRES, the source
bus, the remaining sources will follow the AC bus voltage and operated in voltage-controlled mode behaves as the master and
should be able to operate in the current-controlled mode to supply the other sources behave as the slave [18,19]. The problem with the
high quality power [20]. Therefore, the control circuit of the stable master–slave operation is that the whole HRES must be shut down
source must be implemented with a Vf control scheme to perform when there is a disturbance or fault in the master unit [27]. The AC
voltage and frequency regulation, and the control circuit of the bus voltage of the HRES can be maintained stable if more than one
 Letter to the Editor / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 42 (2015) 597–608 601

source is operated in voltage-controlled mode. As an example, the
stable slave source with the highest output power can automatically
become the master source [28]. Moreover, proper load sharing
among the parallel-connected RESs can be achieved by the cur-
rent/power sharing control (CSC) [29] or droop control concepts
[30]. The CSC strategy has the advantage of good load sharing and
dynamic response and can reduce the circulating currents between
the converters. However, the CSC strategy requires a communication
link to synchronize the sources for sharing the load, lowers the
system reliability and limits the flexibility (i.e., plug and play) of the
system. The droop control concept for load sharing does not require
any communication interface among the sources [31], and it also
increases the reliability and flexibility of the system [32]. However,
the droop control concept has some drawbacks, such as slow
dynamic response, frequency and voltage deviations and a lack of
system stability due to line impedance especially in a low voltage
standalone system [33,34]. The independent control concept of
energy sources as shown in Figs. 4 and 5 allows the HRES to connect
or disconnect several sources without restructuring the system and
eliminates the requirement of a complex control algorithm [35,36].

4. Power converter topologies and control strategies for a

single inverter interfaced HRES
Fig. 7. Proposed voltage change-trend hysteresis band control st.
The HRES configuration proposed in [37] is shown in Fig. 6, and
the details are listed in Table 1. A multi-input DC–DC converter
with maximum power point tracking (MPPT) control transfers the
Table 2
Details of the HRES presented in [38].
maximum power from the RESs to the DC bus individually or
simultaneously. If one of the sources fails to generate power, the
Source PV 1 (2 kW), PV 2 (3 kW) multi-input DC–DC converter can still transfer the maximum
Power converter topology DC–DC boost converter, Three-phase VSI power from the other source. The full bridge inverter converts
Controller(s) PI the total available DC power into AC power and injects a sinusoidal
Control technique PWM, Hysteresis PWM
Control device Not applicable
AC current into the utility. According to this topology, the filter at
Implementation topology Simulation the DC bus regulates the DC bus voltage and improves the power
Simulation tool Matlab/Simulink quality of the utility. The function of the DC bus filter is to buffer an
Operating mode(s) Grid-connected energy balance when the energy between the source and load is
not exactly the same. The DC bus capacitor voltage change is

Fig. 8. Overall power converter control scheme for the standalone, (a). Inverter control strategy for the grid-connected mode
602 Letter to the Editor / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 42 (2015) 597–608

expressed as: Furthermore, hysteresis control provides a fast dynamic response

Z and good accuracy [40]. However, the major problem with hyster-
1  
C dc ΔV 2dc ¼ P in  P out dt
2
where ΔVdc is the change in the DC bus capacitor voltage. Based
on (1), the voltage across the DC bus capacitor changes when there
is a difference between the input and output active powers of the
DC bus filter. Fig. 7 shows that the DC bus voltage Vdc is regulated
within the hysteresis band limits by adjusting the injected AC
current command iac, ref. It can be seen that the change in the
injected AC current command only occurs in a specific time
segment. Therefore, the power quality of the utility can be
improved by injecting a stable AC current. This control strategy
is implemented in the microcontroller, which produces the gate
control signals for the full bridge inverter to generate the injected
AC current and regulate the DC bus voltage.
A similar HRES approach is presented in [38,39]. In [38], a
single-phase current hysteresis PWM control strategy is proposed
for the three-phase DC–AC inverter, which effectively reduces the
switching losses and injects low harmonic distorted three-phase
sinusoidal currents with a unity power factor into the grid.
ð1Þ esis control is the resultant variable switching frequency of the
converter [24,41]. The details of this HRES are listed in Table 2.
In [39], the three-phase full bridge inverter with the sinusoidal
pulse width modulation (SPWM) control technique eliminates the
side band harmonics and supplies a low harmonic, distorted three-
phase AC output voltage by limiting the modulation index mi to an
optimal value (i.e., mi o1).
However, it should be noted that the DC link capacitor is
suitable only for transient stability, and the integration of stable
sources in the DC link is more appropriate for the long term to
ensure the stability of the HRES.
Ref. [42] presented the DC and AC bus linked HRES. The overall
power converter control scheme in standalone mode is shown in
Fig. 8, whereas the inverter control scheme in grid-connected
mode is shown in Fig. 8(a). In this HRES configuration, all of the
sources are connected in parallel to the common DC bus through
their individual DC–DC converter. The MPPT feature is also
realized. The storage battery is directly connected to the DC bus
to smooth the power fluctuation and the stability of the DC bus

Table 3 Table 4
Details of the HRES presented in [42]. Details of the HRES presented in [45].

Source PV (400 W), Wind (600 W) Source PV (750 W), Wind (1 kW), FC (1.2 kW)
Power converter topology DC–DC buck converter, DC–DC boost converter,
Single-phase full bridge inverter Power converter topology
Single-phase full bridge inverter
Controller(s) PI Controller(s) PI
Control technique PWM Control technique PWM
Control device Dspace Control device Not applicable
Implementation topology Experimental Implementation topology Simulation
Simulation tool Not applicable Simulation tool PSIM
Operating mode(s) Standalone and grid-connected Operating mode(s) Grid-connected

Fig. 9. Control strategies for the HRES presented in [45].

 Letter to the Editor / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 42 (2015) 597–608
voltage. Supervisory energy management [43,44] with a real-time
control system monitors and controls the power supply–demand
balance to ensure the stable operation of the entire HRES. The
single-phase full bridge inverter connects the DC bus to the AC bus
and operates in two modes. During standalone mode, the inverter
with the voltage control strategy regulates the magnitude and
frequency of AC bus voltage by controlling the load current in the
inner loop and the bus voltage in the outer loop. During grid-
connected mode, the inverter with the current control strategy
regulates the current injected into the utility by controlling the
inverter output current Io. It was observed that the proposed HRES
provides a reliable and continuous power supply with a smooth
transition from the standalone to the grid-connected mode and
vice versa even if there are interruptions or fluctuations. The
details of this HRES are listed in Table 3.
Ref. [45] also presented the DC and AC bus linked HRES, and the
complete converter control strategy is illustrated in Fig. 9. In this
configuration, the DC–DC converters of the PV and wind source are
incorporated with the voltage-based MPPT control technique to
extract the maximum power from the sources. An additional
DC–DC boost converter is used to control the FC to balance power
fluctuation. The output voltage from each source is controlled
independently by using a voltage controller. A single-phase current
controlled inverter connecting the DC and AC bus controls the
current injected into the grid and also regulates the DC bus voltage.
The phase angle of the grid voltage is obtained by using phase-
locked loop (PLL) to control the grid current in phase with the grid
voltage to maintain the unity power factor. The LC filter at the
inverter output eliminates the switching harmonics and reduces the
system losses [46]. The proposed HRES supplies continuous high
quality power with better reliability than a system with a single
source. The details of this HRES are listed in Table 4.
Ref. [47] presented a similar DC and AC bus linked HRES. The
details of this HRES configuration are listed in Table 5. In this
Table 5
Details of the HRES presented in [47].
Source PV (15 kW), Wind (20 kW), FC (10 kW)
DC–DC boost converter,
Power converter topology
Three-phase voltage source inverter
Controller(s) PI
Control technique PWM
Control device Not applicable
Implementation topology Simulation
Simulation tool PSIM
Operating mode(s) Grid-connected
Fig. 10. Control strategy for the inverter proposed in [48].
603
configuration, a three-phase current controlled voltage source inver-
ter interfaces with the common DC bus to the utility through a series
impedance, and its control strategy is shown in Fig. 10. In this control
strategy [48], the DC bus voltage is controlled to ensure sufficient
injection of the active power into the utility. The output of this
controller produces the reference active power for inverter control.
The inner current control loops control the active and reactive power
injected into the utility by independently controlling the d-axis and
q-axis components of the inverter output currents id and iq in a dq
rotating reference frame. It was observed that the power factor of the
system is maintained at unity and that the total harmonic distortion
of the injected current is reduced. Moreover, the decoupled control
will enhance the system's performance and stability.
An HRES combining a variety of sources is also presented in
[49], and the details of this configuration are listed in Table 6. Its
control strategy shown in Fig. 11 is employed in the wind turbine
to extract the maximum power by controlling the pitch angle and
speed of the generator. The pitch angle control uses wind speed
signals and the power output of the generator as the inputs. The
speed control is realized through field orientation by setting idr ¼0,
and the q-axis current is used to control the rotational speed of the
PMSG according to the variation in the wind speed. The converter
circuit of the storage units is implemented with the current
control strategy as shown in Fig. 12 for both charging and
discharging. The three-phase voltage source inverter interfacing
the common DC bus is employed with a similar control strategy as
in [48] to regulate the active and reactive power flow.
In Ref. [50], a standalone microgrid model is presented by
combining three HRESs. An active power and voltage (PV) control
scheme as shown in Fig. 13 is adopted for the standalone single
three-phase inverter interfacing the common DC voltage bus
linking the diversity of the RESs and energy storage units. This
control strategy consists of two cascade loops to regulate the
Table 6
Details of the HRES presented in [49].
Source PV (1 kW), Wind (2 kW), battery and supercapacitor
Power converter DC–DC boost converter for PV,
topology Three-phase controlled rectifier for wind,
Bi-directional DC–DC boost converter for storage
units and Three-phase voltage source inverter
Controller(s) PI
Control technique PWM, SVPWM
Control device Not applicable
Implementation topology Not specified
Simulation tool Not applicable
Operating mode(s) Standalone
604 Letter to the Editor / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 42 (2015) 597–608
Fig. 11. Wind turbine controller proposed in [49].
Fig. 12. Control circuit for the storage devices proposed in [49].
Fig. 13. Active power–voltage control scheme proposed in [50].
Fig. 14. Voltage control scheme proposed in [34].
Table 7
Details of the HRES presented in [55].
Source PV (5 kW), wind (1 kW), battery (5 kW/20 kWh), FC
(1.2 kW/4.8 kWh) and DG (8 kW)
Power converter DC–DC buck–boost converter for PV, Full-wave bridge
topology rectifier & DC–DC boost converter for wind, Bi-directional
inverter.
Controller(s) PI
Control technique PWM
Control device PLC
Implementation Simulation model
Simulation tool PSCAD/EMTDC
Operating mode(s) Standalone
active power injection and also to maintain the magnitude of the
AC bus voltage. The inner current control loops independently
regulate the d-axis and q-axis components of the inverter output
currents id and iq in the dq rotating reference frame. The reference
value of the inverter output currents is obtained from the
controlled active power and voltage in the outer loop. The
compensated outputs of the two current controllers are used to
generate the gate control signals of the inverter switches. PLL is
used to control the angular position of the dq reference frame by
using a feedback loop, which forces the q-axis component to zero.
The Pf droop control is used to adapt to the load change.
Ref. [51] proposed a fuzzy and decoupled dq based PV control
strategy for the standalone three-phase voltage source inverter
interfacing the DC bus linked HRES. In this control strategy, fuzzy
rules are used to set the parameters of the PI controllers to achieve
a greater response for large signal disturbances.
Ref. [34] presented three individual HRESs connected in a
microgrid, and each system consists of RESs, an energy storage
system and a grid interfacing inverter with virtual inductance at
its output. The voltage control scheme used in the single three-
phase inverter control circuit is shown in Fig. 14. The virtual
inductance in the proposed control strategy effectively decouples
and can accurately control the real and reactive power in both
standalone and grid-connected mode. A concern for the virtual
inductor voltage control scheme is the differentiation of the line
 Letter to the Editor / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 42 (2015) 597–608 605

current Iline. Differentiation can cause high frequency noise ampli-
fication, which in turn may destabilize the voltage control scheme
especially during a transient. A general approach to avoid noise
amplification is to add a low pass filter [52,53] or high pass filter
[54] to avoid the introduction of excessive noise. However, this
approach is the tradeoff between the overall control scheme
stability and the virtual inductor control accuracy.
According to the configuration in Fig. 2, a similar HRES is
presented in [55], and the details are listed in Table 7. In this HRES,
RESs and storage devices are integrated into the DC bus to supply
the required amount of power, and a diesel generator connected to
the AC bus is used as an emergency backup if all of the sources are
exhausted. A bi-directional inverter cascaded with a buck-boost
converter and single-phase controlled rectifier links the DC and AC
bus. The synchronization of the inverter output voltage and the AC
system voltage is achieved through the PLL. The control algorithm
implemented in the programmable logic controller (PLC) allows the
HRES to operate in different modes to meet the power demand.

Fig. 15. HRES configuration proposed in [33]. Fig. 18. Active and reactive power control scheme proposed in [50].

Fig. 16. Modified PQ control strategy proposed in [33].

Fig. 17. Pf and QV droop scheme [49,57,58].

606 Letter to the Editor / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 42 (2015) 597–608
5. Power converter topologies and control strategies for a
parallel inverter interfaced HRES
Ref. [33] investigated the control strategies of an AC bus linked
standalone HRES combining the wind, diesel and storage battery
as shown in Fig. 15. The storage battery supports the system
stability by controlling the voltage and frequency during a sudden
change in load and wind speed variation [56]. The excess power
Fig. 19. Microgrid model proposed in [62].
Fig. 20. Vf control strategy proposed in [62].
Fig. 21. Power control strategy proposed in [62].
from the wind source is used to charge the battery. When the
battery is fully charged, the excess power from the wind source is
consumed by the dump load. During low wind speed, the diesel
engine provides the deficit power to keep the frequency of the
system constant.
The bidirectional voltage source converter adopted with the
modified pq control strategy as shown in Fig. 16 controls the
charging and discharging of the battery. In addition, the voltage
and frequency is maintained at a constant value under varying
linear loads and variable wind speeds. The active power filter
(APF) compensates for the harmonics generated by nonlinear
loads. It was observed that the modified pq control strategy
maintains the system voltage and frequency constant under
different dynamic conditions.
Ref. [49] also discussed the droop control scheme for parallel
inverters connecting HRES sources to the AC power system. The
flow of the active and reactive power between the sources and AC
bus can be determined by the vector relationship between the
inverter output voltage V and power angle δ along with the
inductor's reactance. The mathematical relationship for P and Q
is shown in Eqs. (2) and (3):
3VE
P¼ sin δ ð2Þ
2 ωL
3V  
Q¼ V  E cos δ ð3Þ
2ωL
From Eqs. (2) and (3), P is dependent on the power angle and δ
and Q are dependent on the inverter output voltage V. Therefore, P
and Q can be independently controlled by using the Pf and QV
droop scheme as illustrated in Fig. 17 for by sharing the currents
[57,58]. Controlling the power using the conventional Pf and QV
droop will introduce a significant coupling between P and Q
especially during transients.
In [34], the power control and sharing scheme for two parallel
inverters in microgrid interfacing HRESs is presented. The active and
reactive powers are effectively decoupled by connecting the virtual
inductance at the inverter output as shown in Fig. 14. The decoupled
power control improves the system's stability. However, this approach
 Letter to the Editor / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 42 (2015) 597–608
may increase the reactive power control and sharing error because of
an increased impedance voltage drop. By incorporating the line
voltage drop effect into the power control scheme, the reactive power
control and sharing can be improved. This can be realized by adding
the ΔV/Q slopes into the voltage droop control.
The control scheme for parallel three-phase inverters interfa-
cing two individual HRESs in standalone mode is presented in
[50]. One inverter is operated in voltage control mode to keep the
bus voltage constant, and the other inverter is operated in power
control mode to regulate the active and reactive power from the
energy sources. The PQ control scheme as shown in Fig. 18 is
adopted in one of the parallel inverters. The total active power is
shared by two inverters by adapting the power–frequency (Pf)
droop control scheme. It should be noted that when the load
undergoes a step change, the bus voltage is regulated at its
nominal value after a short transient. The PV and PQ control
scheme combined with the droop control concept is an efficient
method for the parallel operation of inverters [59].
The parallel operation of inverters in the AC bus linked
standalone HRES is presented in [60,61]. The single-master and
multi-master approaches are used in the inverter control strate-
gies. In the single-master approach, one of the inverters is
operated in voltage-controlled mode, and the other inverters are
operated in PQ mode. In the multi-master approach, more than
one inverter is operated in voltage-controlled mode, and the other
PQ inverters may also coexist.
An AC bus linked microgrid model proposed in [62] is shown in
Fig. 19. The Vf control and power control strategies as shown in
Figs. 20 and 21 are integrated into the voltage source inverter for
the microgrid to operate in both standalone and grid-connected
modes. When there is no grid support (standalone mode), the Vf
control strategy is enabled to regulate the voltage and frequency at
the point of common coupling (PCC) and also to provide power
balance for the isolated system. When the state of charge (SOC) of
the battery reaches its minimum limit, the power control strategy
is enabled to charge the battery from the grid. After the battery
gets charged, the power control strategy switches from charging
mode to discharging mode or PQ control mode to minimize the
grid consumption.
6. Future trends
The trend in developing countries is to install a standalone
HRES for electrifying rural regions that do not have the access to
the power grid. However, many of these installed generation units
are not connected to the existing power grid. Further research and
development for HRESs is required for the future power grid mix
with generation from an installed standalone HRES to address the
following:
 Minimize the power conversion losses as much as possible by
using an appropriate design for the HRES configuration and for
advancement in power converter topologies.
 Enhance the performance of the HRES through the design and
implementation of advanced control strategies [63] to supply
quality power.
 The existing power grids based on conventional power gen-
eration systems are constructed without considering the inte-
gration of HRESs. Therefore, the standalone HRES must rely on
storage batteries to store excess power and mitigate several
technical issues, such as voltage fluctuations, voltage flicker and
fluctuating power loads. Moreover, the grid-connected HRES
requires storage batteries to store the excess power because not
all of the utilities buy power back from these power generation
units. The use of storage batteries may have unexpected
607
environmental consequences. To expand the utilization of the
HRES sources with the conventional power generation systems,
the stability of the HRES should be further improved to over-
come the constraints of the existing power grid.
7. Conclusion
In this paper, several aspects of the HRES configuration and
control strategies for standalone and grid-connected HRESs are
specifically reviewed. It is important for the HRES to have appro-
priate interfacing power conversion circuits and controllers. The
AC bus-linked HRES configuration reduces the number of power
conversion stages and losses in power transferred to the load/
utility. The control strategy based on a communication link
increases the control complexity and affects the expandability of
the HRES. The master-slave control with the droop concept does
not require a communication link and provides good load sharing.
In addition, the master–slave concept adds features, such as the
flexibility, expandability and modularity of the HRES. However,
enhancements in the HRES's efficiency, quality, stability and
reliability are a few of the future research needs and require
advances in power electronic devices and control techniques. This
review will help supply viable solutions to enhance the HRES.
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P.G. Arul n, Vigna K. Ramachandaramurthy, R.K. Rajkumar
Power Quality Research Group, Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Putrajaya
Campus, Jalan IKRAM-UNITEN, 43000 Kajang, Selangor, Malaysia
E-mail address: pgarul@yahoo.com (P.G. Arul)
Received 15 January 2014
8 August 2014
20 October 2014
n
Corresponding author: Tel.: þ60 123980722/60 3 89212020; fax: þ 60 3 89212116.