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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SUSTAINABLE ENERGY 1

An Enhanced Droop Control Method for Accurate

Load Sharing and Voltage Improvement of Isolated
and Interconnected DC Microgrids
Avisha Tah and Debapriya Das, Member, IEEE

Abstract—In this paper, a distributed local control scheme for microgrid, the conversion losses will be reduced. There are sev-
dc microgrid is proposed along with the basic droop control. It eral advantages of DC microgrid over the AC microgrid. So, the
eliminates the limitations of droop control when the distributed DC microgrid is the prevailing topic in the latest literature. The
generators are geographically distributed, for which, the line resis-
tances cannot be neglected. Effects of line inductance and constant advantages of DC microgrid include non-requirement of fre-
power loading (CPL) are investigated by analyzing the voltage quency, phase and reactive power control, reduced conversion
tracking transfer function for single source system. Stability of two loss and reduced complexity [7]–[15]. Moreover, the DC sys-
sources single load microgrid with proposed controller is investi- tem is free from inductance, capacitance effect at steady state
gated. Simulated responses are presented for two sources single and skin effect, resulting in less power loss. DC system also
load microgrid (for the sake of simplicity) to depict the proper load
sharing and voltage improvement capability of the proposed con- requires less amount of insulation as compared to AC system
trol method with the consideration of line resistances. However, working at same voltage, resulting in less cost of the system
this can be extended to multiple-source multiple-load configu- [16]–[19].
ration connected to the dc bus. A comparison of the result is DC microgrid can be viewed as a number of parallel con-
presented to show the better performance of the proposed control nected interfacing converters, whose control and low voltage
scheme as compared to the conventional droop control and hier-
archical secondary control. The interconnected operation of the regulation and the proper load sharing are the main objectives
microgrid is also investigated to show the applicability of the pro- in the DC microgrid operation [20]. Many control methods have
posed control in the interconnected mode. A centralized controller been proposed for DC microgrid control, e.g. master-slave [21],
in each area is used to make the tie-line power flow zero at steady hierarchical centralized secondary controller [22]. Both of these
state. controls require high bandwidth communication, which creates
Index Terms—Constant power loading, decentralized control, the problem when all the sources and loads are not closely
droop control, hierarchical secondary control, interconnected located. Master-slave control can achieve low voltage regula-
mode, load sharing accuracy, voltage regulation. tion and proper load sharing. But the problem with this control
is that in the case of any failure in the master control unit,
I. I NTRODUCTION the voltage regulation deteriorates. Using the secondary con-
troller, shown in Fig. 1, the voltage regulation problem can be
I N THE recent years, increasing load demand, the crisis of
the fossil fuel for the conventional power generation and
the environmental pollution issues have led to the more con-
solved, but the load sharing accuracy cannot be achieved. To
have independent load sharing (without communication among
the converters) droop based control strategy has been proposed.
cern about the exploitation of the renewable energy sources.
The major drawbacks of the droop control are that, voltage
As the renewable energy sources are decentralized, in order to
regulation becomes poor with increase in load and the load
have reduced transmission loss, increased reliability, improved
sharing property degrades with the inclusion of unequal line
power quality and to electrify the rural area, the formation of
impedances, which is unavoidable in low voltage distribution
the microgrid is a viable option [1]. As the AC grid is conven-
system. In case of AC microgrid, the droop is based on real
tionally available, most of the recent literature are based on AC
power-frequency and reactive power-voltage control. In AC
microgrid [2]–[6]. But most of the renewable energy sources
microgrid also, the unequal reactive power sharing problem is
(photovoltaic, fuel-cell) are having DC output. Moreover, the
faced under consideration of line inductances. Several methods
modern electronic loads require DC power. So, if these renew-
have been proposed to achieve proper reactive power sharing in
able sources and the electronic loads are connected together
AC microgrid. Control methods based on virtual impedance to
through some power electronic DC-DC converter to form a DC
equalize the unequal line impedances were proposed in [23]–
[25]. A control method based on V(dot) scheme was proposed
Manuscript received October 07, 2015; revised January 27, 2016; accepted
February 22, 2016. Paper no. TSTE-00832-2015. in [26] to improve the reactive power sharing in AC microgrid.
The authors are with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian A droop control method for reactive power sharing taking into
Institute of Technology Kharagpur, 721302 Kharagpur, India (e-mail: account the converter parameters as apparent power limit and
[email protected]; [email protected]).
maximum power has been proposed in [27].
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. For DC system, in [28], droop control is used assuming that
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TSTE.2016.2535264 the distribution line has no impedance, which is only applicable

1949-3029 © 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
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2 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SUSTAINABLE ENERGY

Fig. 1. Hierarchical Secondary Control.

for small system catering its local load. The secondary control of unequal line impedance has not been considered. So, there
was proposed in [29], without considering the effect of unequal is a lack of research in the area of interconnected operation of
line impedances. A control method based on average loading DC microgrids considering the effect of line impedances on the
was proposed in [30]. This control method is based on the mod- conventional droop control.
ification of the droop gain of the system. Moreover, this control In this paper, a new control method based on the P-controller
method is capable of improving the system voltage regulation, which modifies the effective droop gain to achieve good voltage
but proper load sharing capability is not ensured under the con- regulation and accurate load sharing simultaneously is pro-
sideration of unequal line impedances. In most of the droop posed. The novelty of this method lies in the fact that, it does not
control cases, there is a trade-off between the voltage regula- require communication between the sources in the single area.
tion and load sharing accuracy. If the droop gain is selected to The system performance with the proposed control method is
be small then voltage regulation would be better but it degrades compared with the conventional droop control and the hierar-
the current sharing accuracy. On the other hand, if droop gain chical secondary (HS) control for resistive and constant power
is selected to be high, it affects the voltage regulation badly load (CPL). Voltage tracking transfer function is derived for
while improving current sharing accuracy. In [31], an average single source system for stability analysis. The stability of the
voltage and average current controller have been implemented system with proposed controller for different values of line
which depends on the low bandwidth communication facility resistance and inductance and droop gain is analyzed. The
to improve voltage restoration and current sharing accuracy possible error in achieving accurate load sharing and voltage
simultaneously. A control method to compensate the poor volt- regulation with the proposed controller due to the adjustment
age regulation using P-controller and load sharing error using error in the gain of the proportional controller is derived. The
PI-controller has been proposed in [32]. However, all these interconnected operation of two microgrids with the proposed
operations were implemented in an isolated DC microgrid. controller is investigated. In this work, detailed model of the
There are very few literature on the interconnected operation system under study is developed for simulation purposes and as
of DC microgrid. The interconnected operation of DC micro- the stability analysis has been done, it is expected that system
grids has been analyzed and an active stabilization method to will give the desired results in real-time. The simulated results
improve the stability of DC microgrid cluster has been pro- are presented to validate the proposed control method. From
posed in [33]. In the above interconnected operation, the effect the simulated results, it can be seen that the proposed control
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TAH AND DAS: ENHANCED DROOP CONTROL METHOD FOR ACCURATE LOAD SHARING AND VOLTAGE IMPROVEMENT 3

method is capable of sharing the load properly under consider-

ation of line inductance, resistance and improving the DC bus
voltage in the isolated as well as interconnected mode.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section II
describes the limitations of the droop control. In Section III,
the proposed modular control method is described. Effect of
line parameter on system stability and the stability of the DC
microgrid with the proposed controller for different line param-
eters and droop gain is investigated in Section IV. In Section V, Fig. 2. Equivalent circuit of two source single load DC microgrid.
simulated responses are presented. Section VI presents the
applicability of the proposed control method under the inter-
connected operation of DC microgrid. Section VII concludes
the paper.

II. L IMITATIONS OF D ROOP C ONTROL S TRATEGY

Droop based power sharing control has some inherent lim-
itations in it. First, there will be an unavoidable deviation in
the converter terminal DC voltage. The remotely regulated DC
bus voltage further goes down due to the voltage drop in line
resistance. Second, deterioration in current sharing accuracy
among the converters. The reason is the unequal output voltage Fig. 3. Steady state equivalent circuit of two source single load DC microgrid.
at the converter terminals as a result of the unequal voltage drop
across the line resistances. The following analysis is necessary controlled DC bus capacitance for steady state analysis). The
to explain the proposed control method. output voltage of the droop controlled converter is represented
as follows.
V i = V r − R v i il i (2)
A. DC Bus Voltage Deviation
Where, i = 1, 2 represents converter 1 and converter 2
The droop control is realized by decreasing the output volt-
respectively. Vr1 = Vr2 = Vr = converter terminal voltage
age of each converter as the current/ power delivered by the
under no-load.
converter increases. So, it is obvious that under loaded condi-
From Fig. 3 the remotely controlled DC bus voltage is
tion there will be a definite voltage deviation at the terminal DC
derived as:
bus. Maximum droop gain is limited by the maximum allow-
able DC bus voltage deviation and the full load current of the V b = V 1 − R l 1 il 1
converter. Hence, we can write V b = V 2 − R l 2 il 2 (3)
ΔVb max From (2) and (3) the following equation can be derived:
Rv max = (1)
if l il 1 R v 2 + R l2
= (4)
where, Rv max , ΔVb max , if l are maximum allowable droop il 2 R v 1 + R l1
gain, maximum allowable DC bus voltage deviation and full According to droop controlled method it is expected that con-
load current of the converter respectively. verter will share the load according to inverse proportional ratio
of their droop gain, i.e.

B. Deterioration in Current Sharing Accuracy il 1 R v2

= (5)
il 2 R v1
The current sharing accuracy is degraded due to the inherent
line resistance. A detailed mathematical analysis of the prob- The above result can be realised only when Rvi >> Rli .
lem and the way system should be modified to get rid of this This can be realised only in a small microgrid. Because the
problem is presented below. droop gain cannot be increased arbitrarily as it is bounded by
Fig. 2 shows the equivalent circuit diagram of a remotely the maximum voltage deviation under full load. So, it is neces-
controlled DC bus with two sources. Each source is connected sary to compensate for the drop in the line resistance to achieve
to the remotely controlled bus by a connecting line. Each accurate current sharing and improve DC bus voltage.
line is represented by a series combination of resistance and
inductance for transient condition and stability analysis. Fig. 3 III. P ROPOSED C ONTROL M ETHOD
shows the steady-state equivalent circuit of Fig. 2. The droop
From Fig. 3 the voltage appeared across the load can be
controlled sources are represented by the Thevenin equiva-
written as:
lent model, where the connecting lines are represented by the
series resistances (neglecting the line inductance and locally Vb = Vr − (Rvi + Rli )ili (6)
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4 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SUSTAINABLE ENERGY

this, the system shown in Fig. 3 is analyzed and the parame-

ters used for the system are tabulated in Table I. For both the
converters, the droop gain is selected to be 0.3 ohm. The load
is connected to the DC bus, which is connected to the source
converter 1 and 2 by the lines, having resistances of 1 ohm and
0.5 ohm respectively. So, the effective droop gain of converter
1 and 2 becomes 1.3 ohm and 0.8 ohm respectively. This can
cause current sharing error of ±25%, for 2.0 kW load. So, if the
line drop compensator gains are set at 1.0 and 0.5 for converter
1 and 2 respectively, then the droop gain effective at the point of
loading will be (1.3 − 1) = (0.8 − 0.5) = 0.3 ohm, which was
desirable.
If there is an error in measuring the line resistance, the
corresponding discrepancy will occur in setting the line drop
compensator gain, leading to current sharing error and poor
Fig. 4. Droop characteristics for different line resistances. voltage regulation. Let, the droop gain was set at desired value
according to the maximum voltage deviation under full load
condition, Rv1 = Rv2 = Rv (as the rating of both the convert-
From (6), it is seen that the effective droop gain is being
ers are assumed to be same). If there is error in measuring the
modified by the line resistance. This causes the droop gain to
line resistances ΔR1 and ΔR2 for line 1 and line 2 respec-
increase, resulting in degradation of voltage regulation. Also,
tively, then the line drop compensator gain will be set at K1 =
due to the difference in cable resistances connecting different
Rl1 + ΔR1 and K2 = Rl2 + ΔR2 , resulting in current sharing
sources to the DC bus, desired load sharing is not achievable.
error and change in voltage regulation as given in the following
So, if the effect of line resistance is nullified by virtual nega-
equations:
tive resistance feedback using active signal, then the droop gain
will go back to its original desired position as shown in Fig. 4. Δi ΔR1 − ΔR2
= ± (9)
Thus, voltage regulation will improve and current sharing will i 2Rv − ΔR1 − ΔR2
be accurate. This proportional feedback control technique is ΔV R 2ΔR1 ΔR2 − Rv (ΔR1 + ΔR2 )
called line drop compensator. = ± (10)
V Rn Rv (2Rv − ΔR1 − ΔR2 )
In this control method, the feedback variable is the line
current, and the proportional gain is equal to the resistance where V Rn is the voltage regulation when line resistances are
of the corresponding line. In a distributed DC network, it is zero.
desirable to have the minimum dependency between the con- For example, if the line resistances are 1.0 ohm and 0.5 ohm
verters to achieve the proportional sharing of the load. Using respectively, and the errors are 1% in each case and the droop
the control method proposed in this paper, independent accurate gain is 0.3, then the current sharing error and change in voltage
current sharing and improved voltage regulation are simultane- regulation will become ±1.61% and ∓1.78% respectively.
ously achievable. In this method, all the proportional controllers
are implemented locally. This proportional feedback works IV. S TABILITY A NALYSIS
actually as a virtual negative resistance which nullifies the
A. Stability of Single Source Connected to the Remotely
line resistance effect. The detailed configuration of the con-
Located Bus (Without the Proposed Controller)
trol scheme is shown in Fig. 5. The major advantage of this
proposed control method is the independent operation of the The stability of the system is sensitive to the line parameters.
converters requiring no need for the communication channel, The sensitivity of the system stability to the line parameter can
thus reducing the cost of the system and the control method be analyzed from the frequency response of the voltage tracking
implementation is very simple. function of the single source connected to the remotely located
Now, the modified DC bus voltage equation becomes bus. Taking the control diagram for the single source, of the
system as shown in Fig. 5, the voltage tracking function can be
Vb = Vr − (Rvi + Rli ) ili + (Ki ili ) (7) written as given in (11).
Vb C1 Gf
Where Ki is the gain of the feedback proportional controller =
V r1 D5 S 5 + D4 S 4 + D3 S 3 + D2 S 2 + D1 S + D0
for the i-th converter.
(11)
New droop gain is
where
Rvi + (Rli − Ki ) (8)
D5 = L2l1 C13 Cb
So, if the proportional gain of the line drop compensator is D4 = 2Rl1 Ll1 C13 Cb + L2l1 C13 Yload + L2l1 C12 Cb Gf
set at line resistance value, the slope of the droop characteris- D3 = (Rl1 C12 Cb + 2Ll1 C12 Cb + 2Rl1 Ll1 C13 Yload
tics will go back to its desired set value as per the maximum
voltage deviation at full load current. To further demonstrate + 2Rl1 Ll1 C12 Cb Gf + L2l1 C12 Yload Gf )
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TAH AND DAS: ENHANCED DROOP CONTROL METHOD FOR ACCURATE LOAD SHARING AND VOLTAGE IMPROVEMENT 5

Fig. 5. Proposed independent control.

TABLE I the resistive load. Second, for different line inductances, keep-
S YSTEM PARAMETERS ing line resistance constant, for the resistive load. Third, for
different types of load, while keeping line parameters constant.
The corresponding gain margin and phase margin of the sys-
tem are tabulated in Table II. From Figs. 6(a) and 6(b), it can
be seen that the stability of the system is being impaired with
the increasing values of line inductances, whereas, the stabil-
ity of the system is marginally affected by the variation in line
resistance. Fig. 6(c) shows the frequency response of the volt-
D2 = (Rl1 C12 Cb + 2Ll1 C12 Cb + 2Rl1 Ll1 C13 Yload age tracking function for different loading conditions. From
+ 2Rl1 Ll1 C12 Cb Gf + L2l1 C12 Yload Gf ) Table II, it can be seen that phase margin is reduced with the
CPL which indicates that CPL challenges system stability and
D1 = (C12 + C1 Cb + 2Rl1 C12 Yload + 2Rl1 C1 Cb Gf resistive loading improves system stability.
+ Rl1 C1 Gf Yload + 2Ll1 C1 Gf Yload )
D0 = C1 Gf + Yload C1 + 2Rl1 C1 Gf Yload
B. Stability of Two Source Single Load DC Micro-Grid with the
Gf = Gvpi Gcpi ,
Proposed Controller
Where Gvpi is voltage PI controller, Gvpi = Kvp + KSvi . Droop characteristics should be maintained for stable opera-
Gcpi is current PI controller. To study stability analysis, tion of the system. So, from (10) it can be concluded that the
averaged dynamics of the power converter is considered and maximum permissible positive error in setting the compensator
high-frequency switching dynamics have been neglected. Using gain is ΔRmax = Rv and minimum error (max. negative) is
reasonable simplification, considering inner current loop is fast dependent on maximum permissible droop gain. Therefore, to
enough and follow the imposed references, Gcpi is considered get accurate current sharing, the line resistances should be per-
1
as first order delay block, Gcpi = 1+ST cpi
fectly measured and the compensator gain should be properly
The frequency response of the voltage tracking func- set equal to the line resistance.
tion is shown in Fig. 6 for three different cases. First, for To study the stability of the closed loop system with the pro-
different line resistances, keeping line inductance constant, for posed controller, a small signal model of the system is derived
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6 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SUSTAINABLE ENERGY

Fig. 6. Frequency response of the system voltage tracking function with (a) variable line inductances keeping line resistance constant (Green: 0.001 H, blue:
0.01 H, red: 0.1 H) (b) variable line resistances keeping line inductance constant (Green: 0.5 ohm, blue: 2.0 ohm, red: 3.0 ohm) with 2 kW resistive load
(c) variable loading (Green: 2 kW resistive, blue: 1 kW resistive, red: 2 kW CPL).

TABLE II From Fig. 7(b) it is seen that three roots of the system are mov-
G AIN M ARGIN AND P HASE M ARGIN FOR D IFFERENT L INE PARAMETERS ing toward the imaginary axis, challenging the system stability.
AND L OADING C ONDITIONS
Fig. 7(c) shows the traces of the dominant poles of the system
when the inductance of the line 2 is varied from 0.5 mH-0.1 H.
From Fig. 7(c) it is clear that the poles of the system move
toward the right half of S-plane as the inductance increases
which reduces the system stability.

V. S IMULATED R ESPONSES
Two sources single load microgrid including the line param-
eters as shown in Fig. 2 is used for simulation purpose to show
the applicability of the proposed control method. Two types of
loads i) resistive ii) constant power load, are used to show the
proper load sharing and voltage improvement capability of the
neglecting the fast dynamics of the converter, for the single proposed control method. To simulate the transient response of
area consisting of two converters. System state-space equation the system, a load of 46 ohm is switched on at t = 2 s and
is written in the form of at t = 6 s another load of 46 ohm is switched on. For con-
. stant power load, a load of 1 kW is switched on at t = 2 s
X = AX + Γp (12)
and another load of 1 kW is switched on at t = 6 s. For 2 kW
Where A, Γ are real constant matrices with appropriate converter, a maximum drop of 8.7 V is expected across the
dimensions associated with them which in turn depend on the connecting line, under full load condition. So, to keep the volt-
system parameters. X, p are the state and disturbance vectors age regulation below 5%, the allowable voltage drop due to
respectively. droop is (11.5 − 8.7)V = 2.8 V. So, a droop gain of 0.3 ohm
Stability of the system can be tested by analysing the location is chosen. Basic droop control, hierarchical structure with the
of the eigenvalues of the system while varying the droop gain, secondary controller are also simulated to compare the capa-
line resistance and inductance of the connecting line. Fig. 7(a) bility of different control scheme with the proposed control
shows the root locus of the system dominant poles when the scheme.
droop gain varied from 0.05 to 2. From Fig. 7(a), it is seen 1) Droop Control: Fig. 8 shows the DC bus voltage and
that the dominant poles of the system are moving toward the current or power shared by two converters with conventional
deep into the left half of S-plane ensuring the stability, but two droop control for resistive and CPL. The voltage of the DC bus
imaginary poles are approaching the imaginary axis tending to is 230 V under no-load. The bus voltage is 227.55 V for 46 ohm
destabilize the system. Fig. 7(b) shows the locus of the domi- resistive load and 225.15 V for 23 ohm resistive load, 227.83 V
nant poles of the system while the resistance of line 2 is varied for 1 kW CPL and 226.02 V for 2 kW CPL, at steady state. This
from 0.1 ohm to 6 ohm, keeping the line 1 resistance intact. corresponds to voltage regulation of-1% and −2.17% for the
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TAH AND DAS: ENHANCED DROOP CONTROL METHOD FOR ACCURATE LOAD SHARING AND VOLTAGE IMPROVEMENT 7

Fig. 7. Root locus of dominant poles of the system with proposed controller for different values of (a) droop gain (b) line 2 resistance (c) line 2 inductance.

Fig. 8. (a) DC bus voltage for resistive load (b) Output current of the sources (Blue: source 1, red: source 2) for resistive load (c) DC bus voltage for CPL
(d) Output power of the sources (Blue: source 1, red: source 2) for CPL with conventional droop control.

resistive load, −0.9% and −1.73% for CPL respectively, which and 6.19 A for 23 ohm resistive load, and 381.7 W and 618.3 W
are within limit. Converter 1 and converter 2 supply 1.88 A and for 1 kW CPL, 762.1 W and 1237.9 W for 2 kW CPL, respec-
3.12 A for 46 ohm load, 3.73 A and 6.27 A for 23 ohm load, tively. Ideally, those should have been 2.5 A, 5 A and 0.5 kW,
and, 382 W and 618 W for 1 kW CPL, 761 W and 1239 W for 1 kW respectively. Therefore, there is an error of ±23.6%,
2 kW CPL. Ideally, those should have been 2.5 A, 5 A, 0.5 kW ±22% in current sharing and ±23.7%, ±25% in power sharing
and 1 kW respectively. Therefore, there is an error of ±24.8%, respectively, which is quite high.
±22% in current sharing and ±23.6%, ±25% in power sharing 3) Proposed Control Method: Fig. 10 shows the DC bus
respectively, which is quite high. voltage and current or power shared by two converters with pro-
2) Hierarchical Secondary Control: Fig. 9 shows the DC posed control scheme for resistive and CPL. DC bus voltage is
bus voltage and current or power shared by two converters 229.25 V, 228.5 V for 46 ohm and 23 ohm loads respectively,
with hierarchical secondary control for resistive and CPL. From whereas, it is 229.35 V, 228.69 V for 1 kW and 2 kW CPL
Figs. 9(a) and 9(c), it can be seen that voltage deviation even respectively, at steady state. These corresponds to voltage reg-
under the loaded condition is zero. Converter 1 and converter ulation of −0.33%, −0.65% for resistive loads and −0.28%,
2 supply 1.91 A and 3.09 A for 46 ohm resistive load, 3.81 A −0.61% for CPL, which is much less as compared to droop
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8 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SUSTAINABLE ENERGY

Fig. 9. (a) DC bus voltage for resistive load (b) Output current of the sources (Blue: source 1, red: source 2) for resistive load (c) DC bus voltage for CPL
(d) Output power of the sources (Blue: source 1, red: source 2) for CPL with hierarchical secondary control.

TABLE III VI. I NTERCONNECTED M ODE

C OMPARISON OF D ROOP C ONTROL WITH P ROPOSED C ONTROL
The interconnected operation of two DC microgrids are also
investigated. Here both the area consists of two sources con-
nected in parallel and the two area DC buses are connected
through a line comprising of series resistance and inductance.
Due to the different loading conditions the DC bus of each
area will have different voltage causing the circulating current
among themselves, which will cause unnecessary power loss
in the system. To mitigate this problem another PI controller
TABLE IV should be incorporated, as shown in Fig. 11, to which the inputs
C OMPARISON OF HS C ONTROLWITH P ROPOSED C ONTROL are the DC bus voltage of each area and the control output is
added to the reference input voltage of each converter. The load
and voltage responses of the system without and with the PI
voltage controller along with the line drop compensator in each
source converter are investigated under different loading con-
ditions. The operating conditions of the interconnected system
are described as follows:
i) At t = 1 s, 0.5 kW and 1 kW loads are applied at area 1
and area 2 respectively.
ii) At t = 3 s, tie switch between area 1 and area 2 is made
on.
control method. From Figs. 10(b) and 10(d), it is seen that iii) At t = 5 s, another load of 1.8 kW is made on in area 1
equal current and power is shared by each converter, showing and area 2 load remains same.
the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme in voltage iv) At t = 7 s, area 1 load remains unchanged and another
regulation and load sharing improvement. load of 1 kW is made on in area 2.
A quantitative comparison of different control strategies is
given in Tables III and IV. From Tables III and IV, it is clear
that proposed control method is capable of achieving both the A. Without tie-Line Flow Control
objectives of DC microgrid control without the need for any Fig. 12 shows DC bus voltage, power shared by all the con-
communication channel. verters in each area and the tie-line current flow. For the sake
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TAH AND DAS: ENHANCED DROOP CONTROL METHOD FOR ACCURATE LOAD SHARING AND VOLTAGE IMPROVEMENT 9

Fig. 10. (a) DC bus voltage for resistive load (b) Output current of the sources (Blue: source 1, red: source 2) for resistive load (c) DC bus voltage for CPL
(d) Output power of the sources (Blue: source 1, red: source 2) for CPL with proposed control method.

Fig. 11. Interconnected operation of DC microgrids with centralised voltage controller in each area.
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10 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SUSTAINABLE ENERGY

Fig. 12. (a) DC bus voltage (Red: area 1, Blue: area 2) (b) power output of the sources of area 1 and area 2 (Green: source 1 in area 1, Black: source 2 in area 1,
Red: source 1 in area 2, Blue: source 2 in area 2) (c) tie-line current flow from area 1 to area 2.

Fig. 13. (a) DC bus voltage (Red: area 1, Blue: area 2) (b) power output of the sources of area 1 and area 2 (Green: source 1 in area 1, Black: source 2 in area 1,
Red: source 1 in area 2, Blue: source 2 in area 2) (c) tie-line current flow from area 1 to area 2 with tie-line flow control.

of clarification, the results during 5 s-7 s is analyzed. Other under interconnected mode also (both with and without tie-line
loading conditions can also be analyzed in the similar way. flow controller).
At t = 5 s, the microgrid 1 and 2 are loaded by 2.3 kW and
1 kW respectively. The DC bus voltage in microgrid 1 and 2 are VII. C ONCLUSION
228.55 V and 229.3 V respectively, at steady state. Total gen- In this paper, a controller is proposed to enhance the current
eration in microgrid 1 is 2.216 kW, so, there is deficiency of sharing accuracy and voltage regulation in DC microgrid keep-
power of 83.7 W. The generation in microgrid 2 is 1.084 kW, ing the modular property of the system intact. The proposed
so, the excess generation is 84 W, which flows from microgrid proportional controller is implemented locally in each source
1 to 2, causing the power loss of 0.4% in the tie-line. This power which meets the decentralised configuration of DC microgrid.
loss in the tie-line might be of significant amount in large scale Effect of different line parameters and loading conditions on the
microgrid. So, to mitigate this problem tie-line flow controller system stability are analysed using frequency response control
is proposed. tool. It has been demonstrated that the increasing line induc-
tance and CPL degrade system stability. The single source
voltage tracking transfer function is derived. Root locus tech-
B. With Tie-Line Flow Control
nique has been used to analyse the stability of the DC microgrid
Fig. 13 shows the DC bus voltage, power shared by all the under study with the proposed controller. Simulated responses
converters in each area and the tie-line power flow with the of the DC microgrid has been presented under different load-
tie-line flow controller. Here also the result is analyzed during ing conditions to show the capability of the proposed control
5 s-7 s to compare with the results obtained in case of without method. It has been demonstrated that the proposed control
tie-line flow controller. During this time, both the microgrid DC method improves load sharing capability and voltage regulation
bus voltage is 228.9 V, at steady state. The generation in micro- both simultaneously, in spite of having different line resistances
grid 1 and 2 are 2.3 kW and 1 kW respectively, meeting their between source converters and the DC bus. The interconnected
own demand. Therefore, the current flowing through tie-line is operation of DC microgrid has also been studied to show the
zero at steady state and thus the power loss will be reduced. viability of the proposed controller in achieving the desired load
From Figs. 12(c) and 13(c), it is seen that, the tie-line current sharing and improving voltage regulation under interconnected
peak under transient condition is also reduced due to the tie-line mode also. A centralised PI controller has been used to make
flow controller. the tie-line power flow zero under steady state condition. The
From Figs. 12(b) and 13(b), it is seen that the proposed line simulated results are presented to show the applicability of the
drop compensation method designed for single area works well control method.
 This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.

TAH AND DAS: ENHANCED DROOP CONTROL METHOD FOR ACCURATE LOAD SHARING AND VOLTAGE IMPROVEMENT 11

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[17] F. Dastgeer and A. Kalam, “Efficiency comparison of dc and ac dis- M.Tech. degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (I.I.T.) Kharagpur,
tribution systems for distributed generation,” presented at Australian Kharagpur, India, in 2014. She is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in elec-
Universities Power Engineering Conf. (AUPEC’09), 2009 [Online]. trical engineering at I.I.T. Kharagpur. Her research interests include microgrid
Available: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber= control and electric power distribution systems.
5357129.
[18] R. K. Chauhan and B. S. Rajpurohit. (2014, Dec.). “DC distri- Debapriya Das (M’12) received the B.E. degree in electrical engineering
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Power System conf. (NPSC) [Online]. Available: https://http://ieeexplore. Institute of Technology (I.I.T.) Kharagpur, Kharagpur, India, and the Ph.D.
ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=7103813. degree from the I.I.T. Delhi, New Delhi, India. Currently, he is a Professor with
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no. 4, pp. 2574–2584, Oct. 2013. distribution systems.