ABSTRACT
In recent decades, traditional energy generation and consumption have undergone a transformation to cleaner energy sources. The transition to a sustainable energy system based on efficiency and renewable energies will thus require the replacement of a complex and heavily implemented energy system with one based on concepts such as microgrids. A microgrid is a controlled small-scale power system and the elements that make up it are: distributed generation systems; energy storage systems; load management techniques; monitoring systems, etc. Consequently, since ac devices are used, synchronization criteria must be satisfied to switch operation between them. The synchronization criteria consist of making the values of the phase-angle difference, slip frequency, and voltage difference as small as possible. This is very important to ensure the correct operation of the grid. In the other hand, the use of Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm has been increasing, because of their simplicity and efficiency in engineering optimization problems. Therefore, this paper proposes an active synchronizing control scheme that allows to synchronize a generator set to the grid and a particle swarm optimization algorithm, which makes the synchronizing control as efficient as possible. With the implemented control and with the help of the synchronization algorithm, improvements in the reduction of settling time (from 9 seconds to 3 seconds) are obtained in comparison to other controls in the literature.
Abbreviations
DG: Distributed Generation
AC: Altern Current
DC: Direct Current
SG: Smart Grid
MG: Microgrid
DER: Distributed Energy Resources
PSO: Particle Swarm Optimization
DE: Differential Evolution
SM: Synchronous Machine
PLL: Phase-Locked Loop
Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful for the support provided by the SGIker of UPV/EHU.
Author contributions
Conceptualization, I.A. and N.R.; methodology, I.A. and N.R.; software, E.Z., I.A. and N.R.; validation, E.Z. and U.F.-G.; formal analysis, I.A., N.R and A.Z.; investigation, I.A., N.R. and E.Z.; resources, U.F.-G. and E.Z.; data curation, E.Z.; writing—original draft preparation, I.A. and N.R.; writing—review and editing, E.Z. and U.F.-G.; visualization, A.Z.; supervision, U.F.-G.; project administration, U.F.-G.; funding acquisition, E. Z. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).