Integration of droop control functions for distributed generation in power flow simulations

Abstract

The recent increase of distributed generation in distribution networks has determined the necessity of developing new control strategies for the mitigation of power quality issues. One of these functions, considered as one of the most promising solutions for the management of voltage congestions, is represented by the droop control of DG units. The traditional Power Flow formulation often does not allow an easy integration of these functionalities in the simulation environment and alternative techniques are normally used in order to study the effects of local controllers on the network electrical quantities. This paper proposes a simple modification for canonical Power Flow engines that allows the integration of local controllers for distributed generation. The described method guarantees a robust and fast solution of network simulations even for non-linear/piecewise droop control functions.