Improving the robustness of distributed secondary control in autonomous microgrids to mitigate the effects of communication delays

Distributed control has been employed in autonomous microgrids (MGs) to attain secondary control goals. However, the reliance of MG's distributed secondary control on communication makes it vulnerable to degraded performance and the risk of instability due to communication delays. This paper enhances the flexibility of the MG control framework, with each distributed generator incorporating supplementary local feedback signals. This added flexibility strengthens the MG's ability to counteract disturbances caused by delays and enhances its dynamic performance. The introduction of extra feedback signals has a direct impact on the dynamic response of the MG, leaving its steady-state condition unaffected. In comparison to the methods found in existing literature, the increased flexibility relaxes the inherent trade-off between the objectives of improved transient response and the system's ability to mitigate disturbances caused by delays. To model the MG, a set of delay differential–algebraic equations (DDAEs) is used. The small-signal linearized model is derived and employed to evaluate the stability of the MG as well as fine-tune the control parameters. The effectiveness of this proposed control structure is demonstrated using the MATLAB/Simulink environment and a controller in the loop (CIL) setup, tested against both fixed universal and asynchronous delays, as well as time-varying delays.