Control Architecture for Parallel Inverter in Uninterruptible Power Systems - Part I: Control Design and Experimental Results

Abstract

In this paper, a control strategy for the parallel operation of three-phase inverters forming an online uninterruptible power system (UPS) is presented. The UPS system consists of a cluster of paralleled inverters with <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">LC</i> filters directly connected to an ac critical bus and an ac/dc forming a dc bus. The proposed control scheme comprises two layers: 1) a local layer that contains a “reactive power-to-phase droop” in order to synchronize the phase angle of each inverter and a virtual resistance loop that guarantees equal power sharing among inverters; and 2) a central controller that guarantees synchronization with an external real/fictitious utility, and critical bus voltage amplitude restoration. Improved transient and steady-state frequency, active, reactive, and harmonic power sharing, and global phase-locked loop resynchronization capability are achieved. Detailed system topology and control architecture are presented in this paper. Furthermore, a mathematical model was derived in order to analyze critical parameters effects on system stability. The proposed control approach has been validated by means of experimental results obtained for several case-study scenarios.