IEEE JOURNAL OF EMERGING AND SELECTED TOPICS IN POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 8, NO.
2, JUNE 2020 963
A Comparative Study of Two Widely Used
Grid-Forming Droop Controls on Microgrid
Small-Signal Stability
Wei Du , Member, IEEE, Zhe Chen, Student Member, IEEE, Kevin P. Schneider , Senior Member, IEEE,
Robert H. Lasseter, Life Fellow, IEEE, Sai Pushpak Nandanoori, Member, IEEE,
Francis K. Tuffner , Member, IEEE, and Soumya Kundu, Member, IEEE
Abstract— Historically, two similar grid-forming droop con-
trols are widely reported in literature—the single-loop and multi-
loop droop controls. Although being very similar, the authors
find that the dynamic performance and stability characteristics of
each control method are very different in a microgrid. Compared
with the single-loop droop control, the multi-loop droop control
is prone to be less damped and loses stability more easily
under some circumstances. This article provides a novel insight
into the different dynamic responses of the two basic controls.
It points out that the two similar controls adjust the angular
frequency and voltage magnitude at different locations within the
inverter, resulting in different coupling reactances that impact
the dynamic response and stability of microgrids differently.
The use of the single-loop droop control results in a larger
coupling reactance, which helps improve the dynamic response
and stability. This novel insight is verified through full-order
small-signal analysis, offline electromagnetic transient simulation,
and real-time hardware-in-the-loop simulation experiments. The
results show that the microgrid has a larger small-signal stability
boundary when using single-loop droop control, and this differ-
ence increases as the value of an inverter’s inner filter inductance
increases.
Index Terms— Droop control, grid-forming, inverter,
microgrid, stability.
I. I NTRODUCTION
G RID-FORMING inverters are crucial to the operation
of an inverter-based microgrid because of their ability
to independently generate the voltage and frequency of an
Manuscript received June 11, 2019; revised August 6, 2019 and
September 13, 2019; accepted September 15, 2019. Date of publication
September 19, 2019; date of current version May 6, 2020. The Pacific North-
west National Laboratory is operated by Battelle for the U.S. Department of
Energy under Contract DE-AC05-76RL01830. Recommended for publication
by Associate Editor Mario Paolone. (Corresponding author: Wei Du.)
W. Du, S. Pushpak Nandanoori, and S. Kundu are with the
Electricity Infrastructure Group, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory,
Richland, WA 99354 USA (e-mail: wei.du@pnnl.gov; saipushpak.n@
pnnl.gov; soumya.kundu@pnnl.gov).
Z. Chen and R. H. Lasseter are with the Department of Electrical and
Computer Engineering, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison,
WI 53706-1691 USA (e-mail: zchen275@wisc.edu; lasseter@engr.wisc.edu).
K. P. Schneider and F. K. Tuffner are with the Electricity Infrastruc-
ture Group, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Seattle Research Cen-
ter, Seattle, WA 98109 USA (e-mail: kevin.schneider@pnnl.gov; francis.
tuffner@pnnl.gov).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this article are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JESTPE.2019.2942491
U.S. Government work not protected by U.S. copyright.
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islanded system [1], [2]. Droop control is a well-established
method that enables multiple grid-forming inverters to
operate in a stable manner [3]. Historically, one of the
two droop controls is typically used for grid-forming
inverters—single-loop droop control [3] or multi-loop droop
control [4]–[6]. The single-loop droop control was developed
by the Consortium for Electric Reliability Technology
Solutions (CERTS) Microgrid program [2] and has been
applied in several MW-level microgrid projects [7]–[10].
The multi-loop droop control is also widely reported in both
academia and industry [5], [6], [11]–[15]. In recent years,
numerous new control strategies have been developed based
on these two basic controls [16]–[21], but few references
study the fundamental differences between them.
Despite being very similar, the authors find that the dynamic
response and stability characteristics of these two controls are
very different in a microgrid. The multi-loop droop control
is prone to be less damped and loses stability more easily
under some circumstances. The work in [22] notices the
difference in the dynamic responses between the two controls,
but it does not discuss the mechanism that causes this dif-
ference. In [10] and [5], the full-order small-signal models
of the inverter-based microgrids with single-loop and multi-
loop droop controls are established, respectively. However,
there is a lack of comparative study of the dynamic response
and stability between them. The work in [23] proposes a
reduced-order model of grid-forming inverters to assess the
stability of microgrids, but only the multi-loop droop control
is considered. As shown in later sections of this article, the use
of the single-loop droop control results in a different stability
boundary of microgrids.
To better understand the fundamental differences between
the two basic controls, and their impacts on microgrid stability,
a comprehensive comparative study is conducted in this article.
More importantly, this article provides a novel insight into
the different dynamic response and stability characteristics of
the two controls. It points out that these two controls adjust the
angular frequency and voltage magnitude at different locations
within the inverter. Specifically, the single-loop droop control
controls the angular frequency and the magnitude at the
inverter’s internal voltage, while the multi-loop droop control
964 IEEE JOURNAL OF EMERGING AND SELECTED TOPICS IN POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 8, NO. 2, JUNE 2020
Fig. 1. Basic model of a grid-forming inverter.
controls the angular frequency and the magnitude at the
inverter’s filter capacitor voltage. This results in a different
coupling reactance X L of the grid-forming inverter, resulting
in a different overall X/R ratio of the microgrid. Therefore,
the dynamic response and stability characteristics are different.
This novel insight is verified through extensive full-order
small-signal analysis, offline electromagnetic transient sim-
ulation, and real-time hardware-in-the-loop (HiL) simulation
experiments. The study results show that the microgrid has a
larger small-signal stability boundary when using the single-
loop droop control, and this difference in the stability bound-
ary increases as the value of an inverter’s inner inductance
increases. The novel insight provided in this article, along
with the rigorous small-signal analysis, electromagnetic tran-
sient simulation, and HiL simulation experiment, advances the
understanding of how to design grid-forming droop controls
to improve the dynamic response and stability of microgrids.
II. BASIC C ONCEPT OF A G RID -F ORMING I NVERTER
A grid-forming inverter fundamentally behaves as a voltage
source behind a coupling reactance X L , which controls
both the voltage magnitude E and the angular frequency ω,
as shown in Fig. 1. The coupling reactance, X L , plays a
critical role in controller design. By properly sizing X L
(e.g., between 0.05 and 0.15 pu on an inverter rating base),
the active power P and the reactive power Q are decoupled.
As shown in (1)–(3), P is approximately linear with the phase
angle difference δ P , and Q is approximately linear with the
internal voltage magnitude E. This decoupling reduces the
controller design complexity [3]
δ p = δ E − δV
EV EV
P = sin δ p ≈ δp
XL XL
E 2 − E V cos δ p E(E − V )
Q= ≈ .
XL XL
III. C OMPARISON OF T WO BASIC G RID -F ORMING
D ROOP C ONTROLS
Fig. 2(a) and (b) shows the inverter main circuits and
the control blocks of the single-loop and multi-loop droop
controls. Grid-forming inverters are typically connected to the
microgrid through an inductor–capacitor–inductor (LCL) filter,
with example versions of the two grid-forming droop controls
configured as shown in Fig. 2(a) and (b). This section provides
a detailed explanation of the primary differences between the
two controls.
Note that according to the definition in [11], the two droop
controls studied in this article should be “grid-supporting,” not
“grid-forming,” because they adjust the frequency and voltage
magnitude according to the P– f droop and Q–V droop,
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respectively. However, in this article, the grid-forming inverter
refers to an inverter that has the capability to work in the stand-
alone mode and supply the load by itself. Although the P– f
droop and Q–V droop are used, they still allow the inverters
to work in the stand-alone mode. As a result, in this article,
the term “grid-forming droop control” is used to represent the
two controls.
A. Single-Loop Droop Control
Fig. 2(a) shows the single-loop droop control of a grid-
forming inverter. This control strategy was developed by the
CERTS Microgrid program [2]. Extensive tests of this control
strategy have been conducted at the CERTS/American Electric
Power microgrid test bed over the past 15 years [2], [10],
[15], [24]. The controller includes two droop controls: the
P– f droop control and the Q–V droop control. In addition,
an overload mitigation control was developed by the CERTS
Microgrid program [25], but it is not studied here because it
is out of the scope of this article.
As shown in Fig. 2(a), the controller measures the grid-
side voltage v g and output current i o and calculates the
instantaneous active power P, reactive power Q, and voltage
magnitude Vmag in αβ stationary reference frame, as shown
P = v gα i oα + v gβ i oβ (4)
Q = v gβ i oα − v gα i oβ (5)

Vmag = v gα
2 + v2 .
gβ (6)
The instantaneous values P, Q, and Vmag are passed through
the low-pass filters to obtain the values Pf , Q f , and Vmagf that
correspond to the fundamental component, as shown in (7).
The value of the time constant T in the low-pass filter is
usually selected as 0.01 s. The calculation of Pf , Q f , and
Vmagf allows the use of the P– f and Q–V droop controls
1 1 1
Pf = P, Qf = Q, Vmagf = Vmag .
1 + Ts 1 + Ts 1 + Ts
(7)
(1)
When two grid-forming inverters operate in parallel under
(2)
the P– f droop control, any disturbance causes an increase in
the output power of one inverter. This causes its P– f droop
(3) control to reduce the angular frequency ω of the internal volt-
age E inv  δinv so that the phase angle of the internal voltage,
δinv , is reduced, preventing the inverter from further increasing
its output power. This negative-feedback control mechanism
guarantees the stability when multiple grid-forming inverters
work in parallel. As shown in Fig. 2(a), m p is the P– f droop
coefficient, Pset is the active power set point, ω0 is the rated
angular frequency, and θinv is the instantaneous angle obtained
from the integration of ω.
The Q–V droop control prevents circulating the reactive
power between grid-forming inverters. As shown in Fig. 2(a),
the Q–V droop control guarantees that the magnitude
of the grid-side voltage has a predefined Q–V droop
characteristic by regulating the magnitude of the inverter
internal voltage, E inv , through an integral controller. m q is
the Q–V droop coefficient, Vset is the voltage set point, and
DU et al.: COMPARATIVE STUDY OF TWO WIDELY USED GRID-FORMING DROOP CONTROLS 965

Fig. 2. Inverters with two basic grid-forming droop controls and their equivalent circuits in the fundamental frequency. (a) Single-loop droop control.
(b) Multi-loop droop control. (c) Equivalent circuit of an inverter with the single-loop droop control. (d) Equivalent circuit of an inverter with the multi-loop
droop control.

kiv is the integral gain of the integral controller. Note that the
function of the Q–V droop control is to avoid circulating the
reactive power between inverters in steady state. Therefore,
the response of the integral controller does not need to be
very fast. A time constant between 0.1 and 0.3 s would be
enough. During load transients, the inverter internal voltage
magnitude E inv can be assumed to be approximately constant,
and X L limits the circulating reactive power between grid-
forming inverters. As shown in Fig. 2(a), once the magnitude
∗ and the instantaneous angle θ
reference E inv inv are obtained, Fig. 3. Inner control loops. (a) Voltage loop. (b) Current loop.
the modulation waveform mcan be generated to allow the
pulsewidth modulation (PWM) control.
According to the above analysis, although the single-loop dq rotational reference frame, as shown
droop control measures the grid-side voltage and current,
it treats the internal voltage E inv  δinv as a controllable volt- P = v od i od + v oq i oq (8)
age source and controls its angular frequency ω and mag- Q = v od i oq − v oq i od . (9)
nitude E inv according to the P– f droop and Q–V droop,
respectively. Although the instantaneous value of the internal Being similar to the single-loop droop control, the instan-
voltage einv has a significant amount of harmonics due to taneous values P and Q are passed through the low-pass
the high-frequency switching, they can be filtered by the filters to obtain the values of Pf and Q f according to (7). The
LCL filter. calculation of the voltage magnitude of the filter capacitor is
not needed for the multi-loop droop control. The value of time
constant T in the low-pass filter is selected as 0.01 s. The
calculation of Pf and Q f allows the use of P– f and Q–V
B. Multi-Loop Droop Control
droop controls, as shown in Fig. 2(b).
Fig. 2(b) shows the multi-loop droop control of a grid- Fig. 3(a) and (b) shows the typical control blocks of the
forming inverter. This control strategy is widely reported in inner voltage and current control loops, respectively. The
the literature [4]–[6], [11]–[14]. The controller has a cascaded ∗ and i ∗ , are the current
outputs of the voltage control loop, i ld lq
structure, including the P– f and Q–V droop control loops, references in the dq-frame for the current control loop. The
inner voltage control loop, and inner current control loop. outputs of the current control loop, einvd∗ ∗
and einvq , are the
As shown in Fig. 2(b), the controller measures the filter internal voltage reference in the dq-frame for PWM control.
capacitor voltage v o and output current i o , as well as calculates The purpose of adding the additional inner voltage and cur-
the instantaneous active power P and reactive power Q in the rent loops is to guarantee fast control of the inverter filter

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966 IEEE JOURNAL OF EMERGING AND SELECTED TOPICS IN POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 8, NO. 2, JUNE 2020
capacitor voltage, Vo  δo . If the parameters of the voltage and
current loops are well-designed, the filter capacitor voltage
Vo  δo behaves approximately as a controllable voltage source.
Therefore, the design principle of this control strategy is
that it first makes the inverter filter capacitor voltage Vo  δo
approximately a controllable voltage source through well-
tuned voltage and current control loops; then, it regulates the
angular frequency and the magnitude of the voltage Vo  δo
according to the P– f droop and Q–V droop, respectively.
∗ and v ∗ are the input references of the voltage loop, and
v od oq
v od and v oq are the dq-frame components of the filter capacitor
voltage v o . kvp and kvi are the proportional and integral gains
of the voltage control loop, respectively. i ld and i lq are the
dq-frame components of the inner current i l . kip and kii are
the proportional and integral gains of the current control loop,
respectively. θo is the instantaneous angle obtained from the
integration of ω.
C. Fundamental Difference in Controller Design
Although the multi-loop droop control is very similar to
the single-loop droop control, a fundamental difference is
that the former controls the angular frequency and magnitude
of an inverter’s filter capacitor voltage Vo  δo , while the
latter controls the angular frequency and magnitude of an
inverter’s internal voltage E inv  δinv . For example, when the
loads increase, the P– f droop control of the multi-loop droop
control reduces the angular frequency ω of the filter capacitor
voltage Vo  δo so that it reduces the phase angle δo , while the
P– f droop control of the single-loop droop control reduces
the angular frequency ω of the internal voltage E inv  δinv so
that it reduces the phase angle δinv . The work in [26] points
out that due to the delay effect in the voltage and current
loops, the capacitor voltage Vo  δo may not behave as an
ideal voltage source, so the closed-loop output impedance
needs to be considered. However, the multi-loop droop control
physically regulates the angular frequency ω and magnitude
of the filter capacitor voltage Vo  δo whether it behaves as an
ideal voltage source or not.
D. Equivalent Circuits in Fundamental Frequency
Based on the above discussion, the equivalent circuits of
inverters with the two basic controls can be derived as shown
in Fig. 2(c) and (d). Because the single-loop droop control
controls the angular frequency and magnitude of the inverter
internal voltage, the equivalent circuit in the fundamental
frequency is a controllable voltage source behind inductance
L 1 and L 2 . Both L 1 and L 2 must be counted for the coupling
reactance X L . The filter capacitor C1 can be ignored due to its
small value in the fundamental frequency. In addition, it should
be noted that the derivation of Fig. 2(c) is also based on the fact
that the response of the voltage loop in the single-loop droop
control is usually slow, as introduced in the description of the
Q–V droop control in Section III-A. In contrast, because the
multi-loop droop control controls the angular frequency and
magnitude of the filter capacitor voltage, the equivalent circuit
in the fundamental frequency is a controllable voltage source
behind inductance L 2 . Only L 2 should be counted for X L
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Fig. 4. Studied microgrid.
TABLE I
I NVERTER LCL F ILTER AND N ETWORK PARAMETERS
when using multi-loop droop control. The fast inner voltage
and current loops compensate for the dynamics of L 1 and C1 .
Note that the derivation of Fig. 2(d) is based on the assumption
that the inner voltage and current loops achieve fast control of
the filter capacitor voltage, so it can behave approximately as
a controllable voltage source.
The difference in coupling reactance X L of these two
controls causes variations in the overall X/R ratio of micro-
grids, resulting in different dynamic response and stability
characteristics, as will be shown in later sections.
E. Current Limiting
It was once thought that one advantage of the multi-
loop droop control was that it could limit the over-current
during faults due to the existence of an inner current loop.
However, the work in [8] points out that the use of current
reference saturation limiting results in microgrid instability.
To limit over-current, extra controls need to be added on
both the single-loop and multi-loop droop controls, such as
virtual impedance [17], [21], [27]. This article focuses only
on studying the two basic grid-forming droop controls, with
future work examining the current-limiting control strategy for
both controls.
IV. S TUDIED S YSTEM
A two-source inverter-based microgrid is used to demon-
strate how these two different inverter control strategies
impact the dynamic performance and stability of microgrids.
Fig. 4 shows the one-line diagram of the studied three-
phase microgrid. In the microgrid, two identical 100-kW grid-
forming inverters supply the load. The rated capacity and the
rated voltage are 100 kW and 480 V, respectively, and the rated
frequency is 60 Hz. The P– f droop and Q–V droop for each
inverter are 1% and 5% on an inverter rating base, respectively.
The values of the line impedances are shown in Fig. 4 and
are also listed in Table I. The other parameters of the two
controllers are listed in Tables II–IV.
A. Line Impedance Selection
In a microgrid environment, the value of the line impedance
is usually small because the sources are closer to the loads.
DU et al.: COMPARATIVE STUDY OF TWO WIDELY USED GRID-FORMING DROOP CONTROLS
TABLE II
S INGLE -L OOP D ROOP C ONTROLLER PARAMETERS
TABLE III
M ULTI -L OOP D ROOP C ONTROLLER PARAMETERS , C ASE I
TABLE IV
M ULTI -L OOP D ROOP C ONTROLLER PARAMETERS , C ASE II
In addition, the X/R ratio of a low-voltage distribution line is
usually significantly lower than the high-voltage transmission
line [28]. In the studied microgrid, the line resistance RLine
is selected as 0.02 pu on an inverter rating base, indicating
that there is a 2% power loss on the lines at full load. The
X/R ratio for the distribution lines is selected as 0.5, which
is a typical value for low-voltage distribution lines. As seen
in Fig. 4, the microgrid line impedance is mainly resistive and
the impedance value is small.
B. Inverter LCL Filter Selection
The inverters usually need the LCL filters to mitigate the
harmonic voltages produced by the PWM process. The work
in [29] provides a step-by-step procedure for designing the
LCL filter for traditional current-controlled, grid-connected
inverters (known as grid-following inverters) to reduce the
switching frequency ripple at a reasonable cost, while at the
same time achieving a good dynamic performance. However,
due to the change in the control objective and operation
environment, the procedure provided in [29] may not apply to
grid-forming inverters. For example, this article shows that the
coupling reactance X L plays a critical role in maintaining the
microgrid stability when using grid-forming droop controls.
For most inverters above 10 kW, the value of inner filter L 1
is usually between 0.05 and 0.15 pu and is larger than the
value of the outer filter L 2 [5], [17], [30]. Some inverters
even exclude the outer filter L 2 [4], [26]. In contrast, the
CERTS microgrid prefers an outer filter L 2 that is larger than
the inner filter L 1 [2]. To achieve a better comparison, both
situations are considered in the following sections. In Case I,
L 1 is larger than L 2 for both inverters, and in Case II, L 1 is
smaller than L 2 for both inverters. When compared with the
line impedance, although the values of L 1 and L 2 might be
different for different inverter configurations, the total value
of the filter reactance is typically larger than the value of the
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967
Fig. 5. Quasi-static reduced-order small-signal model of a droop-controlled
grid-forming inverter connected to an infinite bus.
line impedance. As a result, the filter reactance is typically
more important than the line impedance for microgrid stability.
The resistances of the LCL filter are ignored in this article due
to their small values.
V. S MALL -S IGNAL A NALYSIS AND S IMULATION
To verify and further explain the insight provided in
Section III, Cases I and II are specifically designed based
on the microgrid described in Fig. 4 to demonstrate how
the difference in X L caused by the two controls affects the
dynamic response and stability of microgrids. Rigorous small-
signal analysis, offline electromagnetic transient simulation,
and real-time HiL simulation experiments are conducted in
the following sections.
A quasi-static reduced-order small-signal model of the
simple system described in Fig. 1 was first established.
As shown in Fig. 5, this simple model shows that increasing
X L decreases the gain in the system. A larger X L indicates
a higher P– f droop gain to maintain the stability. Therefore,
Fig. 5 implies that the two controls might impact the dynamic
response differently, even with the same LCL filter and P– f
droop gain, due to the difference in X L caused by the two
controls, as discussed in Section III.
However, although this quasi-static model helps understand
how X L affects the dynamic response of the system, one
major issue is that it cannot predict the stability of the
system due to the fact that the dynamics of X L and network
are ignored [23]. Therefore, to further investigate how the
difference in X L caused by the two controls affects the stability
of microgrids, two rigorous full-order small-signal models of
the microgrid described in Fig. 4 are derived. In the first
model, both inverters use the single-loop droop control, and
in the second model, both inverters use the multi-loop droop
control. The small-signal models are derived based on the
work in [5] and [31]. The models consider the dynamics
of the network, LCL filters, and controllers; only the high-
frequency switching is ignored. The first model has 22 state
variables, and the second model has 26 state variables. Note
that due to the high orders of the developed models, there are
multiple pairs of eigenvalues in the system. For the readers’
convenience, this article only presents the eigenvalues that
affect stability. The other eigenvalues that are far away from
the imaginary axis are not presented in this article.
Being different from the small-signal models, detailed
inverter switching models are modeled in both offline elec-
tromagnetic simulation and real-time HiL simulation. The
offline electromagnetic transient simulation is conducted in
the PSCAD simulation environment [32]. Sinusoidal PWM
968 IEEE JOURNAL OF EMERGING AND SELECTED TOPICS IN POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 8, NO. 2, JUNE 2020
Fig. 6. Circuits for Case I. (a) Studied microgrid. (b) Equivalent circuit of
the inverter with the single-loop droop control. (c) Equivalent circuit of the
inverter with the multi-loop droop control.
is used for inverters in PSCAD with a switching frequency
of 12 kHz. The real-time HiL simulation is conducted at the
OPAL-RT OP5600 platform [33], and a TI 28335 DSP [34]
is used as the digital controller to implement the two control
strategies and generate gate signals for one inverter. In the real-
time HiL simulation, space vector PWM is used for inverters
with the same switching frequency as that used in PSCAD. The
simulation scenario is that two 100-kW inverters equally share
100 kW of load initially, and the power set point of inverter 1
is dispatched from 0.5 to 1 pu at t = 0.1 s. In Case I, the value
of L 1 is larger than L 2 , and in Case II, the values of L 1 and L 2
are switched. For each case, the two basic grid-forming droop
controls are compared under different P– f droop gains.
It should be noted that the oscillation mode studied in
this article is caused by the interactions between grid-forming
inverters, which is mainly affected by the coupling reactance
X L and P– f droop gains. Therefore, Cases I and II only
present the results of how L 1 , L 2 , and P– f droop gain
affect the stability. In addition, inappropriate parameters of
the inner controllers can also cause poor dynamic performance
and instability. However, those results should be attributed to
inappropriate selection of parameters for the inner controllers,
and hence should not be used for comparison. The comparative
studies in Cases I and II are based on well-designed parameters
of the inner controllers for both controls. A detailed discussion
of how the parameters of the inner controllers are chosen and
how they influence the stability is provided in Section VIII.
VI. C ASE I: L 1 > L 2
In Case I, L 1 is selected as 0.06 pu and L 2 is selected as
0.01 pu for both inverters, as shown in Fig. 6(a). With this filter
configuration, according to Fig. 2(c), the value of X L should
be 0.07 pu (L 1 + L 2 = 0.07) when using a single-loop droop
control, resulting in an overall X/R ratio of 4 for the microgrid.
In contrast, according to Fig. 2(d), the value of X L should be
0.01 pu (L 2 = 0.01) when a using multi-loop droop control,
resulting in an overall X/R ratio of 1 for the microgrid. Again,
only L 2 should be counted for X L when using the multi-loop
droop control, and the fast inner voltage and current control
loops compensate for the coupling reactance function of L 1 .
To guarantee fast control of the filter capacitor voltage when
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Fig. 7. Traces of eigenvalues as the P– f droop gain increases, Case I.
(a) Single-loop droop control. (b) Multi-loop droop control.
using the multi-loop droop control, the gains for the voltage
loop were selected as kvp = 20 pu/s and kvi = 400 pu/s; the
gains for the current loop were selected as kip = 2 pu and
kii = 100 pu/s. Fig. 6(b) and (c) shows the equivalent circuits
of the inverters with the two controls. The following small-
signal analysis and simulations show that the difference in the
value of X L results in significantly diverse dynamic response
and stability characteristics.
A. Small-Signal Analysis
Extensive eigenvalue analysis was conducted to study how
the variation in the controller parameters impacts the small-
signal stability. Fig. 7(a) and (b) shows the traces of eigenval-
ues as the P– f droop gain increases under the two controls.
As seen in Fig. 7(a), when the single-loop droop control is
used, the system does not lose stability until the P– f droop
is larger than 9.2%. In contrast, when the multi-loop
droop control is used, the system loses stability once the
P– f droop is larger than 2.3%, as shown in Fig. 7(b). This
comparison shows that the single-loop droop control can
allow a much larger P– f droop gain without losing stability.
This difference can be attributed to the different values of
X L caused by the two controls. Specifically, the value of
X L is too small when using the multi-loop droop control,
deteriorating the control effect of droop control.
As introduced in Section II, a properly designed X L is crit-
ical for droop control to be effective. Therefore, a P– f droop
gain versus filter inductance 2-D eigenvalue scan is performed,
and approximate linear stability boundaries are obtained.
Fig. 8(a) and (b) shows the P– f droop versus L 1 boundaries
for both controls. As shown in Fig. 8(a), when using the
single-loop droop control for both inverters, the increase in
L 1 allows a larger P– f droop gain to maintain stability. This
is because L 1 is counted for X L when using the single-loop
droop control, as shown in Fig. 6(b). In contrast, when using
the multi-loop droop control, the variation in L 1 does not
affect the stability boundary, as shown in Fig. 8(b). This is
because the fast inner voltage and current loops of the multi-
loop droop control compensate for the function of L 1 as a
coupling reactance, so its variation does not have an impact
on X L .
Fig. 9(a) and (b) shows the P– f droop versus L 2 boundaries
for both controls. The increase in L 2 results in a larger P– f
droop to maintain stability for both controls. In conclusion,
DU et al.: COMPARATIVE STUDY OF TWO WIDELY USED GRID-FORMING DROOP CONTROLS
Fig. 8. P– f droop versus L 1 small-signal stability boundary, Case I.
(a) Single-loop droop control. (b) Multi-loop droop control.
Fig. 9. P– f droop versus L 2 small-signal stability boundary, Case I.
(a) Single-loop droop control. (b) Multi-loop droop control.
Fig. 10. Case I, 1% P– f droop. Pset1 increases from 0.5 to 1 pu at
t = 0.1 s. (a) and (b) P and Q when using the single-loop droop control.
(c) and (d) P and Q when using the multi-loop droop control.
the results in Figs. 8 and 9 verify the insight provided in
Section III that both L 1 and L 2 must be counted for X L when
using the single-loop droop control, while only L 2 is counted
for X L when using the multi-loop droop control. The “×” and
“♦” symbols in Figs. 8 and 9 are tied to the simulation results
presented Section VI-B in Figs. 10 and 11. Note that the gains
of the inner voltage and current loops of the multi-loop droop
control are kept the same during the eigenvalue scan, as they
are designed large enough to guarantee fast control of the filter
capacitor voltage when L 1 changes from 0.01 to 0.12 pu. The
parameter of the inner voltage loop of the single-loop droop
control kiv is also kept the same during the scan.
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969
Fig. 11. Case I, 3% P– f droop. Pset1 increases from 0.5 to 1 pu at
t = 0.1 s. (a) and (b) P and Q when using the single-loop droop control.
(c) and (d) P and Q when using the multi-loop droop control.
B. Simulation
Fig. 10(a)–(d) shows both the PSCAD and HiL simulation
results when the 1% P– f droop is used for both controls.
It can be seen that the PSCAD simulation results match well
with the HiL simulation results, verifying the correctness of
both models. As shown in Fig. 10(a) and (b), when using
the single-loop droop control for both inverters, the output
active power and reactive power of each inverter quickly reach
steady state within 0.1 s, showing a good dynamic response.
In contrast, when using the multi-loop droop control for
both inverters, although remaining stable, there are significant
oscillations during transient, as shown in Fig. 10(c) and (d).
As discussed in Section III, this is because even with the same
LCL filter, the inverter has a much smaller X L when using the
multi-loop droop control, resulting in a less-damped dynamic
response of the system.
Fig. 11(a)–(d) shows both the PSCAD and HiL simula-
tion results when the P– f droop is increased to 3% for
both controls. Fig. 11(a) and (b) shows that the microgrid
remains stable when using the single-loop droop control, while
Fig. 11(c) and (d) shows that the microgrid loses stability
when using the multi-loop droop control. It is important to
note that many small-size off-the-shelf synchronous generators
have a fixed 4%–5% governor droop [35]. This indicates that
the inverters should have a 4%–5% P– f droop if they are
required to share loads with synchronous generators in the
microgrids. Therefore, the value of L 2 needs to be increased
to allow a higher droop gain without losing stability when
using the multi-loop droop control.
Fig. 12 shows the currents of Inverter 2 of the HiL test
results when using the multi-loop droop control with a 3%
P– f droop. After the disturbance, the currents are distorted
and cannot maintain stability.
By comparing the small-signal analysis and simulation,
it can be seen that the small-signal analysis has accurately
predicted the simulation results. As indicated by the green
“×” symbols in Figs. 8(a) and 9(a), the microgrid is stable
970 IEEE JOURNAL OF EMERGING AND SELECTED TOPICS IN POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 8, NO. 2, JUNE 2020
Fig. 12. Three-phase currents of Inverter 2 when using the multi-loop droop
control with 3% P– f droop.
Fig. 13. Circuits for Case II. (a) Studied microgrid. (b) Equivalent circuit of
the inverter with the single-loop droop control. (c) Equivalent circuit of the
inverter with the multi-loop droop control.
when both inverters use the single-loop droop control with
a 1% P– f droop, which agrees with the simulation results
in Fig. 10(a) and (b). Similarly, the green “×” sym-
bols in Figs. 8(b) and 9(b) predict the stable simula-
tion results in Fig. 10(c) and (d). The green “♦” sym-
bols in Figs. 8(a) and 9(a) predict the stable simulation
results in Fig. 11(a) and (b), and the red “♦” symbols
in Figs. 8(b) and 9(b) predict the unstable simulation results
in Fig. 11(c) and (d). Both small-signal analysis and simulation
show that the single-loop droop control has a larger stability
boundary and a better dynamic performance in this case.
VII. C ASE II: L 1 < L 2
In Case II, the values of L 1 and L 2 are switched, with
L 1 equal to 0.01 pu and L 2 equal to 0.06 pu, as shown in
Fig. 13(a). The filter configuration results in a similar coupling
reactance X L for both droop controls, as shown in Fig. 13(b)
and (c). When using the single-loop droop control, X L is
still 0.07 pu (L 1 + L 2 = 0.07), while X L is increased to
0.06 pu (L 2 = 0.06) when using the multi-loop droop control,
much larger than the value in Case I. The following small-
signal analysis and simulations show that the similar value
of X L results in a similar dynamic response and stability
characteristics for both controls.
It should be noted that for the multi-loop droop control,
instability with a high-frequency oscillation is observed in the
HiL experiment when using the same gains of the inner voltage
and current loops as those in Case I. This is because the
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Fig. 14. Traces of eigenvalues as the P– f droop gain increases, Case II.
(a) Single-loop droop control. (b) Multi-loop droop control.
Fig. 15. P– f droop versus L 1 small-signal stability boundary, Case II.
(a) Single-loop droop control. (b) Multi-loop droop control.
decrease in the value of L 1 results in a significant increase in
the bandwidth of the inner control loops, which is close to the
PWM switching frequency, and hence causes high-frequency
instability. Therefore, the gains of the inner voltage and current
loops are reduced to half of the gains used in Case I to avoid
high-frequency instability. However, the gains are still large
enough to guarantee fast control of the filter capacitor voltage
when using the multi-loop droop control. On the other hand,
for the single-loop droop control, the parameter of the inner
voltage loop, kiv , is kept the same with Case I, as it does not
cause any high-frequency instability.
A. Small-Signal Analysis
Fig. 14(a) and (b) shows the traces of eigenvalues as the
P– f droop gain increases when the two controls are used.
With the values of L 1 and L 2 switched, the two droop
controls exhibit similar small-signal stability characteristics.
By comparing Figs. 7(a) and 14(a), it can be seen that when
using the single-loop droop control, the switch of L 1 and L 2
does not change the small-signal stability. This is because the
value of X L is not changed when using the single-loop droop
control. In contrast, by comparing Figs. 7(b) and 14(b), it can
be seen that the switch of L 1 and L 2 results in a much larger
P– f droop gain to maintain stability when using the multi-
loop droop control. The maximum P– f droop gain to maintain
stability is increased from 2.3% to 8.4%. This is because the
switch of L 1 and L 2 results in a much larger X L for the multi-
loop droop control.
Fig. 15(a) and (b) shows the P– f droop versus L 1 bound-
aries for both controls. Being similar to Fig. 8(a) and (b),
when the single-loop droop control is used, the increase in
L 1 results in a larger P– f droop gain to maintain stability,
DU et al.: COMPARATIVE STUDY OF TWO WIDELY USED GRID-FORMING DROOP CONTROLS
Fig. 16. P– f droop versus L 2 small-signal stability boundary, Case II.
(a) Single-loop droop control. (b) Multi-loop droop control.
Fig. 17. Case II, 1% P– f droop. Pset1 increases from 0.5 to 1 pu at
t = 0.1 s. (a) and (b) P and Q when using the single-loop droop control.
(c) and (d) P and Q when using the multi-loop droop control.
and when the multi-loop droop control is used, the variation
in L 1 does not affect the stability boundary. The boundaries
shown in Fig. 15(a) and (b) are higher than the boundaries
shown in Fig. 8(a) and (b). This is because in Case II,
L 2 is fixed at 0.06 pu when L 1 changes, while in Case I,
L 2 is fixed at 0.01 pu when L 1 changes. Fig. 16(a) and (b)
shows the P– f droop versus L 2 boundaries for both controls.
No matter which control is used, the increase in L 2 can
increase the stability boundaries. Again, these small-signal
stability boundaries verify the insight provided in Section III.
The three symbols “×,” “♦,” and “+” in Figs. 15 and 16 are
tied to the simulation results in Figs. 17–19. Note that the
parameters of the inner controllers are kept the same for both
controls during the eigenvalue scan.
B. Simulation
Fig. 17(a)–(d) shows both the PSCAD and HiL simulation
results when 1% P– f droop is used for both controls. Again,
the PSCAD simulation results match very well with the HiL
simulation results, and hence verify the accuracy of both
simulation approaches.
By comparing the results shown in Fig. 17(a) and (b) in
Case II and the results shown in Fig. 10(a) and (b) in Case I,
it can be seen that the dynamic performances are basically the
same. This is because the value of X L remains the same before
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971
Fig. 18. Case II, 3% P– f droop. Pset1 increases from 0.5 to 1 pu at
t = 0.1 s. (a) and (b) P and Q when using the single-loop droop control.
(c) and (d) P and Q when using the multi-loop droop control.
and after switching the values of L 1 and L 2 when using the
single-loop droop control. In contrast, by comparing the results
shown in Fig. 17(c) and (d) in Case II and the results shown
in Fig. 10(c) and (d) in Case I, it can be seen that the damping
is significantly improved in Case II. This is because the value
of X L is significantly improved after switching the values of
L 1 and L 2 when using the multi-loop droop control. Further-
more, by comparing the results shown in Fig. 17(a) and (b)
and the results shown in Fig. 17(c) and (d), it can be seen
that the use of the single-loop droop control and multi-loop
droop control results in a similar dynamic performance due
to a similar X L value. The results in Fig. 17(c) and (d) are
slightly less damped than the results in Fig. 17(a) and (b). This
is because the value of X L is 0.06 pu when using the multi-
loop droop control, which is slightly smaller than the value
of X L when using the single-loop droop control (0.07 pu).
In addition, the different reactive power distributions in steady
state can be attributed to the slight difference in the Q–V
droop controls between the single-loop and multi-loop droop
controls.
Fig. 18(a) and (b) shows both the PSCAD and HiL simula-
tion results when the P– f droop is increased to 3% for both
controls. Both controls have a similar dynamic performance
due to a similar value of X L . In addition, by comparing the
results shown in Fig. 18(a) and (b) in Case II, and the results
shown in Fig. 11(a) and (b) in Case I, it can be seen that
reversing the values of L 1 and L 2 does not affect the dynamic
performance when using the single-loop droop control. In con-
trast, by comparing the results shown in Fig. 18(c) and (d) in
Case II, and the results shown in Fig. 11(c) and (d) in Case I,
it can be seen that reversing the values of L 1 and L 2 results in
a change in stability when using the multi-loop droop control
due to a different value of X L .
To achieve a more rigorous validation, the P– f droop is
further increased to 9% for both controls. As predicted by the
“+” symbol in Figs. 15 and 16, the single-loop droop control
should still maintain stability, while the multi-loop droop con-
trol should cause instability. The simulation results in Fig. 19
972 IEEE JOURNAL OF EMERGING AND SELECTED TOPICS IN POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 8, NO. 2, JUNE 2020
Fig. 19. Case II, 9% P– f droop. Pset1 increases from 0.5 to 1 pu at
t = 0.1 s. (a) and (b) P and Q when using the single-loop droop control.
(c) and (d) P and Q when using the multi-loop droop control.
have verified the prediction. As shown in Fig. 19(a) and (b),
the single-loop droop control maintains stability, but the damp-
ing is very weak as it is close to the stability boundary.
In contrast, as shown in Fig. 19(c) and (d), the micro-
grid loses stability when using the multi-loop droop control,
which agrees with the small-signal stability boundaries shown
in Figs. 15(b) and 16(b). Finally, by comparing the small-
signal boundaries in Figs. 15 and 16 and the simulation results
in Figs. 17–19, it can be seen that the small-signal analysis
has accurately predicted the stability of the simulation results.
VIII. D ISCUSSION : T HE I MPACT OF THE PARAMETERS
OF I NNER C ONTROLLERS ON S YSTEM S TABILITY
The comparative studies in Cases I and II are based on well-
designed parameters of the inner controllers for both single-
loop and multi-loop droop controls. However, inappropriate
parameters of the inner controllers can also cause instability.
This section introduces how the parameters of the inner
controllers are selected for both controls and discusses how
they influence the dynamic performance and stability.
For the single-loop droop control, as shown in Fig. 2(a),
there is only one voltage loop and one parameter kiv that
needs to be considered. As introduced in Section III-A, the
control objective of the voltage loop is to regulate the grid-
side voltage magnitude to guarantee that it has a prede-
fined Q–V droop characteristic in steady state. As a result,
the response of the voltage loop does not need to be very
fast, and a time constant between 0.1 and 0.3 s would be
enough. During load transients, the inverter internal voltage
magnitude E inv is approximately constant, and X L limits the
circulating reactive power between inverters. In this article, kiv
is selected as 5.86 pu/s, indicating a time constant of 0.17 s.
Fig. 20(a) and (b) shows the eigenvalue traces as kiv increases
from 1 to 10 pu/s. It can be seen in Fig. 20(a) that the pair
of eigenvalues that dominates the system oscillation mode is
hardly moved, indicating that the variation in kiv within this
range hardly affects the stability. In addition, Fig. 20(b) shows
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Fig. 20. Case I, 1% P– f droop. Traces of eigenvalues as kiv increases from
1 to 10 pu/s when using the single-loop droop control. (a) Low-frequency
oscillation mode. (b) High-frequency oscillation mode.
that the damping of the high-frequency oscillation modes that
are relevant to the LCL filters is sufficient, even with the
resistances of the LCL filters ignored. The change in kiv within
this range does not affect the high-frequency oscillation modes
either.
In contrast, the parameter design of the inner controllers
for the multi-loop droop control is more challenging, as it
has a cascaded voltage and current loop, and hence more
parameters. According to the introduction in Section III-B,
the inner voltage and current loops should guarantee fast
control of the filter capacitor voltage because they treat the
filter capacitor voltage as a controllable voltage source. In this
article, the selection of the parameters of the inner voltage
and current loops comprehensively uses bandwidth calculation,
time-domain simulation, and eigenvalue analysis. In Case I,
the parameters of the current loop are selected as kip = 2 pu
and kii = 100 pu/s to yield a bandwidth of 2 kHz, which allows
a fast current tracking. Similarly, the bandwidth calculation
can also be used to design the parameters of the voltage loop.
However, it is found that the bandwidth calculation is not
sufficient to design the parameters for voltage loop because the
voltage loop is directly affected by the outer droop controls.
The parameters were originally selected as kvp = 2 pu/s and
kvi = 40 pu/s to yield a bandwidth of 725 Hz, which was
thought to be good enough for voltage tracking. However, the
simulation results show poor dynamic performance with the
selected gains, as presented in Fig. 21(a) and (b). Therefore,
the eigenvalue analysis of the whole microgrid is performed
to study how the parameters kvp and kvi impact the dynamic
performance and stability.
Fig. 22(a) and (b) shows the traces of eigenvalues as kvp
increases from 2 to 40 pu with a step of 2 pu, where kvi /kvp
is fixed at 20. When kvp and kvi are selected as 2 pu and
40 pu/s, as shown in Fig. 22(a), although the bandwidth of the
voltage loop is 725 Hz, the system damping and oscillation fre-
quency are very low, which agrees with the simulation results
in Fig. 21. The poor dynamic performance in Fig. 21 should
be attributed to inappropriate parameter design, and hence is
not used for the comparison in Case I. By increasing the gains
of kvp and kvi , it can be seen in Fig. 22(a) that the damping
and oscillation frequency increase rapidly at first, but then
gradually slow down. When kvp increases from 20 to 40 pu/s,
the damping is only slightly improved. On the other side,
as shown in Fig. 22(b), as the gains of kvp and kvi increase,
DU et al.: COMPARATIVE STUDY OF TWO WIDELY USED GRID-FORMING DROOP CONTROLS
Fig. 21. The same simulation results with those in Fig. 10(c) and (d)
but with the gains of kvp and kvi reduced to 1/10, where kvp = 2 pu,
kvi = 40 pu/s. (a) Active power P. (b) Reactive power Q.
Fig. 22. Case I, 1% P– f droop. Traces of eigenvalues as kvp increases from
2 to 40 pu when using the multi-loop droop control, where kvi /kvp is fixed
at 20. (a) Low-frequency oscillation mode. (b) High-frequency oscillation
mode.
the oscillation frequencies of the four pairs of eigenvalues
that are far away from the imaginary axis increase from
around 750 Hz to around 6 kHz. Although the four pairs
of eigenvalues are far away from the imaginary axis, they
might interact with the PWM high-frequency switching and
cause high-frequency instability if their oscillation frequencies
are too high. The small-signal model developed in this article
can reflect the high-frequency oscillation modes, but it cannot
predict the high-frequency instability for the multi-loop droop
control because it ignores the PWM high-frequency switching.
As shown in Fig. 23, the high-frequency instability appears in
the HiL simulation when the gains of kvp and kvi are increased
to 40 pu and 800 pu/s, respectively.
According to the work in [36], the high-frequency instability
shown in Fig. 23 can be considered as harmonic instability,
which is out of the scope of this article. Based on the
eigenvalue analysis and the HiL simulation results, the gains
of kvp and kvi are finally selected as 20 pu and 400 pu/s,
respectively, for Case I to guarantee good damping of the
oscillation mode shown in Fig. 22(a), while at the same time
avoiding the high-frequency instability when implementing the
control in a digital controller, as shown in Fig. 23. A similar
process is conducted for Case II to select the parameters.
By comparing the results in Fig. 10(c) and (d) to the
results in Fig. 21(a) and (b), it can be seen that the dynamic
performance is significantly improved after increasing the
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973
Fig. 23. Case I, 1% P– f droop. Three-phase output voltages of Inverter 1
when the gains of kvp and kvi increase from 20 pu and 400 pu/s to 40 pu
and 800 pu/s as 0.05 s.
gains of kvp and kvi . However, the dynamic performance
in Fig. 10(c) and (d) is still not as good as in Fig. 10(a) and (b).
This is mainly caused by the difference in the control struc-
tures between the single-loop and multi-loop droop controls,
rather than the design of the inner controller parameters.
Specifically, it is because of the difference in X L that is caused
by the two controls, as discussed in previous sections.
IX. C ONCLUSION
This article has presented a comparative study of the impact
of two widely used grid-forming droop controls on the small-
signal stability of inverter-based microgrids. More importantly,
a novel insight is provided into the different dynamic responses
of these two controls. This article points out that the two
similar controls adjust the angular frequency and voltage
magnitude at different locations within the inverter, resulting in
a different X L that impacts the dynamic response and stability
of microgrids differently. The results of the full-order small-
signal analysis, offline electromagnetic transient simulation,
and real-time HiL simulation experiments have verified the
insight and demonstrated that the microgrid has a larger small-
signal stability boundary when using a single-loop droop
control, and the difference in the stability boundary increases
as the value of an inverter’s inner inductance increases.
Compared with the multi-loop droop control, the single-
loop droop control has a simpler control structure and also
provides a better dynamic performance in microgrids. The
study results advance the understanding of how to design
grid-forming droop controls to improve the dynamic response
and stability of microgrids. Specifically, when designing grid-
forming droop controls, close attention should be paid to the
location where the controller regulates the voltage magnitude
and angular frequency within the inverter, as it will directly
result in a different X L that impacts the stability of microgrids
in a different way.
Future work should include the following: 1) develop
reduced-order models for both types of controls that can accu-
rately predict the stability of microgrids and 2) investigate new
grid-forming controls that can further improve the stability of
microgrids in both normal operations and fault scenarios based
on the in-depth understanding of the two basic grid-forming
droop controls studied in this article.
974 IEEE JOURNAL OF EMERGING AND SELECTED TOPICS IN POWER ELECTRONICS, VOL. 8, NO. 2, JUNE 2020
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank the Wisconsin Electric
Machines and Power Electronics Consortium (WEMPEC)
and the Wisconsin Energy Institute (WEI) for use of their
laboratory facilities including OPAL-RT for the HiL testing
work. The authors wish to thank Mr. Dan Ton with the U.S.
Department of Energy, Office of Electricity, for funding this
research.
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Wei Du (Member, IEEE) received the Ph.D. degree
in electrical engineering from Tsinghua University,
Beijing, China, in 2014.
He was a Visiting Student with the University
of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI, USA, from
2012 to 2013. He was a Research Engineer with
the Key Real Time Digital Simulation (RTDS)
Lab of Power System, China Southern Power Grid
Company, Guangzhou, China, from 2014 to 2016.
He was a Research Associate with the University
of Wisconsin–Madison from 2016 to 2018. He is
currently a Senior Research Engineer with the Pacific Northwest National
Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA. His current research interests include micro-
grids, distribution system resiliency, control of distributed energy resources,
hardware-in-the-loop simulation, power system dynamic modeling and analy-
sis, and the control of HVDC and FACTS.
Zhe Chen (Student Member, IEEE) received the
B.S. degree in electrical engineering and automation
from the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and
Astronautics, Nanjing, China, in 2012, and the M.S.
degree in electrical engineering from the University
of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI, USA, in 2016,
where she is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree
in electrical engineering under the supervision of
Prof. T. M. Jahns and Prof. R. H. Lasseter.
Her current research interests include modeling,
analysis, and control of renewable energy sources,
microgrids, power electronics, and electric machines drives.
DU et al.: COMPARATIVE STUDY OF TWO WIDELY USED GRID-FORMING DROOP CONTROLS
Kevin P. Schneider (Senior Member, IEEE)
received the B.S. degree in physics and the M.S.
and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the
University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
He is currently with the Seattle Research Center,
Seattle. He is also a Chief Engineer with the
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland,
WA, USA. He is also an Adjunct Faculty Member
with Washington State University, Pullman, WA,
USA; also an Affiliate Associate Professor with
the University of Washington; and also a Licensed
Professional Engineer with Washington State. His current research interests
include distribution system analysis and power system operations.
Dr. Schneider is the Past Chair of the Power and Energy Society (PES)
Distribution System Analysis (DSA) Sub-Committee and the Current Chair
of the Analytic Methods for Power Systems (AMPS) Committee.
Robert H. Lasseter (Life Fellow, IEEE) received
the Ph.D. degree in physics from the University of
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA, in 1971.
He was a Consulting Engineer with General
Electric Co., Boston, MA, USA. In 1980, he joined
the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI,
USA. He is internationally recognized as one of
the earliest and most influential pioneers in the
microgrid field. His professional career during the
past 40 years has been dedicated to applying power
electronics to utility systems. He is the Technical
Lead for the Consortium for Electrical Reliability Technology Solutions’
(CERTS) Microgrid Project. CERTS’s microgrid architecture is widely imple-
mented and recognized for its plug-and-play flexibility.
Prof. Lasseter is the Past Chair of the IEEE Working Group on Distributed
Resources and an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer in distributed resources.
Authorized licensed use limited to: RTDS Technologies Inc.. Downloaded on December 02,2022 at 22:44:04 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
975
Sai Pushpak Nandanoori (Member, IEEE) received
the B.Tech. degree in electrical engineering from
Pondicherry Engineering College, Pondicherry,
India, in 2009, the M.S. degree in electrical
engineering from the IIT Madras, Chennai,
India, in 2013, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical
engineering from Iowa State University, Ames, IA,
USA, in 2018.
Since March 2018, he has been an Electrical
Engineer with the Pacific Northwest National
Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA, USA. His
current research interests include the stability of inverter-based microgrids,
effective utilization of distributed energy resources (DERs) to provide grid
services, system theoretic-based analysis of cyber-physical systems, and
phase space analysis of nonlinear systems based on Koopman operator theory.
Francis K. Tuffner (Member, IEEE) received the Ph.D. degree in electrical
engineering from the University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY, USA.
He is currently a Power System Engineer with the Pacific Northwest
National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA. His current research interests
include distribution system modeling, microgrids, resilience on the power
system, oscillatory behavior in power systems, and signal processing applied
to power systems.
Soumya Kundu (Member, IEEE) received the bach-
elor’s degree in electrical engineering and the mas-
ter’s degree in control systems engineering from
IIT Kharagpur, Kharagpur, India, in 2009, and the
Ph.D. degree in control systems from the University
of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor, MI, USA,
in 2013.
He was a Post-Doctoral Research Associate with
the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos,
NM, USA. In 2016, he joined the Pacific Northwest
National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA, as a Staff
Research Engineer. His current research interests include developing systems
theoretic tools to facilitate dynamic security and operational optimality of
future electrical grids.