Synchronization of Low Voltage Grids Fed by Smart and Conventional Transformers

• Published in: IEEE transactions on smart grid Vol. 12; no. 4; pp. 2941 - 2951
• Main Authors: Giacomuzzi, Stefano, De Carne, Giovanni, Pugliese, Sante, Buja, Giuseppe, Liserre, Marco, Kazerooni, Ali
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Piscataway IEEE 01.07.2021; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Converters; Flow control; Inverters; Low voltage; Microgrids; normally open point; Parallel operation; Phase locked loops; Power flow; power hardware in the loop; Smart transformer; solid state transformer; Switches; Synchronism; Synchronization; Transformers; Voltage control; Voltage measurement; Waveforms
• ISSN: 1949-3053; 1949-3061
• DOI: 10.1109/TSG.2021.3054478

The Smart Transformer (ST) is a power electronics-based transformer, which operates as grid-forming converter in the low voltage-fed grid. It synthesizes the voltage waveform with magnitude, phase and frequency independently from the main power system. If a meshed operation of the ST with a conventional transformer is required, to improve the power flow control and to control the voltage profile, the voltage waveforms between the two grids have to be synchronized. The switching under different voltage magnitude, phase or frequency, can lead to a large power in-rush. This work proposes a synchronization strategy that enables a seamless transition of the ST to parallel operations with conventional transformers. Differently from classical communication-based methods, this work addresses a more realistic implementation case with limited communication infrastructure. The ST relies only on local measurements and on its advanced control capability to determine the effective switch to parallel operations. The performance of the proposed strategy has been proved analytically and through simulations in a PLECS/MATLAB environment, and validated experimentally by means of Power-Hardware-In-Loop (PHIL) evaluation.