Hardware test and validation of the angular droop control: Analysis and experiments

Abstract: The angular droop control is a grid-forming control strategy that exploits the idea of power-to-angle droop to achieve exact frequency synchronization with no stringent separation between primary and secondary frequency control. In this work, we conduct hardware experiments in the Smart Energy System Control Laboratory at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) to test and validate the angular droop control for low voltage power grids in two different test scenarios. First, we verify its grid-forming capabilities after a major event, e.g., following a blackout, demonstrated via power-to-angle droop behavior. For this, we propose two implementation schemes that rely either on direct or indirect actuation of the modulation signal and draw a comparison between them. Second, we investigate the plug-and-play capabilities, i.e., local stability and power sharing for a two-converter system and provide suitable tuning for the control gains. Our experimental findings illustrate the usefulness of hardware test and validation for DC/AC converter control, the practical challenges entailed and the proposed remedies.