Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Advances in Power System Control, Operation and Management, APSCOM 2000, Hong
Kong, October 2000.
Power System Stability Improvement Using Energy Storage
With Fuzzy Logic Controller
M.W. Tsang and D. Sutanto
Department of Electrical Engineering,
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University,
Hung Hom, Hong Kong.
Fax :(852) 2330-1544
eesutant@polyu.edu.hk
Abstract
A Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC) is designed for a
Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) to improve the
stability of an interconnected multi-machine power
system. The studied system consists of two generating
areas interconnected by a long transmission line.
Detailed model of BESS is developed for accurate
dynamic assessment. The model takes into account the
switching actions of the converter as well as the battery
characteristics. This paper also describes the use of
hysteresis technique to control directly the BESS output
current. This reduces the complexity of the control
system while at the same time provides a tight control of
the BESS output. Test results under a variety of
disturbances show the proposed BESS is effective in
damping out power system oscillations.
Keywords: Power System Damping, Battery Energy Storage
Systems, Battery Model, Fuzzy Logic Control, Dynamic
Analysis, Transient Stability Improvement, Hysteresis Control.
1. Introduction
Much attention has been drawn to the low frequency
oscillations in a large-scale power system. The low
frequency oscillations are usually initiated by system
disturbances, such as sudden load changes and system
faults. In a stable system, the oscillations can be damped
down in a short period. However, in a weakly
interconnected system, the oscillations may continue for
a long period of time or in some cases slowly increase in
value resulting in synchronous machines running out-of-
step and eventually separating form the power system.
Some model-based approaches have been proposed for
energy storage to enhance power system damping. The
results showed that such model-based control strategies
are very effective in solving a well-defined system [I].
Nevertheless, today’s modem interconnected power
system is highly complex and non-linear in nature
making it very difficult to accurately model the power
system without sacrificing considerable amount of
computation time. Recently, artificial intelligence
techniques have been reported in the literature that
apparently can deal with non-linear and complex
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systems by introducing fuzziness in the analysis. Several
applications of the fuzzy logic control (FLC) in power
system stabilisers have been reported and shown to be
effective through simulation and experimental
verifications [2-51.
In this paper, an effective and easy-to-understand Fuzzy
Logic based algorithm [9] is employed to control the
BESS to improve powp- system stability. With the
proposed FLC control scheme, the active and reactive
power outputs of the BESS can be rapidly controlled.
FLC is model-free in nature, requires less development
time and can handle highly complicated and non-lihear
systems, etc. With these virtues and assets, FLC has been
regarded as one of the most suitable substitution for the
conventional control techniques.
This paper also reports on the use of a new control
strategy based on hysteresis technique to control the
AC/DC converter of the BESS. This has the advantage
of reducing the complexity of the converter control. The
detailed BESS model and its controller proposed in this
paper are suitable not only for dynamic but also transient
study of the performance of the BESS.
2. The Battery Energy Storage System (BESS)
The schematic diagram of the BESS is shown in Fig. 1.
The main elements of the BESS are the transformer,
power switching modules associated with the AC/DC
converter, power electronic control circuit and a battery
bank.
ACiDC Converter
AC
Network
I
, Ultra Bank
Fig. 1 Schematic Diagram of BESS Plant
The battery bank consists of a set of battery cells
connected in parallel and series. The batteries of the
 BESS is rated at 10 MW, 40 MWh. Ultra capacitors (0.5
F) are placed in parallel with the battery bank to stabilize
the terminal voltage. To reflect the charging and
discharging characteristics of the battery cells, a
comprehensive non-linear model has been used [6-71.
Due to the non-linear nature of the internal resistance of
the battery cells, different curves are used for charging
and discharging depending on the state of charge. The
equivalent circuit of a battery cell [6] is shown in Fig. 2 .
angular speed and voltage after the measurement devices.
W * is then compared with wRJ , angular speed
reference, to obtain A W * , the angular speed deviation.
Based on this deviation, the controllers determine the
amount of BESS Output power, Pbes and Qbes that
needs to be supplied by the BESS. Shes is the required
complex power output of the BESS. With reference to
Pbes , Qbes and v,' , the , phase angle, and
IPeakpref, peak value, of BESS phase current target can
be determined. At the same time, fieq,, ,the frequency
of the BESS terminal voltage, is also acquired from the
system. Based on , erer
and fieqa , the
reference phase currents of the BESS can be generated
as follows for use in the hysteresis control.

The AC/DC converter, rated at 20 MVA, such that the

BESS can provide up to 10 MW, 17.3 MVAr, is used to
interface between the AC power system and DC battery.
The schematic diagram of the converter is shown in Fig.
3 where 41-6are the electronic switches.

I 1 . ;

I ,

The control circuit for the switching operation has been

designed to provide a suitable control signal to control
the AC/DC converter output based on the input signals.
The block diagram of the control circuit is shown in Fig.
4. In order to allow the independent control of active and
reactive power and efficient modification of the control
signal, two controllers are used to modify the BESS
active and reactive power outputs in the control circuit.
Previous experience [8] concludes that using speed
deviation signal is more effective than using voltage ~ ~~

deviation signal for controlling BESS reactive power

output to damp oscillation. Therefore, in this study, both
the active and reactive power outputs of the BESS are
controlled by speed deviation signal.
In the control circuit, w and V,, the angular speed of
the generator and the BESS ac terminal voltage, are
measured through the sensors. W * and V,' are the
Fig. 4 Control Circuit Block Diagram
In hysteresis control, the controlled variable, as shown in
Fig. 5, is only allowed to oscillate within a defined upper
and lower hysteresis band limits around the reference
waveform. The switching function is generated from the
intersection of the triangular wave with the hysteresis
band limits. The conduction of a switch is transferred
from one to the other in a phase, when the triangular

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 wave meets the hysteresis limits so as to control the carried out in off-line mode using the guided search
actual current not to go beyond the hysteresis band. algorithm [4].
Similar switching actions occur in the other two phases.
In such a control scheme, the switching frequency is not
fixed and depends on how fast the current changes from
the upper limit to the lower limit and vice versa. It
depends on the phase inductance, the voltage difference
between the step down bus voltage and battery bank
terminal voltage, the system frequency and the width of
the hysteresis band.
Fig. 7 Block Diagram of FLC
Reference
Waveform A symmetrical fuzzy rule set shown in table 1 is adopted
t Magnitude Controlled
to describe the FLCs behavior. Each entity in the table
represents a rule of the form "IF premise THEN
consequence". The upper half is for P-controller and the
lower half is for Q-controller. For instance,

IF Am isNBand A m isNB
THEN Pbes is PB and Qb, is NB

Fig. 5 Hysteresis Control

The block diagram of the hysteresis control loop is

shown in Fig. 6. The error between the actual current
and the reference current is fed into the hysteresis band
comparator. The comparator determines the switching
function to be carried out by the drive circuitry, which
then sends the appropriate gate signals to control the
AC/DC converter. Tight control of both magnitude and
waveform can therefore be obtained.

4. Results

BusR BuS#4

b Bus #3
4
Fig. 6 Hysteresis Control Loop

3. Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC)

In this study, the generator speed deviation, A m , and
0
the acceleration deviation, A m , are chosen as the FLC
inputs. Each input and output fuzzy variables of FLC is
mapped into seven linguistic fuzzy sets varying from
Negative Big (NB) to Positive Big (PB). Each fuzzy set
is defined by a triangular membership function to form a
set of seven normalised and symmetrical triangular
membership functions for each fuzzy variable. The input
gains K,, K , and the output gain K 3 , shown in Fig. 7,
are used to fine tune the FLC. The fine-tuning of FLC is
Fig. 8 Block Diagram of Studied System
A multimachine power system model consisting of two
generating area interconnected by a long transmission
line is used in this study. The schematic diagram of the
studied system is shown in Fig. 8. The capacity of GI is
approximately equal to that of the sum of G2 and G3.
The capacity of the three generators are: GI = 386 MVA,
G2 = 165 MVA, G3 = 235 MVA. The BESS is located
at the terminal bus of G2. The system is subjected to
various disturbances such as one phase open circuit,
sudden load change and symmetrical three phase to earth
faults to examine the dynamic responses of the BESS

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 and its damping effects. In the following studies, two
different configurations are considered. These are:
0 The power system without the BESS
The power System with BESS installed. The BESS
described in section 2 is incorporated into the system.
The, active and reactive power controls are set to
correspond to FLCs described in section 3.
Fig. 9 shows the angular speed deviation of the
generators when a three phase to earth fault is introduced
at a distance of 25% from Bus #4 on the transmission
line between Bus #3 and Bus #4 lasting for 3 cycles. The
post-disturbance operation without BESS is dynamically
unstable, with increasing inter-area oscillation. When the
BESS is connected to the system, the proposed FLC-
based control scheme rapidly controls the active and
reactive power of the BESS to bring the system back to
steady state. The damping effects on G2 and G3 are
obvious, when compared with GI, since the inertia
constants of G2 and G3 are only roughly half of that of
the G1.
oscillate accordingly, i.e. when the BESS active power
output is negative, the batteries of the BESS are being
charged and therefore the battery terminal voltage
increases, on the other hand when the BESS active
power output is positive, the batteries of the BESS are
being discharged, and therefore the terminal voltage
drops. In spite of the many advantages offered by the
hysteresis control of the ACDC converter of the BESS,
the high frequency charging and discharging of the
battery bank due to the switching actions of the
converter can shorten the life of the batteries. To solve
this problem, we have incorporated ultra capacitors
(0.5F) in parallel with the battery bank. In this way, the
high frequency components of the battery current can be
filtered out by the capacitors as shown in Fig. 10.
Without the capacitors, the high frequency components
will appear in the battery current waveform as well as in
the battery terminal voltage,

6 o1 IP.U.1 I
1
2 4 6 8 10
Time [Second]
.x I0’ par1

m
:-0.01 ‘
O 2 4 6 8
I
10
Time [Second]
I
:0.01
N

0
1P.U
1 I
D
10
lime [Second]
E o
0

i-OOlI I
m o 2 4 6 8 10 F
Time [Second]
5 1000
E O 2 4 6 8 10
z Time [Second]
..E3 21x ~ ~ ‘ ‘ [ ~ m p e r e ~
i -0.01 I
I\ I
I3
8 0 -
1

m o 2 4 6 8
Time [Second]
Fig. 9 Angular Speed Deviation with Three Phase Fault
(a) Without BESS (b) With FLC control
Fig. 10 shows the response of BESS active and reactive
power outputs. As shown in Fig. 10, when the angular
frequency of G2 increases, the BESS active power
output becomes negative and hence as far as the system
is concerned, the BESS looks like a braking resistance
and when the angular frequency of G2 reduces the BESS
active power output becomes positive and hence BESS
acts like a generator of active power. On the other hand,
when the angular frequency of G2 increases, the BESS
reactive power output becomes positive to raise the
BESS terminal voltage and thus increase the load
demand of the system and when the angular frequency
of G2 reduces the BESS reactive power output becomes
negative to reduce the electric power of the system. In
this way a very effective damping is provided by the
BESS. The BESS battery terminal voltage is shown to
10 0
m
2-21 I
0 0 2 4 6 8 10
Time [Second]
Fig. 10 Response of BESS
In the next investigation, one of the phases is opened in
one of the double-circuit transmission line lasting for 0.2
second. Fig. 1 1 shows the responses of the angular speed
deviation without BESS. The system response in this
situation is of multi-mode oscillations and is nearly
undamped. However, when the FLC controlled BESS is
connected to the system, the angular speed of both G2
and G3 can return to its pre-disturbance value in less
than 3 seconds and significance damping improvement
in G I can be observed.
For a sudden 5% step increase in load of Bus #5 lasting
for 0.2 second, Fig. 12 shows $the angular speed
deviation of the generators without BESS. When the
disturbance is injected into the system, the governors

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 cannot operate fast enough to regulate the power change.
The sudden change in load results in active power
mismatch causing all synchronous machines to slow
down, so, the frequency of all the generators drop at first.
When the additional load is removed, the governors try
to response the power mismatch and maintain the system
power balance making the generators’ frequencies
increase slowly but with oscillation. Nevertheless, with
FLC control scheme, the FLC controlled BESS can
regulate the frequency of the whole system in a much
more effective manner.
of the FLC controlled BESS in all scenarios chosen
show that the BESS is effective in providing significant
extra damping, even though the BESS capacity is only a
very small fraction of the total generating system
capacity. The results confirm that the FLC can offer a
robust performance in damping power system oscillation
over a variety of disturbances. Using the proposed
control scheme, the BESS can provide appropriate rapid
active and reactive power exchange with the power
system to damp the system oscillation and enable the
system to return back to its steady state operating
condition in a minimum time after disturbances.

A detailed model of the BESS, including the non-linear

characteristics of the battery cells both in their charging
. and discharging mode, has been formulated and
i -5‘ I implemented in this study. A novel hysteresis control of
n o 2 4 6 8 10 the AC/DC converter associated with the BESS has been
Time [Second]
8 2x10‘31PuI suggested. Such a strategy reduces the complexity of the
C I control system and ensures tight control of BESS active
and reactive power outputs.

: zt -2 6. References
m o 2 4 6 8 10
Time (Second]
; 10’~
1P.u.i [l] C. J. Wu and Y. S. Lee, “Application of
c I I A I
superconducting magnetic energy storage unit to
improve the damping of synchronous generator”.
IEEE Trans., Vol.EC-6, No.4, 1991, pp.573-578.
U

W
8-1
O
I 2 4 6 a 10
[2] T. Hiyama, “Application of the rule-based stabilising
Time [Second] controller to electrical power system”. IEE Proc.,
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Circuit (a) Without BESS (b) With FLC Control [3] T. Hiyama, “Real time control of micro-machine
system using micro-computer based fuzzy logic
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-
1
No.4, 1994, pp.724-73 1.
L
[4] K. A. EI-Metwally and 0. P. Malik, ‘‘Fuzzy logic
.i0’
power system stabiliser”. IEE Proc., VoI.GTD-142,
n
n-
i -5‘ 2 4 6 8
I
10
No.3, 1995, pp.277-281.
L 9 0 [5] M. A. M. Hassan and 0. P. Malik, “Implementation
Time [Second]
N x 10“ ip u.1 and laboratory test results for a fuzzy logic based
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”
I self-tuned power system stabilizer”. IEEE Trans.,
0 n
1 Vol.EC-8, No.2, 1993, pp.221-227.
[6] Z. M. Salameh, M. A. Casacca and W. A. Lynch, “A
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x IO4 P
I u.1 [7] M. A. Casacca and Z. M. Salameh, “Determination
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3
n 0 modeling techniques”. IEEE Trans., Vol.EC-7, No. 1,
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f-5’ I [SI M. W. Tsang and D. Sutanto, “Damping inter-area
m o 2 4 6 8 10
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Fig. 12 Angular Speed Deviation with Sudden Load APSCOM, 1997, pp.409-414.
Change (a) Without BESS (b) With FLC control [9] Jun Yan, Michael Ryan and James Power, “Using
Fuzzy Logic”, Prentice Hall, 1994.
5. Conclusions

In this paper, a FLC based control scheme is described

and proposed for controlling BESS to enhance system
damping of an interconnected two-area system under
both large and small disturbances. The simulation results

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