Voltage Sensorless Predictive Direct Power Control for
Renewable Energy Integration Under Grid Fault
Conditions
Y. K. Tao*, Q. H. Wu*†, Fellow, IEEE, W. H. Tang*, Senior Member, IEEE, and L. Wang*
*
School of Electrical Power Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510641, China.
†
Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3GJ, U.K.
Corresponding author: Prof. W. H. Tang; E-mail address: wenhutang@scut.edu.cn.
Abstract—With the increasing penetration of distributed
generation (DG) systems based on renewable energies into the
power grid, the fault ride-through capability of them is stressed
by recent grid codes. Aiming to adapting this requirement, this
paper proposes a voltage sensorless predictive direct power
control (PDPC) for the grid-interactive DC/AC converter
utilized in DG systems. In order to realize a voltage sensorless
operation independent of the grid frequency deviation, a second
order generalized integrator (SOGI)-based virtual flux (VF)
observer is adopted. Moreover, through specific fluctuating
power compensations calculated base on the estimated VF, the
proposed control strategy offers positive sequence current,
constant active and reactive power behaviors, respectively.
Simulation studies were conducted in MATLAB/Simulink under
gird fault conditions, including the grid frequency deviation,
distorted grid voltage by negative sequence voltage and higher
harmonics. The simulation results verify that the proposed
voltage sensorless PDPC presents superior steady-state and
transient performance against the foregoing grid faults.
Index Terms--Voltage sensorless control, predictive direct power
control (PDPC), DC/AC converter, renewable energy
integration, grid fault condition.
I. INTRODUCTION
Recently, with the economic development and energy
demand increase, environmental problems have gradually
become a heated issue. It forces human to look for a
sustainable development way for power generation. On this
background, the distributed generation (DG) systems based on
renewable energies are attracting more and more attentions.
From the researches carried out to date we may find that
power electronic equipments appear as essential parts of the
DG systems [1].
Due to the existence of various grid disturbances, the
power grid cannot keep up the ideal operation conditions. In
these cases, several problems could lead a DC/AC converter to
trip, such as DC link voltage oscillation, overcurrent,
under/overvoltage and heavy imbalance at the AC side. With
The project is supported by Guangdong Innovative Research Team
Program (No. 201001N0104744201).
the increasing penetration of DG systems into the power grid,
new and stricter grid codes are issued, which require the DG
systems to maintain the active power delivery and reactive
power support during grid faults [2]ˈ [3]. During the last
decade, a few works have been published to improve the
output property of the DC/AC interface belonging to DG
systems. In the proposed control strategies, two important
types can be identified: active power and reactive power
currents based [4]-[6] and fluctuating power compensation
based [7], [8] schemes. In the former, active and reactive
power fluctuations are regulated by the corresponding
components of currents. In the latter, the residual power
fluctuating components are directly added to the constant
power reference values to manage the power ripples.
Virtual flux (VF) based schemes are popular in voltage
sensorless controller designs for the following two reasons.
The application of VF remains the common advantages of
sensorless strategies, such as cost reduction, reliability and
generality improvement. Meanwhile, it eliminates the
limitation of the orientation point for the control system [9]
and enhances harmonic tolerance [10]. The most common VF
observer is designed based on a first-order low pass filter (LPF)
[11], however, it cannot emulate the pure integrator accurately.
Later, some varieties for it were proposed to overcome this
shortcoming [9]ˈ [12]. The above-mentioned observers are
all sensitive to grid frequency deviation. Literature [13]
proposed a frequency-adaptive observer, whose behavior can
be adjusted in time according to the grid frequency.
This paper proposes a voltage sensorless predictive direct
power control (PDPC) for the DC/AC converter interfacing
the DG systems with the utility network, which can operate
under grid fault conditions, involving the unbalance voltage
dip, grid frequency deviation and higher harmonic distortion.
After compensating for specific power fluctuating components,
positive sequence current, constant active and reactive power
operations can be ensured, respectively. The rest of this paper
is organized as follows. Section II introduces the VF observer.
Then, the principles of the proposed control strategy are
presented in Section III, and followed by simulation vs
verifications in Section IV. Finally, conclusions are drawn in DC link
Section V. R L
Distributed
Sources
II. VF OBSERVERS
As defined in [10], the grid voltage can be regarded as the vDC
ia ,b Virtual AC Motor
product of a VF. Thus, the relationship between the line S abc
voltage vector v and the VF vector \ can be described as v̂DE
iab iDE
abc Voltage uDE
\ ³ vdt  \ 0 (1)
S abc SDE
SCEs & p, q
Reference SVM
S abc

DE SVEs p , q
c c Calculation
where \ 0 is the initial value of the flux integral. The integral
initial value is essential for the VF estimation, as conducted in vDC p q
[14], nevertheless, which is not the issue concerned by this
paper. Figure 2. Block scheme of the proposed strategy.

Since the pure integrator could cause DC bias due to the A. Mathematical Model
unknown initial input signal and DC offset presented in
sampled signals, and integration drift problems [15], other Assuming that the grid voltage is constant at adjacent
approaches have been utilized to emulate the integral action in sampling instants and the differential operation is replaced by
(1). Thereinto, a ¿rst-order LPF [11] is the simplest and most the first order difference, the voltage sensorless PDPC can be
common method for VF observer designs. However, this modeled as [15]
method will introduce amplitude and phase errors in the VF
estimation. Although some varieties of it have eliminated ªuD (k ) º ª vˆD (k ) º L ª vˆD (k ) vˆE (k ) º
«u ( k ) » «vˆ (k ) »  2 « »
¬ E ¼ Ts (vˆD  vˆE ) ¬vˆE (k ) vˆD (k ) ¼
2
these errors, all of them suffer from estimation performance ¬ E ¼
degeneration when the grid frequency is different from the (2)
rated value, unless the grid frequency adaptive strategy is ª p app (k  1)  p (k ) º
˜« »
integrated in the observer. «¬ q app (k  1)  q (k ) »¼

where u is the converter terminal voltage reference, v̂

v  q\ denotes the estimated grid voltage , Ts represents the sampling
+ - Hv +
k - ³ y period and papp , qapp give the amended power reference
Ẑ valuesZKLFKDUHGH¿QHGDV
qv '
³ \
ª p app (k  1) º ª p (k  1)  K p H p (k ) º
SOGI
« » « »
«¬ q app (k  1) »¼ «¬ q (k  1)  K q H q (k ) »¼
(3)
ª 2 p (k )  p (k  1)  K p [ p (k )  p (k )]º
Figure 1. Frequency-adaptive VF observer based on a SOGI. « »
«¬ 2q (k )  q (k  1)  K q [q (k )  q (k )] »¼

Here, a frequency-adaptive VF observer (shown in Fig. 1)

is utilized, which is based on a second order generalized where K p , q are the delay compensation coefficients and H p , q
integrator (SOGI). As indicated in Fig. 1, the estimated grid
, q
frequency Ẑ is an explicit input, which can ensure the grid
frequency-adaptive performance. A frequency-locked loop
(FLL) [16] is adopted in the following simulation verifications
to fulfill this estimation. There is another output of this
observer q\ in addition to \ , which is in quadrature with \ ,
and can be utilized for sequence component extraction.
III. PRINCIPLE OF THE PROPOSED CONTROL STRATEGY
Figure 2 shows the block scheme of the proposed strategy
for distributed sources connected to the power grid, where
L and R represent the inductance and resistance of the
interconnected reactor, SCEs and SVEs are short for sequence
component extractions and state variable estimations
(including grid frequency, grid voltage and power estimations),
respectively.
are tracking errors. In (3 WKH ¿UVW 5+6 H[SUHVVLRQ p
represent the actual references, which are estimated using a
linear extrapolation. The second RHS expression, e.g. K p H p ,
is the delay compensation term.
B. Power Analysis and Compensation Schemes During Grid
Faults
For convenience, the following discussions are firstly
carried out under unbalanced grid voltages (without higher
harmonics). Then, the derived equations are generalized for
more general fault conditions.
When the grid voltage is unbalanced, the VF vector can be
expressed as [17], [18]
 
\ \  \ \  e j ( Z t  M )  \  e j (  Z t M )
(4)
where \  and \  are the magnitude of positive and negative f
qc qq q  Z ¦ n (\ n i n  \  n i  n )
sequence VF , and M  , M  are their initial phase angles, n 1

respectively. f f (11)

Combining (1) and (4) gets

Z ¦ [sign(m)m\ ¦ i
m f
m
A
s f
s
]
szm

d d ª  j (Z t M  )
 \  e j (  Z t M ) º

f
v \ \ e
p  Z ¦ n(\ nA i n  \ A i  n )
n

dt dt ¬ ¼ pc p p
  n 1
jZ\  e j (Zt M )  jZ\  e j ( Zt M )
(5) f f (12)
ª \ E  \ E º
  Z ¦ [m\ ¦ i m s
]
Z«   »
m f s f
szm
¬ \D  \D ¼
where the subscript “ A ” indicates lagging by 90$ with
that is
respect to the original vector.
ª vˆD º ª \ E  \ E º When taking the positive sequence current operation as
«vˆ » Z«  »
. (6)
¬ E¼

¬ \D  \D ¼ control target, the negative sequence and higher harmonics of
FXUUHQWV VKRXOG EH HOLPLQDWHG ,Q WKLV VHQVH WKH ÀXFWXDWLQJ
Literature [19] points out that when the grid voltage is power generated by these current components will be null.
distorted, the instantaneous power can be expressed as Whereas, WKH UHVW ÀXFWXDWLQJ FRPSRQHQWV JHQHUDWHd by
positive sequence current are inevitable, and will be added to
ª pº ª p  p º the power references.
«q» « q  q » (7)
¬ ¼ ¬ ¼ f

where p and q denote the average parts of p and q ,

pc (vˆ  vˆ + )i  Z ¦ [sign(m)m\
m f
m
A ] i (13)
m z1
whereas p and q are their oscillating parts. Under
unbalanced grid voltages, they can be represented as f
qc (vˆA  vˆA )i  Z ¦ [m\ m
] i (14)
ª pº ª \ E

\E 
\D 
\D º ªiD º
  m f
m z1
« » «  »« »
« p» \ \ E \D \D » «iD »
Z « E . (8) IV. SIMULATION RESULTS
«q » « \D \D \ E \ E » «iE »
« » «  »« » The behavior of the proposed control strategy was
¬ q ¼ «¬ \D \D \ E \ E »¼ «¬iE »¼ simulated using MATLAB/Simulink and the toolbox
From [6], [8] we know that any combinations of the SimPowerSystems. The parameters of the circuit used for
requirements (involving FRQVWDQW DFWLYH SRZHU ÀRZ FRQVWDQW simulation are L 19.7 mH, R 0.67 : , Ts 333 P s and
UHDFWLYHSRZHUÀRZDQG positive sequence current operations) vDC 180 V. The pre-fault grid voltage is set to vL-L(RMS) 85
cannot be met at the same time. That is, a constant power Àow V, f 50 Hz.
will induce distorted line currents, meanwhile, the constant
active pRZHU ÀRZ DFFRPSDQLHV reactive power oscillations, Figure 3 gives the simulation results for VF estimations
and vice versa. based on SOGI-based and LPF-based observers when the grid
Therefore, to obtain the FRQVWDQW DFWLYH SRZHU ÀRZ i.e., frequency steps from 50 to 40 Hz (the grid voltage is
p 0 , the oscillating component q have to exist in the sinusoidal and balanced in this case). Where the LPF based
observer is the one proposed in [12], which realizes the phase
reactive power Àow. In other words, the oscillating component and amplitude compensations for WKH ¿UVW-order LPF [11] at
should serve as a compensation for the reactive power the fundamental frequency. As the Fig. 3 (b) reÀected, when
reference. the grid frequency is the rated value, i.e., 50 Hz, both of them
qc qq can realize accurate estimation. Nevertheless, after the step
. (9) occurrence, the LPF-based scheme introduces phase and
Z  \D iD  \ E iE  \D iD  \D iD  amplitude errors while the SOGI-based results are not
deteriorated.
Similarly,
To check the correctness of generalized compensation
pc p p principles descried by (11), (12), (13) and (14), the grid
. (10) voltage is simultaneously affected by the positive sequence
Z  \ E iD  \D iE  \ E iD  \D iE 
fault voltage v  0.747‘  14q pu, the negative sequence
Following the above compensation principles, the fault voltage v  0.163‘8.63q pu and the 5th order
generalized expressions of power compensations can be harmonic v 5 0.07‘  60q , which are set with respect to the
given as pre-fault voltage. In order to better reflect the compensation
effect, instantaneous active power and reactive power
waveforms showing in the simulation results are calculated
based on the measured grid voltages rather than on the
estimated VF used in control strategy realization, which are
marked by pv and qv .
Figure 3. Comparative results between the SOGI-EDVHG DQG WKH ¿OWHU-based
VF observers against the grid frequency disturbance.
475 W and q
0 Var.
Figure 4. Response of the proposed strategy for positive sequence current
operation in presence of higher harmonic and unbalanced voltage dip with
p
475 W and q
0 Var.
The simulation results of positive sequence current
operation are shown in Fig. 4. As observed in Fig. 4, the grid
voltage is seriously distorted, while the line current is
sinusoidal, symmetrical and in inverse phase with the positive
sequence voltage. Meanwhile, the instantaneous power flows
are fluctuated. Figure 5 (a) indicates that, when the
instantaneous active power reference is compensated by the
fluctuating component (12), the target of constant reactive
power flow operation is achieved successfully. Although the
line currents are unbalanced and distorted, it is still in inverse
phase with the positive sequence voltage. In contrast, in Fig. 5
(b), there are only ripples in reactive power flow, while the
active power flow is constant and smooth. The waveforms of
line currents are similar with those in Fig. 5 (a).
Figure 5. Simulation results under seriously distorted grid voltages for (a)
constant reactive power operation and (b) constant active power operation
with p
As Fig. 6 shown, a grid fault occurs at 0.5 s, which
consists of v  0.747‘  14q pu and v  0.163‘8.63q pu. At
the same instant, the grid frequency jumps from 50 to 40 Hz.
As reflected by Fig. 6 (a), with the active power compensation
activated, the target of constant reactivHSRZHUÀRZRSHUDWLRQ
is realized. The line currents are sinusoidal, asymmetrical and
in inverse phase with the positive sequence voltage. On the
contrary, in Fig. 6 (b), only the waveform of reactive power
Àow is fluctuating, whereas the active power curve is flat. The
line currents are still sinusoidal, asymmetrical and in inverse
phase with the positive sequence voltage. Furthermore, in both
of the cases, the transient processes are short and smooth.

Figure 6. Transient process under unbalanced grid voltages and frequency
step condition for (a) constant reactive power operation and (b) constant
active power operation with p
475 W and q
0 Var. modulation (DPC-SVM)," IEEE Transactions Ind. Electron., vol. 51,
V. CONCLUSION
This paper has proposed a voltage sensorless PDPC for
DC/AC converters interfacing the DG systems with the utility
network. In order to verify the feasibility of the proposed
control scheme, simulation verifications have been carried out
in MATLAB/Simulink under the following grid conditions:
unbalance voltage dip, grid frequency deviation and higher
harmonic distortion. The simulation results indicate that the
SOGI-based VF observer can estimate the VF accurately
independent of the grid frequency deviation; With power
references compensated by corresponding fluctuating power
components, the DC/AC converter can realize positive
sequence current, constant active and reactive power
operations. In other words, the correctness of the derived
generalized compensation equations is demonstrated.
Moreover, the transient simulation results reflect that the
proposed control strategy offers a short and smooth transient
process when the grid voltage is affected by unbalance voltage
dip and grid frequency jump simultaneously.
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