Experimental Investigation of the Hierarchical Control in DC Microgrids Using a Real-time Simulator

The rise of renewable energy sources has underscored the significance of microgrids, particularly DC variants, which are well-suited for integrating photovoltaic panels, battery storage systems, and other DC load solutions. This paper presents the development and experimentation of a DC microgrid with hierarchical control implemented in OPAL RT-Lab, a simulator. The microgrid includes distributed energy resources (DERs) interconnected via power converters, a DC bus, and DC loads. The primary control employs a droop control mechanism and double-loop Proportional-Integral (PI) control to regulate voltage and current, ensuring stable operation and proportional power sharing. The secondary control utilizes a consensus-based strategy to coordinate DERs to restore the bus voltage and ensure accurate power sharing, enhancing system reliability and efficiency. The experimental setup detailed in this paper includes circuit modeling, hardware implementation, and control strategies. The hardware platform's circuitry and controller parameters are specified, and the results can be observed through oscilloscope measurements. Two sets of experiments demonstrating the secondary control response with and without delay are conducted to validate the effectiveness of the control strategy. The outcomes confirm the successful implementation of hierarchical control in the microgrid. This study underscores the significance of a comprehensive experimental platform for advancing microgrid technology, providing valuable insights for future research and development.