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fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TSG.2022.3156850, IEEE
Transactions on Smart Grid
A Hybrid Power Sharing Control to Enhance the
Small Signal Stability in DC Microgrids
Abd-Alelah Derbas, Morteza Kheradmandi, Member, IEEE, Mohsen Hamzeh, Member, IEEE, and
Nikos D. Hatziargyriou, Life Fellow, IEEE
Abstract—Low-frequency power oscillations pose serious prob-
lems to the operation of Distributed Generations (DGs) equipped
with droop control. This paper presents a new hybrid power-
sharing control for damping low-frequency power and current
oscillations in DC microgrids. The proposed control consists
of a decentralized droop control together with a centralized
average current sharing control. A small-signal equivalent model
is analytically derived for the proposed hybrid control and is
incorporated into the DC microgrid model. The parameters
of the PI controllers involved in the average current sharing
control units are tuned individually to achieve a satisfactory
performance in a stand-alone operation of DGs with a local
load. The contributions of control signals contained in the hybrid
control signal to the damping characteristic are analyzed. The
dynamic response of the DC microgrid under a variety of dis-
turbance scenarios is investigated. The power-sharing accuracy
of the proposed control is also examined under the investigated
scenarios. The method performance is also investigated for the
oscillations caused by constant-power loads. Sensitivity analyses
are conducted to evaluate the impact of the loading level and line
parameters on the damping ratio associated with the dominant
low-frequency modes. The effectiveness of the control method is
examined in case of losing a number of communication links. The
impact of the delay in the communication links on the method
performance is also examined. The simulations are conducted on
a multi-source DC microgrid, and the results are verified in the
OPAL-RT real-time simulator.
Index Terms—Average current sharing control, DC microgrid,
droop control, low-frequency oscillation, small-signal analysis,
voltage source converter.
I. I NTRODUCTION
D C microgrids have been drawing more and more attention
due to the increasing trend toward using renewable
energy resources that rely on power electronics interfaces such
as photovoltaic and fuel cell systems. The growing use of DC
loads has increased the tendency toward DC microgrids [1]–
[3]. DC microgrids are controlled hierarchically over various
time horizons: primary control, secondary control, and tertiary
control. These controls may deal with different issues such as
voltage regulation, power-sharing, and dynamic performances.
[4], [5]. In addition, these controls can be exercised through a
centralized or a decentralized control [4], [5]. Droop control
is a typical example of a decentralized power-sharing method
Abd-Alelah Derbas and Morteza Kheradmandi are with the Faculty of
Electrical Engineering, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran; Mohsen
Hamzeh is with the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of
Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran; and Nikos D. Hatziargyriou
is with the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the National
Technical University of Athens, Athens, Greece. (emails: a derbas@sbu.ac.ir;
kheradmandi@sbu.ac.ir; mohsenhamzeh@ut.ac.ir, nh@power.ece.ntua.gr.)
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1
[6]. The method is widely employed in DC microgrid due to its
simplicity and economic considerations. However, the voltage
regulation and the limited power-sharing accuracy, which
appear as conflicting objectives, preclude the widespread adop-
tion of the method. Much research has been carried out to
overcome this limitation of the control method [7]–[9]. An
Average Current Sharing (ACS) method is proposed in [10]
as a decentralized secondary control to improve the voltage
regulation in low-voltage DC microgrids. The stability consid-
erations are not involved in the reported study. A distributed
cascade secondary control is proposed in [11], in which the
inner loop is devoted to regulate the bus voltage and the
outer loop to enhance the power-sharing. A distributed voltage
restoration control with a two-layer multi-agent framework is
presented in [12]. The proposed controller is supported with
a communication link with a limited bandwidth. A similar
voltage feedback is used in [13] with voltage feedback from
all converters. A communication-less control algorithm is
employed to achieve accurate load sharing between droop
controlled converters. As well as the power-sharing accuracy
and voltage deviation; the dynamic performance under dis-
turbances [14], performance in disconnection/reconnection of
communication channels [15], changes in a grid configuration
and plug-and-play feature of DGs [16] constitute the most
important considerations in designing power-sharing control
strategies, which have received little attention in previous
studies. It is to be noted that using multi-parallel secondary
controls to regulate voltage and to compensate power-sharing
control worsens the dynamic performance. [11].
The stability considerations are among the serious chal-
lenges of DC microgrid operation. A common case of the
problem arises out of the negative incremental impedance
characteristics associated with the constant power loads con-
trolled by closed-loop controls. A model predictive control is
presented in [17] to eliminate the adverse effect of such loads
by using the injected current of the energy storage system.
The problem is dealt with in [18] by adjusting the virtual
impedance, which is introduced into the output impedance
of DG. A solution referred to as the DC electric springs are
proposed in [19] for stabilizing DC power distribution systems.
The low-frequency power/current oscillations with low
damping ratios is an issue caused in voltage source converter
DGs controlled by droop method [20]. Adjusting the virtual
impedance can bring about the mitigation of low-frequency
oscillations. Increasing line impedance can lessen the current
oscillations. This, however, gives rise to higher voltage de-
viations, a lowered power-sharing accuracy, and an increased
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2

system loss [4], [21], [22]. A common practice is to include

physical damping elements referred to as the passive damping AC Grid
[20], [22]–[24].
An observer of dc voltage droop and current feed-forward S
control is presented in [23]. The observer measures the
feedback current of dc voltage droop and the feed-forward DG3
AC
control with no additional instrument. An active solution DC Microgrid DC

is presented in [20] to damp the low-frequency oscillations

through introducing a negative feedback of DG output current
to offset the output of voltage controller. A method based Load4
DG1
on a dynamic coefficient, referred to as the virtual inductive zl1 zl4
CB1
gain is proposed in [22] to actively damp the low-frequency
zl3 zl5 CB2
oscillations of droop control. The opposite effect on the power-
sharing accuracy and low-frequency oscillations has received Load1
little attention in the reported studies. DG2
zl2
This paper presents a new hybrid control system for enhanc- Load5 zl6
Load3
ing power management and attenuating low-frequency oscil- CB4 CB3
lations. The proposed control relies on including an Average
Current Sharing (ACS) control signal provided by a centralized
control into the decentralized droop control signal. A small- Load2
Load6
signal equivalent model is developed for the hybrid control
and is incorporated into a multi-source DC microgrid model. Fig. 1: The schematic of multi-source DC microgrid.
The mesh matrix method is used to evaluate the eigenvalues
of the dynamic system. The parameters of the PI controller
included in the ACS controller are tuned for a stand-alone il L io zth
operation of DGs with a local load to reach a desired damping + vL − iL +
ratio in the worst cases outlined. Eigenvalue analyses are +
carried out to evaluate the contribution of control units to the Vin +
− C vo RL vth
output impedance of DG. The dynamic performance of the −
proposed controller is evaluated for a variety of disturbances. −
The accuracy of the control method for load demand sharing +
is also investigated for the studied disturbance scenarios. kiv
The dynamic performance and also power-sharing accuracy PWM kpv +
s +
is investigated in the case of interruption in communication −
io 1
channels. Sensitivity analyses are also conducted to illustrate io 2
the impact of system loading and line parameters on the LPF
eigenvalues and damping ratio of the system. The dynamic −
LP

vh
F

performance is also investigated for the delay in communica- P + −

io 3 LPF K + PI + Rd LPF
tion channels. ics ∆vcs ∆vcd

II. P ROPOSED CONTROL SYSTEM LPF

Average Current Current Droop
A graphic illustration of a DC microgrid is displayed in Vref
Sharing Control Control
ioN
Fig. 1. The microgrid consists of a number of DGs which are
connected to each other by distribution lines and to the Point Fig. 2: The block-diagram of the proposed hybrid control
of Common Coupling (PCC) and the main AC grid through an method.
interlink converter. The DGs are assumed to be integrated into
the microgrid through DC/DC buck converters. The converters
are assumed to operate in the voltage control mode, in which of the PI block in the converter voltage control loop is assumed
case are referred to as the Voltage Source Converter DGs not to be saturated by entering into the over-modulation region.
(VSC-DGs). The DC microgrid is also assumed to include The grid can then be modeled by a Thevenin voltage source
local and remote loads, which are represented by a constant- vth together with a Thevenin impedance zth . A local load RL
impedance model. is also connected to the DG terminal. Using the superposition
rule, the output voltage of the converter can be expressed in
A. Equivalent Small-Signal Model of Single Bus DC Micro- terms of the hybrid control signal vh (s) and the output current
grid io (s) as follows:
The structure of the proposed control scheme is shown in
Fig.2 for a VSC-DG connected to a DC microgrid. The output vo (s) = H(s)vh (s) − zoc (s)io (s) (1)

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where zoc (s) denotes the closed-loop output impedance of vL (s)

the converter without the hybrid controller and only with the zcs (s) zcd (s) zoc (s) io zth (s)

−
+
voltage control, and H(s) is a transfer function; which are + +
iL
calculated as follows:
vo (s) vo (s) + H(s)Vref vo RL vth
−
H(s) = |io (s)=0 zoc (s) = − |v (s)=0 . (2)
vh (s) io (s) h
− −
The hybrid control signal vh (s) is produced by combining
average current sharing and current droop control signals as
follows: Fig. 3: Equivalent small signal model of DG

vh (s) = Vref (s) − ∆vcd (s) + ∆vcs (s) (3)

output impedance of the closed-loop control system, respec-
where Vref (s) is the nominal voltage of the DC microgrid;
tively. The term vL (s) appearing in (8) is calculated as follows:
and ∆vcd (s) and ∆vcs (s) represent the output signals of the   X n
current droop control and average current sharing control units, ki ωcs
vL (s) = H(s)K kp + iL (s). (11)
respectively. The V-I characteristic of the droop control unit s s + ωcs m=1 m
is obtained from the figure as follows:
The equivalent model of the proposed closed-loop control
ωcd
∆vcd (s) = Rd io (s) (4) method obtained from (8) is illustrated in Fig. 3. As the
s + ωcd
figure suggests, the DG is modeled by an independent voltage
where ωcd represents the cut-off frequency of the low-pass source, a dependent voltage source, and a closed-loop output
filter contained in the current droop unit, and Rd represents impedance. The output current can be calculated from the
the static droop coefficient of the current droop controller. The figure as follows:
coefficient is determined based on the maximum allowable  
vo (s)
voltage drop at the rated current. The control signal of the vo (s) − vth = zth (s) io (s) − . (12)
average current sharing unit, ∆vcs , is written as follows: RL

ki
 Substituting vo (s) from (8) yields:
∆vcs = kp + (ics (s) − io (s)) (5) (RL + zth (s)) (H(s)Vref + vL (s)) − (RL Vth (s))
s io (s) = .
zvc (s) (RL + zth (s)) + RL zth (s)
where kp and ki denote the coefficients of the PI controller,
(13)
and ics represents the reference signal of the ACS loop, which
is produced as follows: The characteristic equation can then be obtained as follows:
  
 X N ωcd ki
ωcs zoc (s) + H(s) Rd + H(s) kp + ×
ics (s) = K io (s) (6) s + ωcd s
s + ωcs j=1 j  
RL + (rth + slth ) + RL (rth + slth ) = 0. (14)
where ωcs represents the cut-off frequency of the low-pass
filters used in the average current sharing control unit, and
B. Small Signal model of DC Microgrid With Communication
K is the contribution of the target DG to the total load. The
Delay
summation appearing in the figure gives the sum of the output
currents of DGs, which equals the sum of load currents. The The ACS units of DGs receive signals from the other DGs
average current sharing control signal is then written as for generating signal ∆vcs . However, the signal communi-
! ! cation may be subject to a considerable delay. The output
  n
ki ωcs X signal ∆vcs at instant t will equal ∆vcs at t − δ, where δ
∆vcs (s)= kp + K iL (s) −io (s) (7)
s s + ωcs m=1 m represents the delay time. The delayed ∆vcs signal may even
give rise to instability in case of long delays. The delays of
Substituting (4) and (7) in (3) and then in (1) yields transmitting signals from DGs to the control center and from
vo (s) = H(s)Vref + vL (s) − zvc (s)io (8) the control center to DGs are lumped together as a single delay.
To linearize the communication delay function, the time delay
where zvc (s) represents the closed-loop output impedance of is divided into m time-intervals with length dtn , as depicted in
the proposed control, which is calculated as follows: Fig. 4. To model the delay communication of DC microgrid,
it is assumed that DG j is the sender and DG i is the receiver.
zvc (s) = zoc (s) + zcd (s) + zcs (s) (9)
Current io,j of DG j is then sampled and sent to the DG i at
where instant tjn , n = 1, 2, ..., m, to build the sequence of io,j . The
ωcd

ki
 signal samples of io,j are received by ACS controller of DG
zcd (s) = H(s) Rd zcs (s) = H(s) kp + . (10) i with time delay δ at instant tin = tjn + δ. It is assumed that
s + ωcd s
the signal magnitude remains unchanged. The ACS control
The impedances zcd (s) and zcs (s) denote the contributions responds based on the supplied signal value io,j of t = tin ,
of the current droop and average current sharing units to the which is equal to that at t = tjn , whereas the actual current

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vcs (t ) vcs (t1 ) vcs (t ) vcs (t1 )

kp=0
kp3 =0.056 Increasing kp
DG3
kp2 =0.044
DG2
kp1 =0.037
DG1

dt n
vcs (t −  ) vcs (t ) 

Fig. 4: communication delay in the output signal ∆vcs of the kp =0.1

ACS controller.

DGj
DG1 io , j (t 0j ) io , j (t1j ) io , j (t 2j ) i 'o , j
... Fig. 6: Dominant low-frequency modes for varying propor-
tional gain kp .
DG2 DG3 ...
DGi the rise and settling times and the maximum overshoot.
...
Frequency-response analyses are conducted to obtain the PI
io , j (t 0j +  )
i i i
i (t ) i (t ) i (t )
o,j 0 o,j 1 o,j 2
controller parameters with the open-loop converter for the
cases with/without the voltage controller for a bandwidth of
Fig. 5: The process of communication delay in the sent signal. 2 kHz and a phase margin of 18◦ . The coefficients are obtained
equal to 10 and 200 for kpv and kiv , respectively. To set the
parameters of the PI controller in the ACS controller, it is
i0o,j at t = tin may be different, as sketched in Fig. 5. The
assumed that the DGs are operated stand-alone connected to
delay function can be expressed as e−sδ . The received signal
a local load of 2 kW through a distribution line. The line
io,j (t = tin ) can be calculated as:
resistance rl is assumed to be zero to provide the worst-case
io,j (s) = e−sδ × i0o,j (s), (15) conditions. The line inductance ll is assumed equal to 4.4 µH.
To identify an appropriate proportional gain kp , the integral
which can be written as follows: gain ki is set to zero, and the proportional gain is changed
δ
io,j (s) e−s 2 from 0 to 0.1. An eigenvalue analysis is conducted, as in
= δ . (16)
i0o,j (s) es 2 (14), to calculate the dominant low-frequency modes, which
are shown for the individual DGs in Fig. 6. As can be seen,
Using the Taylor series, the numerator and the denominator the DGs lose the stability for k values smaller than 0.006,
p
can be expanded as follows: 0.007, and 0.008, respectively, and the stability is improved
2 3
io,j (s) 1 − δ/2s
+ δ2s/4 − δ3s/8 for increasing proportional gain. To achieve a damping ratio
= . (17) of 0.7 and an overshot of 5%, the proportional gains should be
i0o,j (s) 1 + δ/2s 2
+ δ2s/4 + δ3s/8
3

set to 0.037 at 30 Hz for DG1, 0.044 at 36 Hz for DG2, and

The higher-order terms than the third order are neglected. 0.056 at 45.5 Hz for DG3. To identify an appropriate integral
By using mathematical reduction operations, (17) is written as gain ki , the proportional gains are set to the marginal values
follows: obtained in the preceding study. The line parameters are also
16 4 chosen the same as in the preceding study. The dominant low-
io,j (s) −1 δ3 + δ2 frequency modes are depicted in Fig. 7 for DG1 for varying
= + . (18)
i0o,j (s) 2
s3 + 2sδ + δ4s2 + δ83
2
s3 + 2sδ + δ4s2 + δ83 integral gains from 0 to 1. As indicated, the figure is plotted
for the marginal proportional gain of 0.006. As can be seen,
III. STABILITY ANALYSIS the stability is lost if the integral gain exceeds 0.31.
The eigenvalues sensitivity analysis method is used for tun-
ing controller parameters and analyzing the dominant modes B. Contribution of Control Units to Output Impedance
of low-frequency.
To investigate the contribution of the control units to the
damping performance of the proposed controller, it is assumed
A. Tuning the Controller Parameters initially that only the current droop control is used to control
The DGs are assumed to operate in the voltage control the DG. To study the effect of the current droop, the frequency
mode and are equipped with PI voltage controllers. The PI response of the output impedance of the closed-loop system,
controllers are used to eliminate the steady-state error and to calculated in (9), is evaluated over a range of frequencies
give a satisfactory dynamic characteristics. This controller is with and without the current droop control. The results are
designed regardless of the outer loops and whose parameters displayed in Fig. 8 for DG1. As the figure suggests, in lower
are tuned to produce desirable performance indices, including frequencies, the output impedance of the closed-loop system is

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No-Power-sharing Control
Increasing ki
DR =0.78 at
Only droop Control f =31.2Hz
DR =0.41 at
f =10.8Hz

ki =0.1
ki =0.31 Hybrid Control
DR =0.01
DR =0 DR =0.78 at
f =31.2Hz

Fig. 7: Dominant low-frequency modes for varying integral Fig. 9: Locus of output impedance poles and zeroes with
gain ki . various control methods for DG1.

PCC

zl1 zl3 zl4

I1 I2 I3
zl2 zl5

R L4
+ vL1
−
+ vL2
+ vL3
− −
zvc1 RL1 RL3

Fig. 8: The variation of output impedance with various control
methods for DG1.
influenced strongly by the current droop controller. This illus-
trates that the droop control offers the capability of damping
the low-frequency oscillations for frequencies below 15 Hz. In
frequencies between 15 to 100 Hz, however, using the droop
controller produces a reduction in the output impedance, which
results in lower damping for the oscillations in this range of
frequencies. This variation in the output impedance gives rise
to the creation of a pair of low-frequency complex conjugate
poles. In higher frequencies, neither the current droop nor the
current sharing unit makes a notable impact on the output
impedance due to the low-pass filters used. The variation of
output impedance is also depicted for the case where ACS
control unit is also included to control the DG. As can be seen,
the magnitude of the output impedance with hybrid control
exceeds that with droop control for all frequencies, which
illustrates the effectiveness of using the hybrid control signal.
The locus of poles and zeroes of output impedance is depicted
in Fig. 9. As indicated in the figure, incorporating the ACS unit
into the control signal yields a significantly higher damping
ratio in comparison to the case where only the current droop
unit is used.
C. Generalization of Small Signal Model to DC microgrids
The DC microgrid is assumed to operate in island mode.
To include the obtained DG model in a microgrid, a multi-bus
DC microgrid comprising three DGs is assumed, as displayed
zvc2 zvc3 R L5
RL2
+
− VS1
+ +
− VS2 − VS3
DG1
DG2 DG3
Fig. 10: The proposed equivalent model
in Fig.1. The converters have been fully modeled, including
the inner loop and the droop loop with no order reduction. The
control model is first described by the differential equations,
and the equations are written in the s-domain. The equivalent
model of the microgrid is shown in Fig. 10.
As can be seen, the DGs are represented by using the devel-
oped model by dependent and independent voltage sources in
series with closed-loop output impedances, calculated for the
individual DGs. The characteristic equation can be obtained
by using the mesh impedance matrix to calculate the dominant
low-frequency modes. The microgrid is also assumed to have
a radial configuration, in which there is a single path from
DGs and loads to the PCC. It is initially assumed that no load
is connected to bus 6, and the connections toward this bus
are all open. The small-signal model of DGs, obtained in Fig.
3, can be incorporated to yield the small-signal model of the
island DC microgrid, as shown in Fig. 10. The figure provides
a simplified small-signal model for the DC microgrid.
Small-signal analysis is conducted to evaluate the per-
formance of the proposed method on system dynamics. As
mentioned earlier, the conventional mesh impedance matrix
method can be used to obtain the characteristic equation of

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TABLE II: Parameters of distribution lines

DR =0.068 DR =0.81 rl (mΩ) ll (µH) rl (mΩ) ll (µH)

f =35.7Hz f =47.6Hz
DR =0.8
zl1 3.46 2.2 zl4 3.46 2.2
DR =0.026 f =26.4Hz zl2 3.46 2.2 zl5 6.91 4.4
f =25.9Hz
zl3 6.91 4.4 zl6 69.1 44

TABLE III: Parameters of controllers

Rd kp ki
DG1 0.057 0.037 0.1
DG2 0.114 0.044 0.1
DG3 0.228 0.056 0.1
a b

Fig. 11: Low frequency modes of DC microgrid with (a) droop

control (b) proposed hybrid control. io1

TABLE I: Nominal power of DGs and load powers

io #123 (A)
Generation (kW) kW kW
DG1 5 Load1 0.5 Load4 1.5
DG2 2.5 Load2 0.5 Load5 1 io2
DG3 1.25 Load3 0.7 Load6 2

io3

the system. A 3 by 3 mesh impedance matrix is obtained

to calculate the general characteristic equation. The system
low-frequency dominant modes are depicted in Fig. 11 with
various control methods. As can be seen, the hybrid control
method provides higher damping ratios in comparison to the
droop control. While the damping ratios associated with the
two complex conjugate poles with the droop control method
are 0.068 and 0.026 at frequencies 35.7 Hz and 25.9 Hz,
respectively, the proposed method produces damping ratios of
0.81 and 0.8 at frequencies 47.6 Hz and 26.4 Hz, respectively.
IV. S IMULATION R ESULTS
The control scheme is examined in an island multi-bus
DC microgrid comprising three DGs, as shown in Fig. 1.
The simulation model is developed in MATLAB/SIMULINK,
and the results are verified by the OPAL-RT simulator. The
microgrid base power and the nominal power of the interlink
converter are assumed equal to 10 kW. The microgrid nominal
voltage is 48 V, and the input voltage is assumed to vary
between 55-65 V. The nominal power of DGs and also the load
powers are given in Table I. The switching frequency is set
to 20 kHz.The cut-off frequency of low-pass filters is chosen
equal to 5 Hz. It is true that a higher cut-off frequency can re-
sult in improved low-frequency oscillations. However, the cut-
off frequency should remain far away from the high-frequency
oscillations to provide an appropriate damping coefficient for
these frequencies. The inductance, resistance, and capacitance
of converters are identical and equal to 2.5 mH, 0.01 Ω, and
50 µF, respectively. The parameters of the distribution lines
are given in Table II.
The parameters chosen for the PI controller of the ACS
unit and for the current droop unit are shown in Table III. As
can be seen, identical values are chosen for the integral gains.
Fig. 12: Dynamic response for the load variation at bus 4.
The static droop coefficients are chosen in such a way that
the output voltages of converters remain within the allowed
bounds of %5 when the maximum source powers are drawn
from the converters. Various scenarios are now examined to
confirm the observations.
1) Load change: It is assumed that the load value at bus 4
rises from 1.5 kW to 2.5 kW at t = 0.5 s. Figure 12 shows the
variation in the output currents of DGs with the droop control
and with the proposed control. It can be observed that by using
only the droop control, the output currents of DGs 1,2 and
3 exhibit oscillations at 25.3 Hz, whereas with the proposed
hybrid control, the DG currents vary with no oscillations.
2) DG connection/disconnection: To investigate the dy-
namic response of connection/disconnection of a DG, it is
assumed that DG3 is disconnected from the microgrid at
t = 0.5s by opening CB1 . After settling down at a new
operation point, the DG is reconnected to the microgrid at
t = 2.5s. The output currents are shown in Fig. 13. As can
be seen, the output currents oscillate at 26.5 Hz when DG3 is
disconnected and at 25.3 Hz when reconnected if the droop
control method is used; whereas by using the proposed hybrid
control, the low-frequency oscillations are eliminated.
3) Change in Configuration: To investigate the perfor-
mance of the control method for a change in microgrid
configuration, a radial configuration change is assumed to
occur by closing breakers CB2 and CB3 to radially integrate

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Transactions on Smart Grid
io1
io #123 (A)
io2
io3
Fig. 13: Dynamic response for dis/reconnecting DG3.
io #123 (A)
io1
io2
io3
Fig. 14: Dynamic response for a radial change in configuration.
load 6 into the grid. After settling down at a new operating
point, the load and the distribution line are disconnected from
the network by opening the mentioned circuit breakers at
t = 2.5 sec. Figure 14 compares the performance of the
proposed control with the droop control. As it is seen, by
using the droop control, the output currents of DGs 1 and 2
oscillate at 26.6 Hz and DG3 at 35.8 Hz in introducing load
and line, and at 26.5 Hz for DGs 1 and 2 and 34.6 Hz for
DG3 in disconnecting from the network. On the other hand,
with the proposed hybrid control, the output currents move to
the new operating point with no oscillation.
4) Change to Mesh Topology: It is assumed that the mi-
crogrid develops a meshed configuration by closing breakers
CB2 , CB3 , and CB4 at t = 0.5s. After stabilizing at the
new operating point, the microgrid is assumed to return to
the previous radial configuration at t = 2.5s by opening
the mentioned breakers. The output currents are shown in
Fig. 15. As can be seen, with the droop control, DGs 1
and 2 oscillate at 26.5 Hz in closing the loop and also in
disconnecting the breakers, whereas DG3 oscillates at 38.6 Hz
in loop closure and at 32.5 Hz in loop opening. In either cases,
with the proposed hybrid control, the system moves to the new
operating conditions with no oscillation.
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7
io #123 (A)
Fig. 15: Dynamic response for a change from radial to meshed
and meshed to radial configuration.
A. Power-Sharing Accuracy
An appropriate power-sharing should be ensured among
DGs when the DC microgrid operates in island mode. The
power-sharing error is evaluated for the four simulation sce-
narios dealt with in the preceding subsection. The results
are shown in Figs. 16-(a), (b), (c), and (d) with the droop
control and with the proposed hybrid control. As the figures
illustrate, with the droop control, the power-sharing exhibits
errors within the range [-1 2]% for the load increase and
dis/reconnecting DG scenarios. The error amounts to 11.2%
and 6.1%, respectively, for the change in microgrid con-
figuration in radial and meshed operation. The error with
the proposed hybrid control is substantially improved and
is confined below 0.6% in the worst case. To compare the
performance of the proposed method, a comparison is made
with [21] to evaluate the two main objectives of the dynamic
performance and the power-sharing accuracy. To compare, it
is assumed that the microgrid develops a meshed configuration
as in scenario 4. The output currents and the power-sharing
accuracy are shown in Fig.s 17 and 18, respectively, for the
proposed method and for the method of [21]. As it can be
observed, the two methods exhibit suitable transient responses
for the mentioned disturbance. However, the method of [21]
exhibits power errors within the range [-2.2 6]%, while the
error with the proposed method is confined below 0.6%.
B. Sensitivity Analysis
1) System Loading: To analyze the effect of loading on
the low-frequency modes of DC microgrid, the load powers
are increased individually from the base power by 10%. The
simulation results indicate that the loading makes little impact
on the eigenvalues and the damping ratio. The results are
presented for the variation of load power on bus 1 from 500
to 550 W in Fig. 19.
2) Line Parameters: The value of the damping ratio is
influenced by system parameters, including the parameters
of the distribution lines. In order to analyze the effect of
line resistance, it is assumed that the resistance of all lines
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Transactions on Smart Grid
8

DG3
DG3 DG2 DG2
DG2
DG1
DG1
DG1

DG1
DG1
DG1
DG3 DG2
DG2 DG3
DG2

(a) (b)

DG2 DG2
DG2
DG3 DG3
DG3
DG1 DG1
DG1

DG1
DG1
DG3 DG1
DG3
DG3
DG2
DG2
DG2

(c) (d)
Fig. 16: Power-sharing error for a (a) load power increase, (b) dis/reconnecting DG3, (c) radial change in topology, (d) and
change to/from meshed topology.

DG2

DG3
DG1 DG2
DG3
DG1

DG2
DG3

DG1
method of [21] proposed method
method of [21] proposed method

Fig. 17: Dynamic response comparison with [21]. Fig. 18: Power-sharing error comparison with [21].

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Increasing rlines
rnominal
10*rnominal

Fig. 19: Variation of the dominant modes for a 10% increase

(a)
in loading of bus 1.

are uniformly increased while remaining the inductances un- znominal

Increasing zlines
changed. Figure 20-(a) shows the effect of line resistance on
10*znominal
the eigenvalues with the droop control. As can be seen, the
damping ratio is improved as the resistance increases. The
damping ratio varies from 0.068 to 0.989 as the resistances
are augmented by 10 times the nominal values. In Fig.20-(b),
the variation of eigenvalues are shown for varying resistances
and inductances while keeping the l/r ratio constant. The
damping ratio changes from 0.068 to 0.997 as the resistances
and inductances change by 10 times the nominal values.
As indicated formerly, the microgrid exhibits non-oscillatory
behavior with the proposed hybrid control. Figures 21-(a),(b)
illustrate the variation of damping ratio with the proposed
hybrid and droop method with varying line resistances. As the
(b)
figures imply, the damping ratio is less impacted by the line
resistances with the proposed method than the droop method. Fig. 20: Variation of modes with droop control for increasing
(a) line resistance, (b) and line impedance.

C. Control Method Performance for Constant-Power Loads

To ensure a satisfactory performance of the proposed con-
troller for the oscillations caused by the nonlinear loads, it is
assumed that a constant-power load (CPL) with rated power
0.5 kW is connected radially to bus 4 through a line with the
impedance equal to zl3 . The load is modeled by a DC-DC
buck converter operated in voltage-control mode supplying a
resistive load. This scenario is also implemented in OPAL-RT-
OP5600, as shown in Fig. 22.
It is assumed that the load power is increased by 50% at
t = 1s. The figure shows the variation in the output currents
of DGs with the droop control and with the proposed control.
As can be seen, the method shows satisfactory power-sharing
as well as stability properties.
D. Delay in Communication Links
The delays of transmitting signal from DGs to the control
center and from the control center to DGs are lumped together
as a single delay. The study conducted for scenario 1, in which
load at bus 4 is increased. The transient output currents are
shown in Fig. 23 for varying delays extending from a short
2ms delay to long 10, 50, 80, 100, and 250ms delays. As can
be seen, the microgrid, though severely impacted, maintains
the stability even for the long communication delays. The
dynamic response tends to that obtained by the droop control
given in Fig. 4 as the delay increases.
E. Communication Link Interruption
The control method is associated with the potential risk of
failures in communication links. To investigate the impact of
this failure on the performance of the control method, four
failure scenarios are assumed: interruption in the communica-
tion channels of the individual three DGs and also interruption
in the whole communication system. It is assumed that the
propagation channels are interrupted at t = 1s and restored 3s
after at t = 4s. Figure 24 shows the output current of DGs
for the four scenarios of failed communication. As it is seen,
the microgrid maintains stability for all studied scenarios. The
system performance declines to that of the droop control for
the case of interruption in the whole communication system. In

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10

0.8
DF (%)

0.6

io #123 (A)
0.4

0.2

0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
R lines (times)
(a)

0.8

Fig. 23: Dynamic response in several cases of delay time in

DF (%)

0.6
communication link.
0.4

0.2

0
0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5
R lines (times)

(b)

Fig. 21: Variation of damping ratio for increasing line resis-

tance with (a) droop control, (b) and proposed hybrid control.
io #123 (A)
io #123 (A)

channel#1
channel#2
channel#3
cut_link

Fig. 24: Dynamic response under failed communication link

Fig. 22: Dynamic response for an increase in constant power condition.
load.

of interruption in communication links. A small-signal model

case of interruption in one of the three channels, the deficit or
excessive power is distributed among the remaining connected
DGs based on new contribution coefficients. The results of
the power-sharing error for DGs 1, 2, and 3 are shown in
Figs. 25-(a), (b) and (c), respectively. As it can be observed,
the interrupted DG experiences the highest error settling at a
minimal error upon restoring the communication channel.
V. C ONCLUSION
This paper presents a new hybrid control system to enhance
the small-signal stability and the power-sharing control of DC
microgrids. Using a hybrid signal provides the control system
with the capability to function at a certain level even in the case
is developed for the proposed hybrid control and is incorpo-
rated into a multi-source DC microgrid to evaluate the system
eigenvalues. Evaluating the output impedance demonstrates
that the included ACS signal makes a substantial contribution
to the output impedance, thus leading to a significant reduction
in the current oscillations. The results show that the hybrid
control produces a high performance in damping out the
low-frequency oscillations for various disturbance scenarios
extending from load change to source interruption and grid
configuration changes. The method also provides a satisfactory
performance for the oscillations caused by constant-power
loads. The results also indicate that the control method pro-
duces a considerable reduction in power-sharing error for the

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11

examined disturbances. The control method is demonstrated

to give a superior performance in the case interruption in
communication channels. The method is also demonstrated to
give a satisfactory performance for the delay in propagation
channels. The sensitivity analyses show that system loading
makes little impact on the eigenvalues and the damping ratio.
The variation in line resistances, on the other hand, makes a
significant impact on the damping ratio. Yet, with the proposed
hybrid method, the damping ratio is less impacted by the line
parameters than the droop method.

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1949-3053 (c) 2021 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.
Authorized licensed use limited to: Murdoch University. Downloaded on March 09,2022 at 15:24:16 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TSG.2022.3156850, IEEE
Transactions on Smart Grid
12

[17] S. Yousefizadeh, J. D. Bendtsen, N. Vafamand, M. H. Khooban, Mohsen Hamzeh received the B.Sc. and M.Sc.
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of shipboard DC microgrids with uncertain time-varying load,” IEEE in 2006 and 2008, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree
Journal of Emerging and Selected Topics in Power Electronics, vol. 7, from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran,
no. 2, pp. 901–909, 2019. in 2012, all in electrical engineering. From 2013 to
[18] M. Nawaz Hussain, R. Mishra, and V. Agarwal, “A frequency-dependent 2018, he was an Assistant Professor with Shahid
virtual impedance for voltage-regulating converters feeding constant Beheshti University. In 2018, he joined the School
power loads in a DC microgrid,” IEEE Transactions on Industry Ap- of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University
plications, vol. 54, no. 6, pp. 5630–5639, 2018. of Tehran. His research interests include photo-
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springs—A technology for stabilizing DC power distribution systems,” of power electronics in power distribution systems.
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Access.

Nikos D. Hatziargyriou is professor Emeritus in

Abd Alelah Derbas received the B.Sc. degree from
Al-Baath University, Homs, Syria, in 2009, and
the M.Sc. degree from Shahid Beheshti University,
Tehran, Iran, in 2018, both in Electrical Power
Engineering. He is currently working toward a Ph.D.
degree with Shahid Beheshti University. He received
an excellent Scholarship From the Syrian Ministry of
Higher Education and Scientific Research to Shahid
Beheshti University, Iran (2015). He also received
the Outstanding Best Foreign Student Award from
Shahid Beheshti University (2017). His research
interests include microgrids stability and power management, smart grids,
power system dynamics, intelligent control, power electronics.
Power Systems at the National Technical University
of Athens. He has over 10 year industrial experience
as Chairman and CEO of the Hellenic Distribu-
tion Network Operator (HEDNO) and as executive
Vice-Chair and Deputy CEO of the Public Power
Corporation (PPC), responsible for the Transmission
and Distribution Divisions. He was chair and vice-
chair of the EU Technology and Innovation Platform
on Smart Networks for Energy Transition (ETIP-
SNET). He is honorary member of CIGRE and past
Chair of CIGRE SC C6 “Distribution Systems and Distributed Generation”.
He is Life Fellow Member of IEEE, past Chair of the Power System Dynamic
Performance Committee (PSDPC) and Editor in Chief of the IEEE Trans on
Power Systems. He is the 2017 recipient of the IEEE/PES Prabha S. Kundur
Power System Dynamics and Control Award. He has participated in more
than 60 RD&D projects funded by the EU Commission, electric utilities and
industry for fundamental research and practical applications. He is author
of the book “Microgrids: Architectures and Control” and of more than 250
journal publications and 500 conference proceedings papers. He is included
in the 2016, 2017 and 2019 Thomson Reuters lists of the top 1% most cited
researchers and he is 2020 Globe Energy Prize laureate.

Morteza Kheradmandi (M’18) received the B.S.

and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from
Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, in
1999 and 2001, respectively; and the Ph.D. degree
from Sharif University of Technology in collabo-
ration with the Institut National Polytechnique de
Grenoble, Grenoble, France. He is currently an
Associate Professor with the Faculty of Electrical
Engineering, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran,
Iran. His research interests include power system
dynamics, microgrid control, and power system op-
eration and planning.

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