Analysis of PI and PR Controllers for

Distributed Power Generation System under

Unbalanced Grid Faults
Ashish ranjan Dash, B.Chitti Babu, Memeber, IEEE, K.B.Mohanty, Senior Member, IEEE and Rahul Dubey
Department of Electrical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Rourkela-769008, (ORISSA)
E-mail: ashishdashnitrkl@gmail.com, bcbabunitrkl@gmail.com, kbm@nitrkl.ac.in
rahul.dubey2011@gmail.com.

Abstract It is the general trend to increase the electricity

production using distributed power system (DPGS), which is
based on renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, fuel cell
etc.These systems are to be properly controlled in order to
provide reliable power to the utility network. For that power
electronics converters are used as an interfacing device between
DPGS and utility network. In case of unbalanced fault, the major
problem in distributed power generation system is the phase
unbalance which causes the power quality problem along with
grid instability. This paper discuses the implementation of two
different controllers namely Proportional integral (PI) and
proportional resonant (PR) controllers in order to obtain the
control of grid side converter during single phase to ground fault.
The analysis includes the grid current harmonic distortion along
with the variation of active and reactive power during the fault
condition. The system is simulated using MATLAB software and
simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of both the
controller.
Keywords Distributed power generation, Grid converter
control, Proportional integral controller, resonant controller,
Grid fault, current harmonic distortion.

I. INTRODUCTION
global energy consumption is rising and increasing
THE
attention is paid to the alternative methods of electricity
generation .The demand for renewable energy consumption is
increasing about 30% per year. Due to the low environmental
impact of renewable energy source, it becomes attractive for
the growing demand. Distributed power generation based on
renewable energy sources is experiencing a constant growth.
The renewable energy source like wind, photovoltaic, fuel cell
gain large acceptance, which are installed along the power
system constituting the so called distributed power generation.
Power electronics plays an important role in converting the
input power which is suitable delivered to the utility network.
Introduction of power electronics for DPGS has several
advantages such as energy optimal operation by applying

978-1-4577-1510-5/11/$26.002011IEEE

a control algorithm to extract the maximum available power

along with load control, noise reduction, improve power
quality and controllable active and reactive power. Power
electronics converters are working as interface for easier and
flexible grid interconnection. In order to meet the utility
network requirement, the power electronics converters are to
be controlled during normal and faulty grid condition. The
power electronics converter used here is a PWM driven
voltage source inverter. The power converter plays an
important role in delivering reliable power to the utility
network. [1]-[3].
In case of unbalanced grid fault, the major problem in
distributed power generation system is the phase unbalance
causes the power quality problem along with grid instability.
This paper discusses the implementation of two different
controllers namely Proportional-Integral (PI) and Proportional
Resonant (PR) controllers for grid side converter
during single phase to ground fault conditions. The analysis
includes the grid current harmonic distortion along with the
variation of active and reactive power during the fault
condition. The system is simulated using MATLAB software
and simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of both
the controllers.
II. DPGS STRUCTURE
A general structure of distributed generation system is
illustrated in fig.1. The input power which is generated from
the renewable energy sources is transformed into electricity
and delivered to the utility network or to the local load. The
system consists of two converters namely input side converter
and grid side converter along with input side controller and
grid side controller. The major function of input side
controller is to extract maximum power from the renewable
source and to transmit it to grid side controller. In the event of
fault the input side controller also protects the input source.
The function of grid side converter is to control the active
power generated and the reactive power transfer between
DPGS and grid. It also controls the dc-link voltage to ensure
high quality of the generated power. One of the important
functions of grid side controller is grid synchronization i.e. to
synchronize the delivered power with the power system. Grid
monitoring is a useful tool for distributed generation system to

participate in primary control. Using the information from

grid synchronization and grid monitoring, control of grid side
converter is more robust to the disturbance occurring in power
system. Along with the major functions grid side controller
can also work for frequency regulation, voltage harmonic
compensation and active filtering. The output power is
isolated from the input power via a dc link, so the fault
tolerance mainly depends upon the grid side converter. In this
paper the discussion is focused on the grid side controller. .
[1], [15]

controlled, its reference is set to zero. In dq control structure,

proportional-integral (PI) controllers are used as they give
better result when regulating dc quantities. The matrix transfer
function of the controller in dq coordinate is represented as

Fig. 2 Synchronous Rotating Reference Frame control structure

Fig. 1 General structure of DPGS

ki

kp + s

GPI (s ) =

III. CONTROL STRUCTURE FOR GRID SIDE CONVERTER

The control strategy applied for grid side converter based upon
difference reference frame such as synchronous rotating frame
(dq), stationary reference frame () and natural frame (abc).
The control structure mainly consists of two cascaded loops.
Among the two loops one is the internal current loop whose
function is to regulate the grid current and the other is the
external voltage loop which controls the dc link voltage. In the
current loop the current controller works for power quality
issue and harmonic compensation. The external voltage loop is
responsible for balancing the power flow and system stability.
In this paper the discussion is focused on synchronous rotating
frame and stationary reference frame. . [2], [4], [5]
A. Synchronous Rotating Frame Control Algorithm
In case of synchronous rotating frame, which is also known as
dq frame, the control is implemented in a reference frame
which rotates at the same frequency as the grid angular
frequency. The transformation module used here transform the
grid current and voltage waveforms into a reference frame that
rotate synchronously with the grid voltage. For transforming
the feedback variables in this reference frame, the phase angle
of the grid voltage is necessary. The control variables
transformed in dq frame becomes dc quantities, hence easier
control and filtering can be achieved.
The structure of dq control is represented in Fig.2. This figure
illustrate the cross coupling terms and grid voltage feed
forwards in order to obtain best result. In this structure the dc
link voltage controller sets the reference for the active current
controller. In case of reactive power to be control a reactive
power reference is imposed and if the reactive power is not

ki
kp +
s
0

(1)

Where kp is the proportional gain and ki is integral gain of the

controller.
In synchronous rotating frame abc dq transformation is
done by the following equation

Vdq = [Tdq]V

Vdq = cos
sin

(2)

sin

cos

(3)

The phase angle used in abc dq transformation must be in

phase with the grid voltage as the controlled current has to be
in phase with the grid voltage. The phase angle can be
estimated by using arctangent function, for that purpose the
phase locked loop (PLL) technique is used. [13],[14]
A structure of dq control involving cross-coupling and voltage
feed forward of grid voltage is used as depicted in Fig.2 for
improving the performance of the PI controller. But still the
compensation capability of the lower order harmonics in case
of PI controllers is poor, is a major drawback.
B. Stationary Reference Frame Control Algarithm
In case of stationary reference frame, which is also known as
frame, the control loop uses the implementation of
stationary reference frame as shown in Fig.3. The
transformation module is necessary to transform the feedback
variable into a stationary quadrature system as given in the
equation (4) and (5).

Fig. 3 Stationary Reference Frame control structure

V = [T ]Vabc

(4)

1
1

1
2
2
2
=
3
3
3
0 2 2

current loops. The current control provides a fast dynamic

response, good accuracy, no dc offset and high robustness. In
dq control a conventional PLL is used to detect the phase grid
angle and the grid frequency f. The frequency is needed to
monitor the grid condition while the grid angle is needed for
the park transformation. In PI controller the P component
makes the frequency characteristics with the same gain and the
I component minimizes the error at low frequency. The
capability of integral action to estimate load disturbance draw
a certain stability margin in the closed loop system. The
controller is also used for the DC voltage and its output is feed
forwarded to the output of PQ controller to obtain the
reference for the active current id and reactive current iq . The
actual power P and Q are calculated using the instantaneous
power definition. [5],[15]
A. Phase locked loop(PLL)

(5)

The advantage of using stationary reference control is that the

number of control variables is reduced. Hence less
computational power when implemented in digital signal
processor and micro controller. In stationary reference frame
control, the control variables are sinusoidal so PI controllers
encounter difficulties in removing the steady state error. As a
consequence employment of other type of controllers is
necessary. Due this drawback a new controller type denoted
proportional resonant (PR) has gain large popularity in current
regulation for distributed power generation systems. The
advantage feature of PR controller is the possibility of
implementing harmonic compensator without interfering with
control dynamics, achieving a high quality delivered current.
In case of PR controller the controller matrix in stationary
reference frame is given by

The PLL is used to determine the phase angle

and the
frequency of the grid. The block diagram of a general PLL is
shown in Fig.4. It uses a PI controller in order to reduce the
error between the reference and measured value of Vq . The
measure value of

Vq can be obtained

Fig.4 Block diagram of three phase PLL

GPR ( s ) =

kp+

k is
s2+
0

0
k p + 2 k is
s +

(6)

Where is the resonant frequency of the controller, kp is the

proportional gain and ki is integral gain of the controller. This
controller achieves a high gain around the resonant frequency,
so it is capable to eliminate the steady state error between the
control signal and its reference. As the width of the frequency
band depends upon the integral time constant ki , a narrow
band results due to a low ki , where as high ki leads to a wider
band. [8], [13], [14]
IV. CONTROL STRATEGY
The control of grid current by using a convenient strategy can
highlight the behavior of grid at different operating modes.
The bandwidth of the controllers should be sufficiently high to
inject the harmonics current into a grid. The frequency change
rate up to 5Hz/sec. Power factor range from 0.9 inductive to
0.9 capacitive at full load. Reactive power up to 0.85 of rated
power when no active power is produced. Voltage control is
based on coordinate transformation between stationary and
synchronous rotating reference system. This strategy gives fast
transient response and high static performance via internal

by applying Park transformation to the three phase voltages.

The output of PI controller in addition with the feed forward
frequency is modulated and gives the phase angle . [2], [15]
B. Dc voltage controllers
The dc voltage controller is used for producing reference
current value for the current controller. The function of the
controller is to keep the voltage constant in normal as well as
faulty condition of the grid. It also functions the same duty
during input power variation. The dc link voltage controller is
changed according to the balance of power exchanged by the
converter. The block diagram of dc link controller is shown in
Fig.5. The block diagram contains a outer dc voltage loop and
a inner current loop. The inner loop is designed to achieve
short settling time in order to fast correction of the error while
the outer loop can be designed to be slower. Both the loops are
decoupled and they can be linearized. [9]

inductance, CF is the grid side capacitance and RD is the

damping resistor.
From the above equation the inverter and grid side current can
be expressed as

Fig.5 block diagram of dc link controller

V. DESIGN OF CONTROLLER
A. Plant Model
The plant considered in this application is a LCL filter
attached to a power converter. The filter is used to connect the
inverter and the utility grid. As a filter it can be a inductor or a
LCL module. The LCL module is chosen as it provides good
performance [5], [7]. The LCL filter is composed by three
reactors with resistance Ri and inductance Li on the
converter side and three capacitor Cf damped with a
resistor Rd . A further branch of filter composed of reactors
with resistance Rg and inductance Lg . This filter taking the
account of impedance of the transformer adopted for the
connection of grid and grid impedance. The use of filter is to
reduce the high frequency current ripple injected by the
inverter. The main requirements of the LCL filter are
to decouple energy between grid voltage and voltage
source inverter
to filter differential mode switching noise
to filter common mode switching noise
to have low losses and compact size
The filter transfer function can be obtained by the single phase
electrical diagram illustrated in Fig.6.

iI

iG

1 (
)
L Is V I V C
1 (V C V G )
L Gs

(11)
(12)

In order to find the transfer function the LCL model can be

written as
VI = Z 11iI + Z 12iG
(13)
VG = Z 21iI + Z 22iG
(14)
Where
1
Z 11 = L I s +
+ RD
C Fs

1
Z 12 =
+ RD

C Fs
1
(15)
Z 21 =
+ RD
C Fs
1

Z 22 = L G s +
+ RD
C Fs

Grid voltage is assumed as ideal voltage source and represents

short circuit harmonics and for filter analysis VG is set to zero.
The transfer function of the plant finally expressed as
H (s ) =

i I (s )
L IC F s 2 + R D C F s + 1
=
3
V I (s )
L I L G C F s + R D C F L I + L G s 2 + L I

L G s

(16)
The values used for filter parameters are listed in Table 1
Table 1(LCL filter parameter)
Inverter
Capacitance
Grid
side impedance
side impedance
LI =10mH
CF =0.7F
LG =2mH
RI =0.4
RD =0
RG =0.6
In order to obtain the frequency response the bode diagram is
given in Fig.7
Bode Diagram

150

VC

i C

C Fs

R D

(10)

Where VI is the inverter voltage, iI is the inverter current,

LI is the inverter side inductance, LG is the grid side

50
0
-50
-100
-150
270
180

Phas e (deg)

From the above figure the current flowing through the filter is
given by
iI - iC - iG = 0
(7)
The voltages in s plane can be written as:
VI = iILIs + VC
(8)
V G = i GL Gs + V C
(9)

Magnitude (dB)

100

Fig.6 LCL filter

90
0
-90
-180
0
10

10

Frequency (rad/sec)

10

10

Fig.7 Bode plot of LCL filter

B. PR Controller Design
The resonant controller is tuned on the basis of root locus
theory. The controller transfer function given by

GPR (s ) = kp + ki

s
s 2 + 2

(17)

controller is obtained as kp =14 and the integral gain ki =1750

can be implemented in the bode plot shown in Fig.9.
C. PI Controller Design
The controller transfer function is given by
ki
G PI (s ) = k p +
s
The closed loop transfer function can be obtained as

Root Locus

0.5

Imaginary Axis

0.1/T

0.8/T

0.2/T
0.7/T

0.3/T
0.6/T

-1
-1.5

-1

-0.5

0.4/T

0.5/T

Real Axis

0.5

Fig.11 Root locus plot for PI controller

VI. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

A. PR Controller

(19)
Igrid

0
-5
-10

0.5/T

-15

-25
0

0.01

0.02

0.03

0.04

0.05
t(sec)

0.06

0.07

0.08

0.09

0.1

0.06

0.07

0.08

0.09

0.1

0.07

0.08

0.09

0.1

Fig.12 Grid current using PR control

400
300
200

Vgrid

100
0

-200

0.4/T
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9

0.3/T

-300
0.2/T

-400
0

0.1/T

/T
/T
0.9/T

0.2/T
0.7/T

0.01

0.02

0.03

Fig.13 Grid voltage after the

0.1/T

0.8/T

0.04

0.05
t(sec)

y transformer

400

0.3/T
0.6/T

-0.8

0.1/T

/T
/T

-100

0.8/T

-1
-1

0.2/T

-20

0.9/T

-0.5

0.3/T

0.9/T

(20)

0.7/T

0.9/T

-0.5

Root Locus

0.5

0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9

10

Where PI ( z ) and H ( z ) are the discrete forms of (19) and

(16). Since the value of the controller gains are not changing
when the controller is transformed in difference reference
frame, same value of kp and ki can be used for the PI
controllers. The bode plot and the root locus are shown in
Fig.10 and Fig.11. [8]
0.6/T

0.4/T

0.8/T

15

PI ( z )H ( z )
CL ( z ) =
1 + PI ( z )H ( z )

0.5/T

0.6/T
0.7/T

Imaginary Axis

The plant transfer function is given in (16), both the transfer

function are converted to discrete from by using c2d
(continuous to discrete) facility in MATLAB. The close loop
transfer function is derived as
(18)
PR ( z )H ( z )
CL ( z ) =
1 + PR ( z )H ( z )
Where H ( z ) and PR ( z ) are the discrete form of (16) and
(17). The root locus of the closed loop system shown in Fig.8
is used to tune the controller. The controller has been designed
for a damping ratio =0.707, the proportional gain of the

-0.6

-0.4

-0.2

Real Axis
0

300

0.4/T

0.5/T

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

200

Vgridpcc

Fig.8 Root locus plot of PR controller

100
0
-100

Bode Diagram

-200

20

Phase (deg)

Magnitude (dB)

-300

0
-400
0

-20

0.01

0.02

0.03

0.04

0.05
t(sec)

0.06

Fig.14 Grid voltage at PCC

-40
0

14000

-45

12000

Q
P

10000

-90

8000

-135

6000
0

10

1
Frequency (rad/sec)

10

10

10

P&Q

-180
-1
10

4000
2000

Fig.9 Bode plot of PR controller

0
-2000

Bode Diagram

-4000

Magnitude (dB)

150

-6000
0

100

0.02

0.03

0.04

0.05
t(sec)

0.06

0.07

0.08

0.09

Fig.15 Instantanious active and reactive power

50
0

Fundamental (60Hz) = 7.006 , THD= 1.40%

-50
180

100

135
Phase (deg)

0.01

80

90
60

45
0
-45
1
10

Fig.10 Bode plot for PI controller

40
2
Frequency (rad/sec)

10

10

20

10

Harmonic order

Fig.16 THD for grid current using PR controller

12

14

16

0.1

The behaviour of PR controller in stationary reference frame

is given in Fig.12, the controller has a large over shoot when
the grid fault takes place. The current is fast controlled with
one fundamenta period. So the response is not too large to trip
out the current protection. The grid voltage after
y transformer is depicted in Fig.13. The grid voltage at point
of common coupling is shown in Fig.14. There is variation of
active and reactive power when single phase to ground fault
occurs in the grid as shown in Fig.15. The total harmonic
distortion is found to be 1.4% in case of PR controller.
B. PI Controller
10
8
6
4

Igrid

2
0
-2
-4
-6
-8
-10
0

0.05

0.1

0.15

t(sec)

Fig.17 Grid current using dq PI control

A small variation in grid current is observed as shown in

Fig.17, when a single phase to ground fault occurs and it is
fast regulated due to the imposed reference. For enhancing the
dynamics of the controller the grid voltage feed forward terms
are used in this reference structure..
5000
Q
P

4000

P&Q

3000
2000
1000
0
-1000
-2000
0

0.05

0.1

0.15

t(sec)

Mag (% of Fundamental)

Fig.18 Instantanious activr and reactive power

Fundamental (60Hz) = 7.054 , THD= 1.55%

100

50

6
8
10
Harmonic order

12

14

16

Fig.19 THD for grid current using PI controller

During the fault condition, there is variation of active and
reactive power as depicted in Fig.18. The total harmonic
distortion is found to be 1.55% in case of PI controller
used in dq reference frame.

VII. CONCLUSIONS
The paper presents the control of grid side converter under
unbalance grid fault conditions. For that two current
controllers namely PI and PR current controllers are proposed
in the stationary and synchronous rotating frame. The behavior
of PI and PR controller were addressed during grid
abnormality. Additionally, the variation of active and reactive
power during single phase to ground fault are observed along
with harmonic distortion in the grid currents. Finally the

behaviors of controllers are proving to be satisfactory in all

condition, especially during single phase to ground fault. It is
found from the above discussion PR controller has a better
response as compared to PI controller as cross coupling and
feed forward terms are not used in case of PR controller
REFERENCES
[1]

F. Blaabjerg, Z. Chen, and S. Kjaer, Power

electronics as
efficient interface in dispersed power generation systems, IEEE
Trans. Power Electron vol. 19, no. 5, pp. 11841194, Sep. 2004
[2] G. Saccomando and J. Svensson, Transient operation of gridconnected voltage source converter under unbalanced voltage
conditions, in Proc IAS, Chicago, IL, 2001, vol. 4, pp. 24192424
[3] R. Teodorescu and F. Blaabjerg, Flexible control of small wind
turbines with grid failure detection operating in stand-alone or
grid-connected mode, IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol. 19, no.
5, pp. 13231332, Sep. 2004
[4] M. Kazmierkowski, R. Krishnan, and F. Blaabjerg, Control in Power
ElectronicsSelected Problems. New York: Academic, 2002
[5] E. Twining and D. G. Holmes, Grid current regulation of a threephase voltage source inverter with an LCL input filter, IEEE
Trans. Power Electron., vol. 18, no. 3, pp. 888895, May 2003
[6] S. Fukuda and T. Yoda, A novel current-tracking method for active
filters based on a sinusoidal internal model, IEEE Trans. Ind.
Electron., vol. 37, no. 3, pp. 888895, 2001
[7] PWM inverters with zero steady-state error, IEEE Trans. Power
Electron D. Zmood and D. G. Holmes, Stationary frame current
regulation of vol. 18, no. 3, pp. 814822, May 2003
[8] R. Teodorescu and F. Blaabjerg, Proportional-resonant controllers.
A new breed of controllers suitable for grid-connected voltagesource converters, in Proc. OPTIM, 2004, vol. 3, pp. 914.
[9] S. Fukuda and T. Yoda, A novel current-tracking method for
active filters based on a sinusoidal internal model, IEEE Trans.
Ind. Electron., vol. 37, no. 3, pp. 888895, May/Jun. 2001.
[10] Y. Sato, T. Ishizuka, K. Nezu, and T. Kataoka, A new control
strategy for voltage-type PWM rectifiers to realize zero steadystate control error in input current, IEEE Trans. Ind. Appl., vol.
34, no. 3, pp. 480486, May/Jun. 1998.
[11] M. H. J. Bollen, Understanding Power Quality Problems: Voltage
Sags and Interruptions. Piscataway, NJ: IEEE Press, 2002.
[12] F. Blaabjerg, F. Iov, Z. Chen, and R. Teodorescu, Power
electronics in renewable energy systems, Keynote paper at EPEPEMC 2006 Conference, August 30 - September 1 2006, Portoroz
, Slovenia, p.17, IEEE Catalog Number: 06EX1405C, ISBN 14244-0449-5.
[13] F. Blaabjerg, R. Teodorescu, M. Liserre, and A. Timbus,
Overview of control and grid synchronization for distributed
power generation systems, IEEE Transactions on Industrial
Electronics, 2006.
[14] R. Teodorescu, F. Iov, F. BlaabjergModeling and control of
grid converter. Phase 1a:Basic grid inverter control February
2006
[15] F. Blaabjerg and F. Iov, Wind power - a power source now
enabled by power electronics, 30 September - 4 October 2007.
Keynote paper in Proc of 9th Brazilian Power Electronics
Conference COBEP 07, Blumenau Santa Catarina, Brazil, ISBN
978-85-99195-02