Hardware-in-loop validation of a dynamic control employed for a hybrid DC microgrid incorporating high gain DC-DC power stages

Abstract

The wide penetration of low voltage renewable energy sources into microgrid necessitates the use of high-gain converters as power processing units escorted with dynamic control methodologies. Under this scenario, this paper investigates the performance of high-gain converter forming a common DC common link in a hybrid DC microgrid comprising of solar photovoltaic (SPV) generation, supercapacitor and battery bank. A high gain DC-DC boost power stage is used to couple the SPV array to the common DC common link, whereas high gain bi-directional converter is used to link the energy storage devices to the common DC bus. The high gain topologies used in this paper employs coupling inductor, intermediate buffer capacitor and a passive clamp network to obtain the high voltage gain with the same number of switches as that of the conventional topologies. A dual-loop control strategy has been employed for the operation of interfacing high gain converters. Hardware-in-Loop (HIL) validation of the presented control scheme is carried out using Zynq ZC702 FPGA kit via Xilinx system generator.