With the number of electric vehicles (EVs) on the rise, there is a need for an adequate charging infrastructure to serve these vehicles. The emerging extreme fast charging (XFC) technology has the potential to provide a refueling experience similar to that of gasoline vehicles. In this paper, we review the state-of-the-art EV charging infrastructure, and focus on the XFC technology which will be necessary to support current and future EV refueling needs. We present the design considerations of the XFC stations, and review the typical power electronics converter topologies suitable to deliver XFC. We consider the benefits of using the solid-state transformers (SSTs) in XFC stations to replace the conventional line-frequency transformers and further provide a comprehensive review of medium voltage SST designs for the XFC application.

Virtual oscillator control (VOC) is a nonlinear time domain controller that achieves significantly faster primary control response in islanded microgrids, compared to droop or virtual synchronous machine (VSM) control. Despite its superior performance, adoption of VOC is limited due to the lack of compatible secondary regulation or grid synchronization techniques. This is attributed to the nonlinear nature of VOC that complicates secondary control design, and the third-harmonic component in VOC output voltage that severely restricts grid-tied operation. To leverage the faster primary control response characteristics of VOC, we propose a compatible hierarchical control structure that enables operation and seamless transition between islanded and grid-connected modes. In the islanded mode, the controller achieves voltage and frequency regulation and grid synchronization; in the grid-tied mode, notch filters are used to suppress harmonic currents and tertiary level power reference tracking is achieved. The proposed controllers are validated through a series of real-time hardware-in-the-loop tests and hardware experiments using laboratory inverter prototype and state-of-the-art controls and communications hardware.

With the increasing integration of power electronics interfaced distributed generators, transient stability assessment of grid-connected inverters subjected to large grid disturbances is of vital importance for the secure and resilient operation of the power grid. Dispatchable virtual oscillator control (dVOC) is an emerging approach to implement nonlinear control of grid-forming inverters. Through coordinate transformation, a simple first-order nonlinear power angle dynamic equation is uncovered from the complex oscillator dynamics. Furthermore, this article proposes a concise and straightforward graphical approach to assess transient stability of dVOC using vector field on the circle. To provide a more in-depth analysis, a complete large-signal model is derived and the impact of dVOC voltage amplitude dynamics is analyzed. For comparison, transient stability of the currently prevalent droop control is also assessed using phase portraits. Salient transient stability features of dVOC and droop control during grid faults are summarized and compared. The theoretical analysis is validated by controller hardware-in-the-loop testbed using industry-grade hardware.

Cascaded H-bridge topology has been used in grid-tied converter for battery energy storage system due to its modular structure. To fully utilize the converter's modularity, this paper propose a hierarchical distributed control architecture that consists of primary control, secondary control and battery state of charge (SOC) balancing control. Primary control ensures accurate current tracking while a distributed secondary control based on consensus algorithm is presented to regulate power sharing among modules and is proved to be stable theoretically. A distributed SOC balancing control is further introduced to improve energy efficiency of battery energy storage system. Finally, the hierarchical distributed control strategy is implemented using hardware controllers and a software platform. Besides, a carrier phase shift control is also implemented to achieve multilevel output voltage and harmonic reduction. The experimental results demonstrate the performance of the proposed control scheme effectively.

The resilience of distribution systems has been challenged by power outages caused by natural disasters, which calls for novel solutions to system restoration. However, the existing black-start (BS) techniques are mainly developed at the transmission level. This problem can be resolved by adopting dynamic microgrids (MGs), i.e., MGs with dynamic and adjustable boundaries nested in the distribution systems. This article proposes a restoration procedure that adopts self-organizing inverters as BS units and achieves distribution system restoration in the context of dynamic MGs. The proposed restoration procedure is structured as a two-stage approach and designed to restore a complete blackout distribution system to the state where the system is ready for seamless main grid reconnection. A framework of dynamic MG operation is developed, which improves the self-healing capability of off-grid distribution systems with automatic sectionalization and flexible reconfiguration. A sequence of actions during restoration is defined, along with distributed controllers designed with considerations of practical operating challenges. The proposed restoration procedure is validated on a 34-bus system using real-time hardware-in-the-loop simulation.

In contrast to conventional static microgrids (MGs), MGs with dynamic and adjustable territories (i.e., dynamic MGs) are proposed and implemented in this article. Dynamic MGs are commonly dominated by grid-forming inverters and nested in unbalanced distribution feeders. Unlike balanced systems where only positive-sequence components exist, proper operation of unbalanced dynamic MGs presents additional challenges. A distributed secondary control strategy is developed in this article for distributed generators (DGs) interfaced with grid-forming inverters in unbalanced dynamic MGs by providing coordinated regulations on both positive- and negative-sequence system models. System frequency and voltage are under constant regulation, along with voltage unbalance (VU) management for multiple critical load buses (CLBs). The proposed control strategy enables seamless system transition during unbalanced dynamic MGs reconfiguration and guarantees proportional positive- and negative-sequence power-sharing among connected DGs with respect to system topology variation. Detailed controller designs are provided and stability analyses are derived. The proposed control strategy is fully implemented in hardware controllers and validated on a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) MG testbed.