Microturbine control strategy for the load-following service provision

The aim of this paper is to develop a control function that is able to manage, in the on-line environment, the active power output of a microturbine so as to compensate the unavoidable microgrid power imbalances caused by forecasting errors and unforeseen events. A central controller based on a Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) control loop evaluates the optimal control actions to be sent to the local controller of the microturbine inverter. In order to test the ability of the proposed controller to follow any change in the load demand of the microgrid, experimental tests have been performed on the microturbine connected at the experimental microgrid of the Polytechnic University of Bari, Italy.