Determining optimal virtual inertia and frequency control parameters to preserve the frequency stability in islanded microgrids with high penetration of renewables

Preserving the frequency stability of low inertia microgrids (MGs) with high penetration of renewables is a serious challenge. To rise to this challenge, the inertia constant of MGs would be virtually increased using energy storages. However, it is important to determine the suitable value of inertia constant for these systems such that the frequency stability is preserved with a lower cost. Frequency droop coefficient of distributed energy resources (DERs) and load frequency controllers' parameters would also affect the frequency response of MGs. Hence, in this paper, inertia constant is tuned together with frequency droop coefficient of DERs and load frequency controllers' parameters. Determining these parameters is modeled as a multi-objective optimization problem and, because the number of objectives is higher than three, the problem is solved by a many-objective optimization algorithm. Comparative simulation studies have been done on an MG with different types of DERs to prove that using the proposed strategy for tuning the MG parameters not only the frequency deviation is highly decreased but also the amount of load shedding is considerably diminished. This would increase the customers' satisfaction. Moreover, considering the inertia constant as a minimization objective, frequency stability would be preserved with a lower cost. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.