Hardware test and validation of the angular droop control: Analysis and experiments

TL;DR

This paper validates angular droop control for grid-forming converters through hardware experiments, demonstrating its effectiveness in frequency regulation, power sharing, and synchronization in real-world scenarios.

Contribution

It provides the first hardware validation of angular droop control, addressing implementation challenges like discretization and clock drift, and demonstrates its practical benefits.

Findings

Successful black start and power-to-angle droop behavior in single converter setup.

Effective frequency synchronization and power sharing in multi-converter setup.

Validation of angular droop control's ability to provide ancillary services.

Abstract

We present a hardware-based validation of angular droop control for grid-forming DC/AC converters, a control strategy that establishes active power-to-angle droop. Angular droop control enables exact frequency regulation at steady state, thereby combining primary and secondary control into a single layer. We provide traceable analysis and suggest solutions to the main implementation challenges with angular droop control, specifically addressing the challenges concerning discretization and clock drift in hardware experiments. This is illustrated in two different scenarios. Experimental results from the single converter to load scenario demonstrate black start capability and power-to-angle droop behavior for two different implementation schemes. A multi-converter setup validates frequency synchronization and power-sharing properties, proving the ancillary services that angular droop control provides in the real-world experimental setup.