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.2018.2890548, IEEE
Transactions on Smart Grid
Active Power Flow Control
Between DC Microgrids
Umamaheswararao Vuyyuru, Student Member, IEEE, Suman Maiti, Member, IEEE,
Chandan Chakraborty, Fellow, IEEE,
Abstract—The interconnection of dc microgrids may help to
address the problems associated with uncertainty of renewable
energy generation systems. In this paper, a Load Flow Con-
verter (LFC) is proposed which interconnects two adjacent dc
microgrids and controls bidirectional power flow between them.
The LFC needs to regulate power by applying and controlling
a voltage in between two dc grids. Generation of this series-
voltage, if done by using the same grids, will be of immense
advantage. Therefore, a new concept of input-parallel and output-
series connection is proposed. The LFC is formed with a Dual
Active Bridge (DAB) followed by a full-bridge dc-dc converter.
It injects dynamic voltage in series with the transmission line
to control power flow between the dc grids. The required power
rating of the LFC is fairly low compared to the power transmitted
between dc grids and also it does not require any external power
source for operation. The proposed configuration is simulated
in MATLAB/OPAL-RT based real-time simulation platform. A
scaled-down version of the system (at 30V level) is developed
in the laboratory to experimentally validate the concept. The
results show the effectiveness of the LFC for interconnection of
dc microgrids.
Index Terms—DC Microgrids, Load Flow Converter (LFC),
Dual Active Bridge (DAB), DC Power Flow Controller.
NOMENCLATURE
V1 , V2 Voltages of dc microgrid-1 and 2 respectively
V3 Voltage at node A (Input voltage of LFC)
V4 Voltage at node C
Vk Output voltage of LFC
Vo Output voltage of DAB
Pt Transmitted Power at node C (V4 *I2 )
PGi Total generation power at bus-i
Pgi Net power (flowing through transmission line) at bus-i
PLi Total load power at bus-i
Pin Input power of LFC
Po Output power of LFC
Pdo Output power of DAB
I1 , I2 Line currents at bus-1 and bus-2 respectively
I3 Input current of LFC
PBi Output power of battery connected at ith microgrid
PP V i Output power of PV connected at ith microgrid
PLi Load power connected at ith microgrid
πD Phase-shift of DAB (in radian)
U.Vuyyuru is with School of Energy Science and Engineering, Indian
Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India.
S.Maiti and C.Chakraborty are with Department of Electrical Engineering,
Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India.
Corresponding author e-mail: umamahesh271@gmail.com.
Manuscript received April 22, 2018; revised September 15, November 8,
2018; accepted December 8, 2018.
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1
D1 Duty ratio of full bridge dc-dc converter
r1 , r2 Transmission line resistances
Ld Total leakage inductance referred to primary side of
the transformer in DAB
Vtp , Vts Voltages across primary and secondary of trans-
former respectively
N2
n Turns ratio of transformer (i.e. N1
)
VLd Voltage across inductor
Vc Control signal for Full bridge dc-dc converter
Zin ,Zo Impedances seen at input and output sides of DAB
I. I NTRODUCTION
T HE remotely located rural areas in several countries do
not have access to electric supply from the utility grid.
As Renewable Energy Sources (RES) are usually dispersed,
Distributed Generation (DG) becomes an attractive solution for
meeting the energy demand in such areas [1]. By connecting
DGs (e.g. solar, wind, fuel cell etc.) with local loads and
energy storage, a microgrid is formed. Microgrid is a local
grid, which can be seen as an independent system with the
capability to operate in either grid-connected or islanded mode
[2]. Microgrids can be classified into two categories: ac and
dc depending on the type of operating voltage [3]. The dc mi-
crogrid is becoming more attractive compared to its ac counter
part due to higher efficiency, simple interface to many types
of RES and Energy Storage Systems (ESS), better control
over consumer electronics, fewer ac/dc and dc/ac conversion
stages, absence of reactive power and frequency related issues
[4]. The general structure of islanded dc microgrid is shown
in Fig.1. The DGs are connected to a common bus through
power electronic converters to control the dc bus voltage [5].
The implementation and control of a single dc microgrid
system is easy, but over the time an optimal control of dc grid
may become sub-optimal due to expansion of the network.
Interconnection among the dc microgrids is found beneficial
due to the following reasons [6], [7]
• The impact of power variation from RES due to weather
conditions is reduced. This is because, the excess of
power in one grid may be transferred to the other grid
and vice versa.
• Energy storage requirement is less as power balance may
take place within the grids.
• Operational cost is reduced.
• Reliability is increased.
The above advantages lead to interconnection of two or
more dc microgrids to support each other by exchanging
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Transactions on Smart Grid
Fig. 1. The general structure of islanded dc microgrid
surplus power from one grid to other grid. However, the flow
of power in dc cable depends simply on the cable resistance
and voltage difference between both ends of the cable. In [8],
the dc microgrids are interconnected which is named as dc
microgrid cluster. A hierarchical control for such system is
proposed to control the power flow among the dc mcirogrids
according to the ratings of their local energy storage. In
[9], [10], a distributed control system is proposed to adjust
the voltage set points of individual microgrids and control
the power flow among the interconnected microgrids. Due to
the coupled control feature, the control flexibility of power
transfer will be influenced and also plug-and-play feature of dc
microgrids cannot be ensured, which means the scalability of a
microgrid-cluster will be reduced [11]. Moreover, if one grid is
connected to multiple grids, the power flow on each connected
link cannot be controlled independently by adjustment of
the bus voltages. Beside this, the power flow between one
grid to other grid is not possible if the two microgrids stay
at same voltage level, which is obvious. Therefore, power
flow controllers (PFCs) are required for interconnection of
two or more dc mcrogrids with different/same dc voltage
levels [12]. The issues related to power flow control is also
observed when the ac microgrids are interconnected. In [13],
a distributed coordination control framework is introduced to
handle the load sharing between ac multi-bus microgrids. In
[14], the oscillatory modes in a multi-microgrid system caused
by various parameters, such as interconnecting line length,
droop gain, exciter gain and governor gain are studied.
The PFCs are power electronics based devices capable of
controlling dc power between two neighboring dc grids. In
[15], thyristor based bidirectional resonant dc-dc converter is
proposed for interconnection of high-power dc sources with
high stepping ratio voltages. In [16]–[19], a non-isolated buck-
boost topology is used for power flow control between grids
with different voltage levels. But, for dc microgrids of the
same level of nominal voltage, step-up as-well-as step-down
capabilities are required due to power fluctuation and parasitic
line resistance [20]. In [21]–[24], two cascaded bidirectional
buck-boost converters are used to control the power flow
between dc microgrids. Here power-flow is possible between
grids by controlling duty ratios of two back-to-back converters.
The isolated dc-dc converters are ideal for specific application
where galvanic isolation between dc microgrids are required
and for interconnecting dc grids of different capacity (eg.,
microgrid and nanogrid) [25]. In [26], Bidirectional resonant
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dc transformer operates at a high frequency (100kHz), is used
to control the power flow between dc microgrid and dc bus
of interlinking converter. It works in open loop scheme to
replace the conventional bulky transformer for bus voltage
matching and galvanic isolation. In [27], Dual Active Bridge
(DAB) based isolated dc-dc converter is proposed for power
flow control application by maintaining both input and output
grid voltages within the limits. For increasing the power
flow between microgrids, a modular-isolated bidirectional dc-
dc converter is presented in [28]. In the aforesaid literature,
power electronic converters are connected in such a way
that both input and output of the converter handle rated
voltage of the microgrids. As a consequence, the power rating
of the converter will be same as the amount of power to
be transferred between microgrids. This eventually demands
higher rating of the PFC. In [29], a Controlled Series Current
Compensator (CSCC) technique introduced between dc micro-
grids for control of power flow between them. Depending on
the direction of power flow, CSCC can inject regulated voltage
with appropriate polarity (positive or negative) in series with
the line. This type of series connection can reduce the power
handled by the PFCs. However, CSCC requires external dc
power source for the operation which is a drawback of the
concept. In [30], a Series Voltage Regulator (SVR) is presented
for voltage drop compensation in radial dc distribution system,
without using any external power source. But, this topology
cannot be used for this application as it cannot provide output
voltage with both polarities. In [31], the Floating Bidirectional
Power Flow Controller (F-BPFC) is proposed. However, differ-
ence in voltage levels among dc microgrids is not considered
and an external isolated dc-dc converter is used to validate the
concept of power flow between microgrids.
In this paper, a new concept to implement the LFC is
proposed. The idea is basically to go for an input-parallel
and output-series configuration that will allow generation of
controlled voltage in between two dc grids such that power
flow can be easily regulated. Such unique configuration can
optimize power-rating of the LFC and eliminate the need of
any external source.
The high gain dc-dc converter is the building block of
LFC. Various high-gain dc-dc converters are reviewed in [32].
Among them, Dual Active Bridge (DAB) is chosen for this
application as it can provide isolation between input and
output, high efficiency, and has moderate power rating. LFC
is composed of a DAB and a full-bridge dc-dc converter. DAB
(first stage of the configuration) provides unipolar dc voltage
with a step-down ratio, decided by the transformer. The output
voltage of DAB is always maintained at its reference value
during the operation. The full-bridge dc-dc converter (second
stage of the configuration) regulates the output voltage as per
requirement and is capable to change the polarity of the output
voltage. The proposed LFC can also support bi-directional
power flow which is a prerequisite for some particular cases
(e.g. in case of power flow control between different voltage
levels of dc microgrids).
This paper is organized in seven sections. Section-I in-
troduced the need of interconnection of dc microgrids and
associated literature review. The connection diagram of LFC
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the total loads connected at the microgrids are represented

by PL1 and PL2 . The need of two or more dc microgrids
interconnection is already explained in Section I. The input
side of the LFC is connected across the grid with terminals
A and B. The output side is connected in series with the
transmission line. According to the connection diagram, the
output of LFC experiences lower voltage (Vk ) associated to
line-drop and rated line current (I2 ), whereas the input of
LFC faces rated dc grid voltage (V3 ) and lower current (I3 ).
Therefore, the required input power to LFC for realizing power
flow control between dc grids is expressed as follows.
Pin = V3 I3 (1)
For ideal conditions, neglecting converter losses, the input
Fig. 2. (a) Connection diagram of LFC (b) Equivalent circuit of system under
consideration power is equal to output power of LFC. So, it can be written
as
Vk I2 = V3 I3 (2)

B. Theoretical analysis of power flow

The equivalent circuit diagram of the complete system
considering power flow from grid-1 to grid-2 is shown in Fig.2
(b). Here Pg1 is the net power received from grid-1, Pg2 is the
net power transferred to grid-2. LFC can be seen by the rest
of the network as a variable resistive load [33], represented
as R3 which is a function of average output voltage (Vk ) and
current (I2 ) of LFC. The variable resistor R3 can also act as
negative load during operation of LFC. From the equivalent
circuit, power transferred through the transmission line at node
voltage V4 (i.e. Pt ) can be expressed as:
Pt = V4 I2 (3)
According to Fig.2 (b),
V4 − V2 V1 − V3 V3
I2 = = I1 − I3 = − (4)
r2 r1 R3
V4 = V2 + I2 r2 (5)
Fig. 3. Transmitted power Vs. LFC output voltage and power: (a) r1 = 0.5Ω
and r2 = 0.5Ω, (b) r1 = 0.1Ω and r2 = 0.1Ω V3 = V4 − Vk (6)
η(V4 − Vk )2
R3 = (7)
and its theoretical analysis for power flow control between Vk I2
dc grids are presented in Section-II. Section-III describes where V1 , V2 are the voltages of grid-1 and grid-2 respectively,
the proposed configuration and its operation along with the r1 , r2 are half of the transmission line resistances, V3 and I3
control. The design of controller parameters are presented in are the input voltage and current of LFC respectively, Vk and
Section-IV. Section-V and VI provide the real time simulation I2 are the output voltage and current of LFC respectively, V4
(using OPAL-RT) and experimental results (on down scale lab- is the node voltage just after LFC, I1 , I2 are the grid currents
oratory prototype) under various operating conditions. Finally, with the reference polarities as shown in Fig.2 (b), and η is
Section-VII concludes the work. efficiency of the LFC. Based on (3), (4), (5), (6) and (7) the
transmitted power through the line at node V4 is written as:
II. C ONNECTION DIAGRAM AND THEORETICAL ANALYSIS
OF LFC FOR POWER FLOW CONTROL
1
A. Connection diagram Pt = [V2 η(V1 − V4 ) + (ηV2 − 2I2 r2 )]
r1 η
Considering power flow control between two dc microgrids r1
+ 2 [(V1 − V4 )2 + (V4 − Vk )2 + 2V1 Vk − V42 ]
as an example, Fig.2 (a) shows the single line diagram of two r2
dc microgrids and their interconnection using LFC. The total Vk I2
+ 2 [V2 I2 r2 r1 − η(V4 − Vk )(V2 r1 + 2V1 r2 )]
generation available at microgrid-1 (bus-1) and microgrid-2 η (V4 − Vk )2 r1
(bus-2) are represented as PG1 and PG2 respectively. Similarly, (8)

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Transactions on Smart Grid
Power flow from grid-2 to grid-1 can be obtained by
negating the expression of Pt . Using (8), the output voltage of
LFC (Vk ) and power handled by it are plotted with respect to
power transferred (Pt ) from one grid to another grid, as shown
in Fig.3. In practical dc microgrids, the dc bus voltage may
vary within ±5% of its rated voltage which may be due to
uncertainty in renewable energy generation and load power
balancing etc,. Accordingly, here three different operating
modes are considered (i.e. Mode-I: V1 = 380V, V2 = 380V ,
Mode-II: V1 = 380V, V2 = 400V , Mode-III: V1 = 400V, V2 =
380V ) for analysis of power flow control between two dc
microgrids. Fig.3 shows theoretical results for power flow
control with two different transmission line resistances (r1
and r2 ) [23], [34]. Form Fig.3 (a) and (b), it is observed that
power handled by the LFC (i.e. Po = Vk × I2 ) depends on the
following parameters.
• Transmission line resistance between dc microgrids.
• DC bus voltage levels.
• The magnitude of power to be transfered from one grid
to other.
One more observation from these figures is that the power
handled by the LFC need to be bidirectional, particularly in
case-2 and case-3 (see in Fig.3 (a) and (b)). In Mode-I (same
grid voltages), the transmitted power is zero. The LFC voltage
output is zero, compared to other two modes which is obvious.
Power handled by the LFC (Po =Vk ×I2 ) is less in Mode-II and
Mode-III (different grid voltages), when power is transfered
from higher voltage grid to lower voltage grid (Fig.3 (a) and
(b)). Similarly the Power handled by the LFC (Po =Vk × I2 )
is more, when power is transfered from lower voltage grid to
higher voltage grid. However, in the overall operation of power
flow control, power handled by the LFC is fairly less (<10%)
compared to the power transmitted between grids (Fig.3 (a)
and (b)).
III. C ONFIGURATION , O PERATION AND C ONTROL OF LFC
A. Topology
The proposed topology of LFC is shown in Fig.4. The
LFC comprises of a DAB followed by a full-bridge dc-dc
converter. The two bridges (primary and secondary) in DAB
are operated to generate high-frequency square-wave voltage at
the transformer terminals. The phase shift between two square-
waves can be adjusted to control power flow from V3 to Vo
or vice versa. Power flow always happens from the bridge
generating leading square-wave to the other bridge [35]. The
first stage of LFC (i.e. DAB) is operated in power control
mode and its output voltage (Vo ) is always maintained to its
reference value under the variation of output current (Iinb ) and
input voltage (V3 ). The output of DAB is connected to input of
second stage converter (i.e. full bridge dc-dc converter). Full
bridge dc-dc converter is operated in voltage control mode
with unipolar modulation [36] to generate an adjustable dc
voltage (Vk ). So, based on the power reference command,
the required amount of voltage with suitable polarity can
be generated across output of full bridge dc-dc converter.
The proposed configuration regulates power flow between
dc microgrids by adding controlled voltage with appropriate
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polarity in series with the transmission line under steady state
as well as transient conditions.
B. Operation and control of DAB
A DAB is an isolated bidirectional dc-dc converter, having
two full-bridge dc/ac converters and a High Frequency (HF)
transformer as shown in Fig.4. The HF transformer provides
the voltage matching of two sides with different voltage levels
and galvanic isolation. It is important to mention that the
energy stored in the decoupled inductor (Ld ) is sufficient
to realize Zero Voltage Switching (ZVS) of all the switches.
The magnitude and direction of inductor current (ILd ) can
be varied by adjusting the phase shift between Vtp and Vts
of bridges, which can control the direction of power flow in
DAB. The detailed steady-state analysis of DAB is available
in [37], [38]. The power transferred by the DAB is:
V3 Vo Ts (D − D2 )
Pdo =< Ido > Vo = Iinb Vo = (9)
2nLd
Where V3 and Vo are the input and output voltages of DAB
respectively, TS is the switching time period, D is a variable
for control of phase shift between transformer primary and
secondary voltage (phase-shift = πD), n is the winding turns
ratio of transformer. Maximum power will be transferred from
primary to secondary or vice versa when D = ±0.5.
The control for DAB, consists of two control loops which
are outer voltage loop and inner current loop. The main
purpose of this control is to maintain required power flow
through the LFC keeping the output of DAB (i.e. Vo ) constant.
The difference between the reference and actual values of Vo
(where e = Vo∗ − Vo ) is fed to a Proportional-Integral (PI)
type voltage controller which generates reference (i.e. I3∗ ) for
the inner current loop. The actual input current of the DAB
is then compared with reference value and the error is passed
to the current controller with transfer function Gci3 . Note that
only the integral controller is enough for the inner current
loop. The inner current loop generates desired phase shift
πD. Here D is varying from -0.5 to 0.5. The control keeps
output voltage of DAB (i.e. Vo ) constant irrespective of the
variation of load, as well as the input voltage of DAB (i.e.
V3 ). The gains of controllers are chosen in such a way that
the bandwidth of outer voltage loop is 10 times lesser than
the inner current loop. The design of various controllers are
presented in Section-IV.
C. Operation and control of full bridge dc-dc converter
The full bridge dc-dc converter is used to generate ad-
justable voltage for desired voltage regulation. The switching
signals for T9 , T10 , T11 and T12 are generated through the
comparison of triangular carrier signal and control signal (Vc )
[36]. The polarity of the output voltage can be changed from
+Vk to -Vk and vice versa by changing the sign of the control
signal (i.e. from +Vc to -Vc ). Note that the switches T9 , T12
and T10 , T11 are operated as a pair. The gate pulses for T9 and
T12 are inverse of T10 and T11 with appropriate dead time. An
LC filter is used at the output of dc-dc converter for filtering
out the ripples from the output voltage. The magnitude of Vrs
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Fig. 4. The overall system with LFC

is changing from +Vo to -Vo based on switching operation and

ILo is the current flowing through the filter inductor. The LFC
output voltage (Vk ) and output current (Ik ) are the average
values of Vrs and ILo respectively.
The control of full-bridge dc-dc converter, consists of power
controller (Gcp ) and voltage controller (Gcvc ) are shown in
Fig.4. The objective of these controllers is to adjust output Fig. 5. The control block diagram for DAB operation
voltage of LFC (Vk ) with required magnitude and polarity. The
reference power (i.e. Pt∗ ) to be transferred between microgrids  
1
compared to actual power (Pt = V4 × I2 ). The error is given Mid Zo n + Zin Miv
v̂o
to a Proportional-Integral (PI) controller (Gcp ) which gives a Gvod = = 2 (12)
reference for voltage controller (Gcvc ). The voltage reference dˆ 1 − Zin Zo Miv
is generated through the following equation. Ts 2 Vo Ts
where Miv = 2nLd (D −D ), Mid = 2nLd (1−2D), Zin =
rs (1+src1 C1 ) ro (1+src2 C2 ) 1+sC1 rc1
Vk∗ = (Pt∗ − Pt )Gcp . (10) 1+sC1 (rc1 +rs ) , Zo = 1+sC2 (rc2 +ro ) , Min = 1+sC1 (rc1 +rs )

Where Pt∗ can be in both polarities (i.e. either +ve or -ve) Using equations (11) and (12), the DAB input-current to
based on power flow requirement. If the reference power is output-voltage transfer function (Gvoi3 ) may be written as
+ve, that means the power is transfered from grid-1 (bus-1) to follows.
grid-2 (bus-2). Similarly in the reverse power flow, the polarity v̂o v̂o dˆ
Gvoi3 = = (13)
of Pt∗ is -ve. î3 dˆ î3
The actual output voltage of LFC (Vk ) is then compared With the help of above transfer functions, the control block
to the reference value which is generated from Gcp . The diagram of DAB is shown in Fig.5.
error is formed in between the reference and actual output The closed loop transfer function between I3∗ and I3 can be
voltage (i.e. e = Vk∗ − Vk ) which is fed to a PI controller expressed as
(Gcvc ). Voltage controller provides the control signal (i.e. Vc ) I3 Ti
to generate PWM signals for switches T9 to T12 . Gi = ∗ = (14)
I3 1 + Ti
where Ti = Gci3 Gi3d Hi3 .
IV. D ESIGN OF C ONTROLLER PARAMETERS The Kii of the current controller (Gci3 ) is designed to set
1
the gain-cross-over frequency at 10 times of the switching fre-
A. Controller gains of DAB
quency. With the help of MATLAB toolbox, Kii is calculated
The control signal (d) ˆ to input-current (î3 ) transfer-function as 0.03.
(Gi3d ) and control signal (d) ˆ to output-voltage (v̂o ) transfer- The transfer function between Vo and Vo∗ can be expressed
function (Gvod ) of DAB can be written as follows [39]. as follows.
Vo Tv1
  Gv1 = ∗ = (15)
Min Mid 1 + n Zo Miv Vo 1 + Tv1
î3
Gi3d = = (11) where Tv1 = Gi
Hi3 Gcvo Gvoi3 Hvo .
2
dˆ 1 − Zin Zo Miv

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the bandwidth of the voltage loop should be 10 times lower

than the switching frequency. Considering this, Kpk and Kik
can be calculated as 0.1 and 0.01, respectively.
The closed loop transfer function between Pt and Pt∗ can
be expressed as follows.
Pt Tp
Fig. 6. The control block diagram for full bridge dc-dc converter operation Gp = ∗ = (23)
Pt 1 + Tp
Gv2
where Tp = H Gcp Gptvk Hpt
The gains of the voltage controller (i.e. Kpv , Kiv of Gcvo ) vk
The gains of power controller (i.e. Kpp , Kip of Gcp ) are
are selected in such a way that the bandwidth of the outer selected in such a way that the bandwidth of the outer voltage
voltage loop should be 10 times lower than the inner current loop should be 30 times lower than the inner current loop.
loop. Considering this, Kpv and Kiv is calculated as 1.9 and Considering this, Kpp and Kip is calculated as 0.01 and 0.035,
10.1, respectively. respectively.

B. Controller gains of full bridge dc-dc converter C. Stability analysis

The control block diagram of full bridge dc-dc converter is The stability of the complete system with the presence of
shown in Fig.6. The control signal (v̂c ) to output-voltage (v̂k ) LFC is performed in this section. The stability analysis is
transfer-function (Gvkvc ) is written as follows [40]. carried out using state space model of the system. Fig.7 shows
v̂k (XRo )Vo the simplified equivalent representation of the system with the
Gvkvc = = (16) following assumptions.
vˆc (XRo ) + Y (X + Ro )
• Total resistance of the distribution line is referred to grid-
Where X = resr + sC1 o , Y = rLo + sLo , Ro is the
2 side.
load resistance. Small-signal representation of the transmitted
• Output filter inductance (Lo ) of LFC is included within
power between dc microgrids (p̂t ) can be expressed as a
the line inductance value.
function of (v̂k ), (v̂4 ) and (î2 ) as (17),
• Inductor (L1 ) represents the input inductance of source.
• The losses of the LFC are neglected.
p̂t = K1 v̂4 + K2 î2 + K3 v̂k (17)
Based on these assumptions, an overall state space model of
where small-signal variables are denoted with hats. K1 , K2 the system is derived which is expressed through the flowing
and K3 are the gains evaluated at steady-state operating point equations.
and given by,
ẋ = Ax + Bu (24)
V2 2r2 V1 2r2 (V4 + Vk )
K1 = + − (18) y = Cx + Du
r1 r1 r12
where x is the state vector, u is the input vector, y is the output
V2 Vk 2r2 V1 Vk 2I2 Vk2 r2 2r2 Vk
K2 = + − 2 − vector, and A, B, C, D are the state-space matrices which are
η(V4 + Vk ) ηr1 (V4 + Vk ) η (V4 + Vk )2 ηr1 expressed as follows.
(19)
 T
V 2 I2 2r2 V1 I2 2I 2 Vk r2 2r2 I2 x = Vk ILo Vo I3 (25)
K3 = + − 2 2 −
η(V4 + Vk ) ηr1 (V4 + Vk ) η (V4 + Vk )2 ηr1 
u = V1 V2
T
(26)
V2 2V1 r2 2r2 (V4 + Vk )
+ + − (20) 
y = Vk iLo Vo i3 I1 I2
T
(27)
r1 r12 r12
 −1 1
Using (17) transmitted power (p̂t ) to output voltage (v̂k ) 0 0

r12 Co Co
transfer-function (Gptvk ) is expressed in (21) by considering −1 2D1 −1
 L 0 Lo 0
v̂4 = 0 and î2 = 0. A= o
− 2D1 −1 0
 (28)
2r12 C2 0 0
−1
p̂t V2 I2 2r2 V1 I2 2I 2 Vk r2 0 0 nL1 0
Gptvk = = + − 2 2
v̂k η(V4 + Vk ) ηr1 (V4 + Vk ) η (V4 + Vk )2  −1 1

r12 Co r12 Co
2r2 I2 V2 2V1 r2 2r2 (V4 + Vk ) 0 0
− + + − (21)
 
ηr1 r1 2
r1 r12 B =  Ts (D−D2 )
 
(29)
2D1 −1 2D1 −1 
 2nLd C2 − 2r12 C2 2r12 C2 
The closed loop transfer function between Vk and Vk∗ can 1
0
L1
be expressed as:    
1 0 0 0 0 0
Vk Tv2
Gv2 = = (22)  0 1 0 0  0 0 
Vk∗ 1 + Tv2 
0 0 1

0
 
& D =  0 0
  
where Tv2 = Gcvc Gvkvc Hvk . C=  (30)
 0 0 0 1  0 0 
−1 
 1   1 
The gains of voltage controller (i.e. Kpk , Kik of Gcvc ) in r 0 0 0 r r
12 12 12
full bridge buck dc-dc converter are selected in such a way that −1 −1 1
r12 0 0 0 r12 r12

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Fig. 7. Equivalent representation of the total system
Fig. 8. Movement of pole locations: (a) Variation of LFC output voltage in
terms of duty ratio (D1 ) from 0 to 1, (b) Variation of line resistance (r12 )
from 0.1Ω to 1Ω, (c) Variation of filter inductance (Lo ) from 0.1mH to 10mH
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Fig. 9. OPAL-RT system architecture
Four eigenvalues are obtained from A matrix, out of which
two are found to be dominant. Fig.8 shows the variation of
these dominant pole locations with respect to r12 , D1 and
Lo . It is important to note that poles remain always in the
left half plane confirming that the introduction of LFC does
not make the system unstable. Increasing the magnitude of Lo
moves the pole to further left enhancing stability (although in
practice this makes the LFC more bulky). The performance of
the system with the variation of D1 is explained as follows. At
D1 =0.5, the LFC output is zero. In practice, at this point, the
DAB operates at a very light load condition supplying only
the losses invoking stability issues. This is also reflected here
with one pole approaching to origin. Identical behavior of the
poles is observed when D1 varies from 0.5 to 1 as expected.
V. R EAL - TIME (OPAL-RT) R ESULTS
Two dc microgrids at 380V level connected through a
transmission line resistance of 1Ω is considered for real-
time (OPAL-RT) simulation study. Fig.9 shows the real-time
simulation test bed used in this work. The proposed system
is first modeled in MATLAB integrated with OPAL-RT. Then
it is compiled with RT-LAB to run as an effective platform
for developing and testing real-time operation of the system
under consideration. The parameters corresponding to Fig.4
are: V1 =V2 =380V±5% (which are assumed as dc microgrids),
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8

Fig. 10. Power flow in microgrids operating at same bus voltages (V1 =380V and V2 =380V): Vo -DAB output voltage (50V/div), Vk -LFC output voltage
(20V/div), I1 -Current from the bus-1 (25A/div), I2 -Current entered to the bus-2 (25A/div), V1 -Voltage at bus-1, V3 -Node voltage at DAB input, V4 -Node
voltage just after LFC, V2 -Voltage at bus-2 (70V/div)

as per requirements. Current from the bus-1 (I1 ) is negative

Fig. 11. Power flow for case-1: (a): Power flow from Bus-1 to Bus-2 (before
point-X), (b) Power flow from Bus-2 to Bus-1 (in between point X and Y)
r1 =r2 =0.5Ω, V3 (input of DAB) =380V±10%, Vo (output
of DAB) =110V±1%, Po (rated power of LFC) =1kW and
switching frequency=5kHz. The details of real-time simulator
are given in TABLE I. The results are presented for the
following cases.
A. Case-1: Power flow control at same voltage
The real-time simulation is carried out for step change in
power command, where Pt is changed in steps from +10kW
to -10kW and vice-versa in every 5 sec. The system response
for V1 =380V and V2 =380V is shown in Fig.10. The point
X (at 3sec) and Y (at 8sec) indicate the sudden change
of power flow direction from bus-1 to bus-2 (from +10kW
to -10kW ) and bus-2 to bus-1 (from -10kW to +10kW )
respectively. The output voltage of DAB (Vo ) is held constant
(at ≈110V) irrespective of power flow direction. The output
voltage of the LFC (Vk ) changes its polarity and magnitude
and current entered to the bus-2 (I2 ) is positive upto point-
X, that indicates power in the transmission line is flowing
from bus-1 to bus-2. After the point-X, both currents (I1
and I2 ) are reversed for change of direction of power flow.
It clearly indicates that the direction of power flow can be
controlled by controlling the magnitude and polarity of Vk .
The corresponding terminal voltages V1 , V3 , V4 and V2 are
shown in Fig.10. The flow of power at terminal voltage V4
(i.e. Pt = V4 I2 ) is equal to 10kW in both directions of
power flow. It indicates that the desired power flow control
is possible irrespective of voltage magnitudes at two buses.
Moreover, power handled by the LFC (i.e. Po = Vk I2 ) is
less (nearly 10%) compared to power transfered between two
microgrids. The pictorial representation of power flow between
buses are shown in Fig.11. The power drawn from bus-1 is
more compared to the power entered to bus-2 because of losses
in the transmission line and LFC as observed in Fig.11 (a). The
reverse situation is shown in Fig.11 (b). In both directions of
power flow control, the LFC output voltage polarity is changed
to maintain the power flow at node V4 to its reference value
i.e. 10kW.
B. Case-2: Power flow control at different grid voltages
In a actual dc microgrids, the bus voltage can vary between
±5% of rated voltage, because the output fluctuations of
renewable energy sources. So, it is important to consider the
voltage difference among dc microgrids. The Fig.12 (a) and (b)
show power flow control and system response with different
bus voltage levels. Since the bus voltage levels are different,
the magnitudes of Vk is changed to control the same amount of
power-flow between grids compared to case-1. Fig.12 (a) and
(b) show the power handled by LFC (i.e. Po = Vk I2 ) is less
when power is transferred from higher voltage bus to lower
voltage bus (e.g. before point-X in Fig.12 (a)). On the contrary,
power handled by LFC is more when power is transferred from

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Fig. 12. Power flow in microgrids operating at different bus voltages ((a) V1 =380V, V2 =400V and (b) V1 =400V, V2 =380V): Vo -DAB output voltage (50V/div),
Vk -LFC output voltage (20V/div), I1 -Current from the bus-1 (25A/div), I2 -Current entered to the bus-2 (25A/div), V1 -Voltage at bus-1, V3 -Node voltage at
DAB input, V4 -Node voltage just after LFC, V2 -Voltage at bus-2 (70V/div)

Fig. 13. DC microgrids with PV, BESS and LFC

TABLE I
REAL-TIME (OPAL-RT) S IMULATOR PARAMETERS

parameter description
Type of simulation Real-Time
Time-step 35us Fig. 14. Power flow control between dc microgrids with three different
Operating System Linux based RedhatOS Operating Points (OPs): Ch-1:Vk -LFC output voltage (20V/div), Ch-2:V1 -
simulator OP5607 (RCP/HIL vitex7 FPGA processor) Grid-1 voltage, Ch-3:V2 -Grid-2 voltage, Ch-4:Pt -Power transfered through
the line

lower voltage bus to higher voltage bus (e.g. in between point C. Case-3: Power flow control between dc microgrids with PV
X and Y in Fig.12 (a)). During operation of LFC, the output and BESS
voltage of DAB (Vo ) is held constant (at ≈110V) irrespective So far DGs are replaced by voltage sources to investigate
of power flow direction. power transfer issues. Now a microgrid is considered with

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Fig. 15. Photographic view of the experimental prototype
PV, BESS and internal loads. This is shown in Fig.13. The
proposed LFC is successfully working under such circum-
stances and the results are shown in Fig.14 for three different
Operating Points (OPs). In OP-1, PV at bus-1 is operated
at MPPT and generates 4 kW power (PP V 1 ). The load is
consuming 6 kW (PL2 ) and the difference power is supplied
by the BESS. Similarly, at bus-2, PV is operated at MPPT
and generates 4 kW power. The load is 3 kW and the surplus
power is absorbed by the BESS. By this way, the voltage
of both the buses are maintained at their rated value. Hence
power through the LFC is zero as shown in Fig.14 (Ch-4).
The corresponding output voltage of LFC (Vk ), grid-1 voltage
(V1 ) and grid-2 voltage (V2 ) are shown in Fig.14.
In OP-2, The load connected at bus-1 (PL1 ) is suddenly
reduced to 1kW and PV output power is kept constant. The
load connected at bus-2 (i.e. PL2 ) is suddenly increased to
7kW and PV output power is almost constant. The power
generation is more compared to load power at grid-1 (Ppv1 >
PL1 + PB1 ) and the reverse situation has happened at grid-2
(Ppv1 + PB1 < PL1 ). In this situation, the difference power
available at bus-1 can be transferred to bus-2 through LFC
to match the load and generation at both of the buses. The
corresponding results are shown in Fig.14.
Reverse situation of OP-2 is considered in OP-3, where power
transfer is taken place from bus-2 to bus-1. The corresponding
results are presented in Fig.14.
VI. E XPERIMENTAL RESULTS
A. Prototype description
The prototype of the experimental system is shown in
Fig.15. The dc microgrids are formed with the help of 30V
dc regulated power supply and a variable resistance of 10Ω,
6.5A. Microgrid-1 and Microgrid-2 are connected at bus-
1 and bus-2 respectively. Two 0.5Ω (300W) resistances are
connected between the buses which represents equivalent
resistance of the transmission line. Semikron make half-bridge
IGBT module (SKM74GB12T4) is used to form DAB and
dc-dc converter of the power circuit. The transformer and
decoupled inductor are made with Ferrite core (N-87) of
size ETD-59. The primary and secondary windings of the
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Fig. 16. Performance under sudden change in power flow direction (V1 =30V,
V2 =30V): Ch-1:I1 -Current from the bus-1 (5A/div), Ch-2:I2 -Current entered
to the bus-2 (5A/div) , Ch-3:Vk -LFC output voltage (5V/div), Ch-4:Vo -DAB
output voltage (10V/div)
transformer have 12-turns and 6-turns, respectively. Remaining
parameters of the hardware are as follows: C1 =4700µF, 450V,
C2 =4700µF, 450V, Co =32µF, 100V, Lo =0.5mH, 10A and the
switching frequency is 10kHz. Entire control is implemented
in a OPAL-RT/OP5607 (RCP/HIL vertex-7 FPGA processor
and I/O expansion unit).
B. Power flow in microgrids operating at same bus voltage
Fig. 16 shows the waveforms when the power flow com-
mand is changed from +100W to -100W at the same bus
voltage level. The dirction of currents for I1 (Fig.16 (Ch-
1)) and I2 (Fig.16 (Ch-2)) changes based on the power flow
command. It clearly indicates that the magnitude of current
from bus-1 (I1 =4.5A) is more compared to current entered
into bus-2 (I2 =3A) during positive power flow command (i.e.
from bus-1 to bus-2). This is because, the extra power drawn
from bus-1 includes losses of LFC and line. The magnitudes
of these currents will be reversed during negative power flow
command, i.e. from bus-2 to bus-1. The LFC output voltage
(Fig.16 (Ch-3)) is changing its polarity to transfer the required
power flow between the dc-grids in appropriate direction. Note
that DAB output voltage (Fig.16 (Ch-4)) is maintained to its
reference value irrespective of power flow direction. These
waveforms clearly indicate the effectiveness of the proposed
LFC in power flow control between two dc microgrids.
C. Power flow in microgrids operating at different bus volt-
ages
Fig.17 and 18 show the waveforms when the power flow
command is changed from -70W to +70W at different oper-
ating conditions. In first condition, the bus voltages are set
at V1 =27V and V2 =30V corresponding to Fig.17. The reverse
situation is considered for Fig.18, where V1 =30V and V2 =27V.
It is observed that the output voltage of LFC (Ch-3 of Fig.17
and 18) is more when the power is transfered from lower
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Fig. 17. Performance under sudden change in power flow direction (V1 =27V,
V2 =30V): Ch-1:I1 -Current from the bus-1 (5A/div), Ch-2:I2 -Current entered
to the bus-2 (5A/div), Ch-3:Vk -LFC output voltage (10V/div), Ch-4:V4 -
Voltage after LFC (20V/div)
Fig. 18. Performance under sudden change in power flow direction (V1 =30V,
V2 =27V): Ch-1:I1 -Current from the bus-1 (5A/div), Ch-2:I2 -Current entered
to the bus-2 (5A/div), Ch-3:Vk -LFC output voltage (10V/div), Ch-4:V4 -
Voltage after LFC (10V/div)
voltage bus to higher voltage bus. The node voltage after LFC
(i.e. V4 ) is also shown in Fig. 17 and 18 (Ch-4) which is
changing according to the power flow command.
VII. C ONCLUSION
A novel power flow scheme to control power transfer
between two dc microgrids using Load Flow Converter (LFC)
is presented in this paper. Topologically, this is a cascading of
Dual Active Bridge (DAB) and a full bridge dc/dc converter
connected in input-shunt and output-series mode. The dc/dc
converter can generate both positive and negative voltages
and is therefore capable of controlling power flow in both
directions. The power rating of the LFC is found very low
(approximately 10%) compared to the power transfer between
the grids. The performance of LFC is extensively checked
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11
through real-time simulation and experimental prototype. The
proposed concept using LFC makes the power flow simple and
efficient at different voltage levels of grids and expected to be
very popular in future.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors acknowledge the support from Department of
Science and Technology (DST), Govt. of India and Engineer-
ing and Physical Research Council (EPSRC), UK through the
project Reliable and Efficient System for Community Energy
Solution (RESCUES/EP/K03619X/1).
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Umamaheswararao Vuyyuru (S’16) received his
B.Tech degree in Electrical and Electronics Engi-
neering from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological Uni-
versity, Kakinada and M. Tech Degree in Electrical
Engineering with specialization in Power Electronics
from National Institute of Technology Tiruchirap-
palli, India, in the year 2009 and 2012 respectively.
From June 2012 to May 2015, he has served as a
assistant professor in GVP college of Engineering,
India. He is pursuing his Ph.D in School of Energy
Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Tech-
nology Kharagpur, India. His research interests include DC microgrids and
power electronic converters.
Suman Maiti (M’10) received his BE degree from
Jalpaiguri Govt. Engineering College in 2002, Mas-
ter degree from IIEST Shibpur in 2004, and PhD
degree from Indian Institute of Technology Kharag-
pur in 2009. All the degrees are in Electrical Engi-
neering. Since 2009, he had been working with the
Research and Development (R&D) group of ABB
(India) Ltd. as an Associate Scientist. In 2014, he
joined in the department of Electrical Engineering,
Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur as an
Assistant Professor. His research interests include
topology evaluation and control of multilevel converters for high power
applications, AC/DC microgrids, Renewable energy integration and related
issues.
Chandan Chakraborty (S’92-M’97-SM’01-F’15)
received the B.E. and M.E. degrees in electrical en-
gineering from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India,
in 1987 and 1989, respectively, and the Ph.D degrees
from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur,
India and Mie University, Tsu, Japan, in 1997 and
2000, respectively. He is currently a Professor with
the Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian
Institute of Technology Kharagpur. His research
interest includes power converters, motor drives,
electric vehicles, and renewable energy.
Dr.Chakraborty was awarded the JSPS Fellowship to work at the University
of Tokyo during 20002002. He has received the Bimal Bose award in power
electronics in 2006 from the IETE (India). He has regularly contributed to
IES conferences such as IECON, ISIE, and ICIT as general chair/technical
program chair/track chair. He is an ADCOM Member of the IEEE Industrial
Electronics Society. He is a co Editor-in-Chief of IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON
INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS, an associate editor of IEEE INDUSTRIAL
ELECTRONICS MAGAZINE and an Editor of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS
ON SUSTAINABLE ENERGY. He is also an editor of IEEE POWER ENGI-
NEERING LETTERS. He is the Founding Editor-in-Chief of IE Technology
News (ITeN), a web-only publication for IEEE Industrial Electronics Society.
He is a Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE).