Role of Grid Forming Converters in Microgrid Clusters for Load Frequency Control

Maintaining frequency stability across multiple micro-grid clusters presents a significant challenge. This study introduces a benchmark dynamic model of an isolated microgrid cluster interconnected via tie lines, incorporating various types of distributed energy resources. This paper investigates a multitude of energy storage systems to primarily maintain the balance between supply and demand of power and also to maintain the target grid frequency at the scheduled value. The relatively low inertia characteristic of hybrid power systems results in substantial frequency fluctuations in response to minor load changes within microgrid clusters. This phenomenon underscores the critical need for robust and efficient and grid forming converter technologies, which are discussed in this paper. The developed model is employed to analyze the frequency behavior of networked microgrids highlighting the role that power electronics converter technologies can offer in microgrids. The effectiveness of the study is demonstrated using time domain simulations performed in Matlab<tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\textregistered$</tex> environment, revealing improvements in frequency and tie-power deviations with more than 60 % overshoot reduction, substantiating overall system performance.