The strong increase in the number of installed photovoltaic (PV) production plants has slowly changed the assets and the operating conditions of the electricity power system. In this context, the supply and control of the reactive power from the renewable generation plants are becoming an important issue to be exploited that can facilitate the integration of PV and wind power in electricity grids. The aim of this paper is to propose an optimized control strategy to manage the reactive power resource generated by PV plants in order to improve the quality of the low/medium voltage distribution network and meet the latest technical requirements listed by distribution system operators in their grid codes. A methodology to define the optimal reactive power references for each PV unit connected to a generic distribution network is presented for a specified goal (e.g., the achievement of suitable voltage levels at the grid nodes). Such reference signals are then provided to the PV plants regulation systems, which are designed in order to guarantee the decoupling between the active and reactive power channels, due to the use of the Feedback Linearization control technique. The problem is formulated in a generalized way, so that it can be extended to any possible grid configuration.

The increasing penetration of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) and, more in general, of converter connected power generation is progressively reducing the overall inertia of the electricity system introducing new challenges in the network Frequency Support (FS). Therefore, FS strategies for RES are becoming an important aspect to be developed in order to ensure the secure operation of the electricity power grid. The aim of the present article is to propose an innovative approach for the inertial emulation of Wind Turbine Generators (WTGs) in order to ensure a positive effect on the system frequency avoiding unstable operations of the WTG and reducing the negative impact of the rotor speed recovery on the secondary frequency drop. Moreover, the paper provides a detailed definition of the triggering logics adopted to activate and deactivate the FS making it suitable for implementation in available industrial controllers. The proposed controller is firstly tested in a simplified configuration to show its enhanced performances with respect to previously developed approaches. Then, simulations are carried out in a more realistic network to assess the positive impact of the controller on the system frequency. Results highlighted a 40% reduction of the system Rate of Change of Frequency while the frequency deviation at the transient nadir is improved of 35%.

Inverter based islanded MicroGrids (MGs) are very fascinating but challenging ways to integrate Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) in electric networks. Active and reactive power regulation is a major issue due to the necessity of optimally exploiting the sources characteristics and controlling voltage and frequency. Focusing the attention on the reactive power control, the main needs are to regulate voltage at suitable values and ensure a proper reactive power sharing among the energy sources. The conventional control for reactive power presents relevant drawbacks and so an Advanced Droop Control strategy (ADC) is presented to approach primary voltage control and reactive power sharing among Grid-Supporting inverters in islanded MGs. The ADC strategy is presented defining its control law and the control scheme with a stability analysis. Then, an analytical procedure is developed to set the controller parameters. Following, a comparison between the ADC and droop control is performed with dedicated simulations on a common benchmark Microgrid in order to highlight the advantages of the proposed control strategy. Finally, a comparison with other advanced control techniques is proposed in order to show that ADC is able to guarantee improved performance in terms of the combined regulation of voltage and reactive power.

This paper is closed access until 20th February 2018.The number of fully-rated converter wind turbine generators equipped with a Permanent Magnet Synchronous Generator (PMSG) has sensibly increased in the late years. The optimal utilization and controllability of a PMSG is achieved using a Pulse Width Modulation – Voltage Source Converter (PWM-VSC) that allows interfacing the electric machine with the distribution network by means of a DC link. The generator/Machine-Side Converter (MSC) controls the operation of the PMSG. This paper proposes a methodology to assess the feasibility of the steady-state working points of PMSG based wind turbines without running a set of time-consuming time-domain simulations. Three control objectives for MSC are usually considered: stator voltage control, unitary power factor control and torque control. The aim of the present paper is that of providing an analytical methodology to check the feasibility of the steady-state working points dictated by different control strategies of the MSC starting from the specific operational constraints provided by the wind power plants characteristics. The effectiveness of the proposed methodology is demonstrated comparing numerical results of a MATLAB® implementation against dedicated time-domain simulations. Simulations results demonstrated the appropriate performance of the proposed methodology characterized by the almost negligible computational time required