1

Energy Storage Control in Renewable Energy

Based Microgrid
Xisheng Tang, Member, IEEE, and Zhiping Qi, Member, IEEE

Abstract-- Microgrid (MG) is considered to be an advanced

configuration of distributed generation through the effective
organization of renewable energy power sources, loads and
energy storage devices. Energy storage (ES) is essential to the
stable and efficient operation of renewable energy based MG.
This paper describes ES applications in a renewable energy
based MG, including system black start support, stable control
support, power quality improvement and distributed renewable
energy (DRE) capacity credibility enhancement. Then a threeloop control strategy that can be applied for both islanded mode
and grid-tied mode is presented. The experimental results show
that the control strategy can make the modes transition
smoothly. A MG demonstration was conducted to verify the
feasibility of ES and its control method in the renewable energy
based MG.

influence of the intermittent and stochastic power output from

DRE can be reduced greatly. Moreover because there is a
certain amount of ES in MG the power exchange between MG
and power grid can be predictable and schedulable. Therefore
MG can be treated as a "controllable unit" of the public grid
[6], [7]. In addition the flexible control of ES in MG could
provide various auxiliary functions to support the operation of
local distribution system and MG itself such as enhancing
local distribution system reliability, reducing feeder loss,
supporting local voltage, acting as an uninterruptible power
supply and so on.

Index Terms--Energy storage, Microgrid, control strategy,

distributed renewable energy, renewable energy power
generation

I. INTRODUCTION
MG usually consists of distributed power sources, ES
devices and loads. With the development of renewable energy
technology more and more DRE will be adopted. MG is one
of the effective solutions to DRE connected with power grid.
A typical renewable energy based MG is shown in Fig 1.
Through ES based energy management MG could achieve the
cooperation between DRE and power grid effectively and
reduce the negative effects caused by the high penetration of
DRE in power grid. The penetration of DRE in power grid is
increasing. The intermittent power outputs of DRE bring a lot
of problems to grid operation and management. This problem
may become more serious in some local distribution system
which has high penetration of DRE.
The application of ES in the renewable energy based MG
has caused great interests recent years. As shown in [1]-[5] ES
can increase MG system inertia and improve the ability of
cope with disturbances. Under the cooperation of ES the
This work was supported in part by the major program of the National
High Technology Research and Development Program of China (863
Program) (No. 2011AA05A113) and the Key Project of the CAS Knowledge
Innovation Program (KGCX2-EW-330).
Xisheng Tang is with the Institute of Electrical Engineering, Chinese
Academy of Sciences, Zhongguancun Beiertiao 6, 100190 Beijing, China (email: tang@mail.iee.ac.cn).
Zhiping Qi is with the Institute of Electrical Engineering, Chinese
Academy of Sciences, Zhongguancun Beiertiao 6, 100190 Beijing, China (email: qzp@mail.iee.ac.cn).

978-1-4673-2729-9/12/$31.00 2012 IEEE

Fig.1. Diagram of a typical microgrid system based on ES and RE

The seamless transition between the MG islanded mode and

grid tied mode is considered to be one of the important
technical characteristics for advanced MG that ensures the
power supply continuity and power quality for sensitive load.
At present, the research of a seamless transition is mainly
concentrates on a single inverter with local load, aiming at the
continuous power supply either in islanded mode or grid
connected mode [8]-[11]. However, too many works need to
be done for the seamless transition from a single DG to a MG
with complex structure. A MG experimental test platform,
funded by the CERTS and constructed by the American
Electric Power Corporation, consists of three micro turbines
(MTs) combined with heat and power (CHP) with battery
bank linked together on dc bus. Each MT set can connect to
the public grid smoothly by adjusting the amplitude and phase
of the inverter output voltage and the control of the static state
switch [12]. Reference [13] set up a small capacity MG
system of single phase, and the system can convert between
grid-tied and island mode flexibly through the control of ES.

However, the system voltage and frequency fluctuate severely,

causing the photovoltaic and wind power to shut down.
Therefore, systematic research and experiment on MG
seamless transition with a variety of DREs are needed.
This paper analyzes the important role of the ES for
renewable
energy based MG such as system
operation, stable control, power quality improvement and
DREs capacity credit enhancement. The ES control strategies
are presented for the MG islanded operation, grid connected
operation, and the smooth transition between different
operation modes of MG. A demonstration MG system
integrated with PV generation, small scale wind power
generation, different loads and battery was built to verify the
ES control strategies.
II. THE ANALYSIS OF THE ROLES OF ES IN MG
Stable operation is of the foremost importance for MGs.
The guarantee of power quality and uninterruptable power
supply for important loads come the next. Then comes the
reliability, schedulability and predictability which enable the
high penetration of REs in power system. As the operation
control and energy management executor for MG, ES is
critical to accomplish the above goals and is indispensable to a
MG. The major roles of ES in a MG may include black start
support, stable control support, power quality improvement,
and DREs capacity credibility enhancement, as shown in
figure 2.
Grid
Fault

Fault Clearance
Reconnection

Planned
Maintenance

EMS

Unintentional
Islanded

Intentional
Islanded

Black Start

PV based MG. The first step is to start ES with no load. Then

an accepted capacity of loads can be powered on. PV power
generation units will restart and connected to the system
automatically in a few minutes generally along with the
establishment of stable voltage and frequency of the system.
Because ES has the capability of quick start and response, PV
based MG could fulfill black start quickly and reliably.
B. Stable Control Support
In renewable energy based MG power sources and ES are
commonly connected to the system through power electronics
based converters. This may cause problems for MG stable
operation such as less system inertia and poor quality to resist
disturbances compared to traditional bulk power grid. As a
result, the power fluctuation of renewable energy power
sources and the random tripping of loads may cause
instantaneous active or reactive power imbalance. This may
result in problems of fluctuation of voltage and frequency of
the system even instability of voltage or frequency.
The voltage and power flow distribution of the internal
nodes of MG could be regulated through proper control of the
active or reactive power output or input of ES. In this way the
voltage and frequency of MG system can be adjusted flexibly.
Moreover, the low voltage ride through (LVRT) or fault ride
through can be realized with the adjustment of active and
reactive power of ES. This will promise to get reasonable
system stability and reliability with high wind power or solar
power penetration. In stable control application the capacity
requirement of the ES need not to be very high. Usually ES
needs to support system in full power within tens of seconds.
Some quick energy storage technologies are suitable for stable
control application of MG such as supercapacitor, flywheel,
battery etc. Figure 3 showed the roles of ES for stable control
of MG.

Smooth Reconnection
V/f Control
PQ Control

Islanded
Operation

V/f Control

GridConnected
Operation

Short transition time

High Power Quality & Reliability

Fig.2. A schematic of the operation control of an ES based MG

Fig.3. The roles of ES for stable control of MG

A. Black Start Support

During public grid power blackout because of some serious
faults MG may provide power supply for some important local
loads through running in islanded mode. In most cases the
restart of renewable energy based MG may fulfill black start
by using of ES which will establish stable voltage and
frequency of the whole MG system for other power sources to
follow up. In renewable energy based MG ES is essential and
usually acts as the main power of the whole system. ES should
be controlled properly through its convertor to support the
black start of the system. Take the case of the black start of

C. Power Quality Improvement

In renewable energy based MG power quality problems
become rather serious due to the adoption of a number of
power electronics devices and the intermittent output power of
DREs. The tripping power of DREs, the tripping of MG
against the public grid, and the stochastic fluctuation of DREs
and loads, may result in power quality problems such as
voltage or frequency distortion, DC voltage offset, harmonic,
and three-phase unbalance.
ES can adjust its active/reactive power output or input

independently and produce certain current harmonic through

the flexible control of its converter. In this way ES has the
ability to improve the power quality of MG. According to the
status of voltage and frequency of MG ES may adjust its
operation points by output a certain amount of active/reactive
power to suppress voltage fluctuation, frequency fluctuation,
flickers and to compensate voltage harmonic and realize threephase voltage balance. Under the cooperation of ES a MG
with high power quality can be achieved.

to power grid.
200

180

160

140

120

100

80

60

40

20

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

1000

0
200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

1000

Fig.5. The role of ES for smoothing the power fluctuation of PCC

Fig.4. Power quality control in MG based on ES

With the aid of ES the seamless transition of MG between

grid-tied and islanded operation is possible which ensure
uninterrupted power supply for sensitive loads. This is the
prominent technique feature of MG applications. This may
help to avoid the repeated investment of the power supply
system for some reliability purposes and has good application
prospect in industrial park, hospital, school, and so on. ES
competes for this task and the detailed analysis will be given
in chapter 4.
D. DREs Capacity Credibility Enhancement
With the development of distributed generation the
application of MG is getting increasing and the scale of MG is
getting bigger and bigger. Because of the cooperation between
ES renewable energy based power sources in MG the power
flow becomes controllable. This character makes the power
flow between bulk power grid and MG controllable. In point
of the operation control of the power system MG could be
treated as a controllable unit to join the energy management of
the power system. MG could provide power supply to bulk
power grid as a power source or consume power energy as a
load. In this way MG may improve the capacity credibility of
renewable energy based power sources and make DREs
predictable and being scheduled under the situation of large
scale DREs connected into power system.
Usually the changes of power output of DREs and loads
have the character of irrelevance. When large scale DREs
connect into power grid the operation control and energy
management of the power system will become very difficult.
ES may act as an energy buffer to smooth the power
unbalance. On the other hand in order to use the energy of
DREs as much as possible the output power of DREs may be
predicted but the prediction could not be accurate enough. ES
may compensate the mismatch between the actual output
power and the forecasted one. ES may work in multi-time
scale depending on its energy storage capacity. Figure 5
showed the role of ES for smoothing the power fluctuation of
the point of common coupling (PCC) at which MG connecting

In addition under the cooperation of ES MG may reduce

the difference between peak and valley loads. This means the
improvement of load rate and the postponement of system
upgrading for power system.
Due to the high cost of ES in power system applications the
economics feasibility is one of the main factors for ES
configuration. Proper control and energy management of ES
to achieve optimized technical and economic performance is
very important for ES planning and operation, which means
less energy storage needed and longer service time.
III. ES CONTROL STRATEGIES
ES used in MG can be classified as main power source
which provides voltage and frequency support and dependent
power source which follows system voltage and frequency
with controllable output power.
Whether MG operate in grid-tied mode or islanded mode
the dependent power always run in current control mode to
output or input certain active/reactive power. As to the main
power of MG, the current control mode only exists in the
period of its grid-tied. The control mode should be shifted to
voltage and frequency control mode as soon as the operation
mode of MG transferring from grid-tied to islanded. As the
main power of MG ES plays an important role for successful
operation mode seamless transition of MG between grid-tied
and islanded.
This paper discussed the control strategy of ES which acts
as the main power in the MG as shown in Fig.6. A three-loop
control strategy was presented including grid-tied inductance
current control loop, filter capacitor voltage control loop, and
filter inductance current control loop. Among three control
loops the grid-tied inductance current control loop is used for
output power regulation of MG which could be scheduled by
the energy management system (EMS) of MG. The filter
inductances current control loop is used for improving the
dynamic performance of the converter and over-current or
short circuit protection of the main circuit of the converter of
ES. Figure 6 showed the control schematic of the MG based
on ES.

U dc

Fig.6. Schematic diagram of the MG based on ES

A. Islanded Operation Mode

In islanded operation mode, the ES converter is controlled
in V/f mode to set up and maintain system voltage and

frequency. The references voltages dref and qref will be

set by system default value and then the PWM signal for ES
converter will be generated through the filter capacitor voltage
control loop and filter inductance current control loop. Figure
7 showed the control schematic of voltage source converter
(VSC) type converter of ES.

Fig.7. Block diagram of the VSC control loops in islanded mode

B. Grid-tied Operation Mode

In grid-tied mode the ES converter may run in PQ control
mode. The values of

Pc

and

Qc

can be set by EMS of MG.

Firstly the values of reference current dref and qref can be

generated in (1) in the rotation axis of d-q. Secondly the filter

capacitor voltage references dref and qref can be generated

by the regulator of the grid-tied inductance current control
loop. Thirdly the filter inductance current reference

'
idref

Fig.8. Block diagram of the VSC control loops in grid-tied mode

By the control schematic presented above the

active/reactive power of the output or input of ES can be
adjusted according to the operation status of power system or
the requirements of the energy management of MG. Under
this control strategy the power flow at the PCC can be
maintained smooth. In the point of operation control of power
system MG can be treated as a controllable unit.
C. Islanded/Grid-tied Operation Transition
The operation mode of MG may switch with seamless
transition between islanded and grid-tied under the control of
EMS of MG or the operation status of power system. The
control strategy of the case of transition from islanded to gridtied is as follows. In order to get smooth transition the
amplitude and phase of the PCC voltage should be detected
and used as the reference of the output voltage of ES
converter. Subsequently, ES controller will adjusts the voltage
amplitude and phase of MG gradually through its converter
and connect MG to power grid as soon as the connecting
conditions are met. At the same time, the grid-tied inductance
current control loop is added to the inner two control loops. In
this way the indirect current control for the converter of ES
could be realized. By using of accurate state detection and
phase lock loop of power grid the islanded/grid-tied transition
of MG can be realized with less impact on the stable operation
of power grid. Figure 9 showed the control schematic of ES
converter for seamless transition between islanded and gridtied mode.

and

'
qref

can be generated by the regulator of the filter capacitor

voltage control loop. After all reference variables were
generated the values of PWM control for the converter of ES
can be obtained.

Pc = 1.5( e d i dref + e q i qref )

Q c = 1.5( e q i dref e d i qref )

and

iqref

are the d-axis component and q-axis

(1)

In the above equation, d and q are the d-axis

component and q-axis component of power system voltage

eabc , and idref

component of the power system current abc , respectively.

Figure 8 showed the control schematic of the VSC type
converter of ES in grid-tied mode.

Fig.9. Schematic diagram of VSC control for seamless transition between

islanded and grid-tied mode

MG running in grid-tied mode may be switched to islanded

mode due to planned maintenance or some serious faults of
power system. When MG operates in the islanded mode the
control strategy of the ES converter may shift from three-loop
control to the double-loop control. During the process of
operation mode transition the states of the filter capacitance

voltage control loop and the filter inductances current control

loop should be remained the same in order to ensure fast and
smooth transition.

PV

Loads

ES

A renewable energy based MG demonstration was built in

the park of the Institute of Electrical Engineering Chinese
Academy of Sciences (IEECAS). It consists of a 20 kWp
photovoltaic generation unit, a 4 kW wind power generation
unit, a 50kW/150kWh lead-acid battery ES unit, sensitive
loads and normal loads. The MG was linked to power grid
through Static Transfer Switch (STS) at the PCC.

PowerkW

15

IV. RENEWABLE ENERGY BASED MG

DEMONSTRATION

10
5
0
-5
-10
Hourh

Fig.12. Load-shaving role of ES for supporting peak-loads by discharging and

valley-loads by recharging

Fig.10. The structure of the MG demonstration at IEECAS park

In most cases the MG demonstration operates in grid-tied

mode when the public grid is normal. In this situation all the
renewable energy based power sources are controlled as
dependent power with maximum power point tracing control.
The operation of ES can be optimized through proper
charging or discharging. The ES can also be controlled to
smooth the DREs fluctuation or the power flow at PCC to
shave peak-valley power, as shown in Fig.11 and Fig.12
respectively.
Once blackout or some serious faults in power grid be
detected the STS between MG and power grid will be
switched off immediately. At the same time the operation
mode of ES converter will shift from dependent power mode
to main power mode and provide a stable voltage and
frequency reference for the MG system. In this process, the
system voltage and frequency will maintain smooth and the
PV power generation units and wind power generation units
will not break away from the MG system as shown in Fig.13.
As a result the power supply reliability for sensitive loads
could be obtained.
PV

Loads

ES

PCC

PowerkW

15

Fig.13. Uninterruptible power supply by the MG demonstration during four

minutes blackout

V. CONCLUSION
The important roles of ES in renewable energy based MG
were analyzed in this paper including black start support,
stable control support, power quality improvement and DREs
capacity credibility enhancement. According to the operation
process including islanded mode, grid-tied mode and the
transition between them two, a three-loop control strategy was
presented for stable control and effective energy management
of MG running in islanded mode, grid-tied mode and
transition between islanded and grid-tied mode. A MG
demonstration was established and the control strategies of ES
were verified. The testing results showed that under support of
ES renewable energy based MG would be a promising
utilization pattern of renewable energy.

10

VI. ACKNOLOGYMENT

This work was supported by the major program of the

National High Technology Research and Development
Program of China (863 Program) (No. 2011AA05A113) and
the Key Project of the CAS Knowledge Innovation Program
(KGCX2-EW-330).

0
-5
Hourh

Fig.11. Stable power exchange at PCC under the support of ES according to

the operation status of loads and PV generation

VII. REFERENCES
[1]
[2]

[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]

[12]
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VIII. BIOGRAPHIES
Xi Sheng Tang (M11) received the Ph.D. degree
from the Institute of Electrical Engineering of
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, in
2006.He is currently an Associate Professor at the
Institute of Electrical Engineering of Chinese
Academy of Sciences. His research interests are
distributed power system stability and control,
distributed generation and energy storage
technology.

Zhi Ping Qi (M11) received the M.Sc. degree

from Institute of Electrical Engineering of Chinese
Academy of Sciences in 1988.Currently, she is
professorial research fellow of the Institute of
Electrical Engineering of Chinese Academy of
Sciences. Her research interests include microgrids
and distributed electrical energy storage.