Microgrid power quality enhancement using a three-phase four-wire grid-interfacing compensator

This paper presents a three-phase four-wire grid-interfacing power quality compensator for microgrid applications. The compensator is proposed for use with each individual distributed generation (DG) system in the microgrid and consists of two four-phase-leg inverters (a shunt and a series), optimally controlled to achieve an enhancement of both the quality of power within the microgrid and the quality of currents flowing between the microgrid and the utility system. During utility grid voltage unbalance, the four-phase-leg compensator can compensate for all the unwanted positive-, negative-, and zero-sequence voltage-current components found within the unbalanced utility. Specifically, the shunt four-leg inverter is controlled to ensure balanced voltages within the microgrid and to regulate power sharing among the parallel-connected DG systems. The series inverter is controlled complementarily to inject negative- and zero-sequence voltages in series to balance the line currents, while generating zero real and reactive power. During utility voltage sags, the series inverter can also be controlled using a newly proposed flux-charge current-limiting algorithm to limit the flow of large fault currents between the micro- and utility grids. The performance of the proposed compensator has been verified in simulations and experimentally using a laboratory prototype.