The increasing interest in integrating intermittent renewable energy sources into microgrids presents major challenges from the viewpoints of reliable operation and control. In this paper, the major issues and challenges in microgrid control are discussed, and a review of state-of-the-art control strategies and trends is presented; a general overview of the main control principles (e.g., droop control, model predictive control, multi-agent systems) is also included. The paper classifies microgrid control strategies into three levels: primary, secondary, and tertiary, where primary and secondary levels are associated with the operation of the microgrid itself, and tertiary level pertains to the coordinated operation of the microgrid and the host grid. Each control level is discussed in detail in view of the relevant existing technical literature.

This paper addresses the control of multiterminal voltage-source converters at high-voltage direct current in the context of offshore wind farms. Droop control is commonly used to regulate the dc voltage in this kind of grid, and droop parameters are selected on the basis of steady-state analyses. Here, a control design methodology is proposed based on the frequency-response analysis. This methodology provides a criterion to select the droop gains, taking into account the performance specifications [i.e., the desired voltage errors and the maximum control inputs (currents)]. The application of the methodology is illustrated with a four-terminal grid.

This paper addresses an advanced vector current control for a voltage source converter (VSC) connected to a weak grid. The proposed control methodology permits high-performance regulation of the active power and the voltage for the feasible VSC range of operation. First, the steady state characteristics for a power converter connected to a very weak system with a short circuit ratio (SCR) of 1 are discussed in order to identify the system limits. Then, the conventional vector control (inner loop) and the conventional power/voltage control (outer loop) stability and frequency responses are analyzed. From the analysis of the classic structure, an enhanced outer loop based on a decoupled and gain-scheduling controller is presented and its stability is analyzed. The proposed control is validated by means of dynamic simulations and it is compared with classic vector current control. Simulation results illustrate that the proposed control system could provide a promising approach to tackle the challenging problem of VSC in connection with weak AC grids.

Three configurations of voltage source converter multi-terminal HVDC transmission for large offshore wind farms are studied. The voltage-current characteristics of the converters are shown and the operation of the converters with different power output from the wind farms is discussed. The control system is designed to achieve automatic coordination between the converters without the need of fast communication between them. The operation of the multi-terminal HVDC transmission with the control system is tested through simulations using PSCAD/EMTDC and through experiments on a three-terminal test rig. The simulation and experimental results show good agreement.