Active and Reactive Power Control of

Grid Connected Distributed

Generation Systems

Agustı́ Egea-Alvarez, Adrià Junyent-Ferré, and Oriol Gomis-Bellmunt

Abstract. The present chapter describes active and reactive power con-
trol for distributed generation and storage systems connected to the grid
by means of voltage source converters. Renewable generation and storage
systems connected to a three-phase three-wire grid are considered. The dif-
ferent system components are described and modelled. The overall active
and reactive power control scheme based on the instantaneous power theory
is described. The fundamental necessary control blocks are detailed including
the phase locked loop, current controllers, current references calculation and
DC bus voltage controllers. Simulations results are provided to exemplify the
described control approach.

1 Introduction
The need for more reliable and flexible power systems along with the great
potential of modern control and communication systems and power electron-
ics, has led to development of the smart grid concept [1]. Modern grids will
be required to be active and to adapt to a number of fault events ensuring
the system optimum performance during and after faults occur. Furthermore,
modern grids will have to integrate the increasing penetration of renewable
energy of intermittent nature.
Power electronics are the enabling technology to convert classical power
systems into smart grids, since they allow controlling the power flows and
Agustı́ Egea-Alvarez · Adrià Junyent-Ferré · Oriol Gomis-Bellmunt
Centre d’Innovació Tecnològica en Convertidors Estàtics i Accionaments
(CITCEA-UPC), Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya UPC, Av. Diagonal, 647,
Pl. 2. 08028 Barcelona, Spain
e-mail: {agusti.egea,adria.junyent,gomis}@citcea.upc.edu
Oriol Gomis-Bellmunt
IREC Catalonia Institute for Energy Research, Barcelona, Spain
e-mail: ogomis@irec.cat

L. Wang (Ed.): Modeling and Control, Green Energy and Technology, pp. 47–81.
springerlink.com 
c Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012
48 A. Egea-Alvarez, A. Junyent-Ferré, and O. Gomis-Bellmunt

bus voltages in the milliseconds range. In particular, AC-DC converters with

bidirectional power capability are the key elements in microgrids [2, 3] and
distributed generation systems. The different configurations of variable speed
wind turbines need power converter structures based on two AC-DC convert-
ers. Each converter needs active and reactive power control capability in
order to extract the optimum power from the wind turbine while exchanging
the appropriate reactive power with the power grid. Similarly, photovoltaic
systems need a AC-DC inverter to inject the generated power into the grid.
Storage systems based on batteries also require bidirectional AC-DC convert-
ers to charge the battery or to inject power to the grid. An example scheme
of a microgrid comprising these elements is sketched in Figure 1.

ELECTRICAL
STORAGE
VEHICLE UTILITY

DC DC
AC AC

MICROGRID
AC AC
DC DC

DC
AC ELECTRICAL THERMAL
DEMAND DEMAND

GAS COGENE
PHOTO- μTURBINE RATION
VOLTAIC

THERMAL
ENERGY

Fig. 1 Example microgrid with generation and storage systems

There exist a wide variety of converter topologies[4, 5, 6] to connect re-

newable generation or microgrid units to the main grid. Inverters to inject
power to the grid can be classified according to different criteria. Regarding
the kind of semiconductor used, inverters can be classified as: