The Effect of Grid-Connected Converter Control Topology on the Diagonal Dominance of Converter Output Impedance

Abstract

This work investigates the effect of grid-connected converter topology on equivalent converter output impedance with a specific focus on the diagonal dominance of the impedance matrix across a frequency range. When considering multiple-input multiple-output systems most traditional stability techniques are reliant on the diagonal dominance of the studied system. Therefore, a rating of diagonal dominance is proposed based upon the correlation coefficient between row and column in the impedance matrix. This provides a scale that ranges from off-diagonally dominant (−1) through uniformly distributed (0) and up to diagonally dominant (1) across a range of frequencies. The scale is used to specify which control structures can be considered as diagonally dominant at certain frequencies and which control components have the greatest effect on the rating. A direct relation is found between system exhibiting a diagonal dominance rating of 0.7 and above and the efficacy of traditional stability margins. Traditionally strong systems with low network impedance where controllers can be tuned conservatively exhibit high degrees of diagonal dominance and can be analysed quickly with traditional margins with minimal error. For systems exhibiting a lower rating, disk margins are explored as an alternative which offer greater accuracy. Additionally, more realistic perturbations of gain and phase occurring simultaneously in multiple channels can be considered which is more applicable for the modern electricity network with a high penetration of grid-connected converters.