From design to deployment: A holistic perspective on design frameworks, stability analysis, and control innovations of DC microgrid architectures

Now-a-days, DC microgrids (DCMGs) are gaining significant traction due to their higher reliability, simpler control strategies and the absence of challenges like synchronisation, harmonics, reactive power regulation, and frequency control. However, integrating various and distributed energy resources in the same DC bus complicates the regulation of the DC bus voltage and power sharing. Various DCMG design architectures have been proposed to enhance power availability, efficiency, and reliability. These architectures usually can be classified into four main types, i.e., single bus, multi-bus, bipolar bus, and reconfigurable bus topologies. Diverse control strategies, including centralised, decentralised, distributed, and hierarchical control with different architectures, are proposed to ensure the safe and secure functioning of DCMGs. Despite this progress, a comprehensive design procedure for the existing DCMG architectures from the dynamic stability and control perspective has not yet been thoroughly analysed. This study reviews the topological and control architectures of current DCMGs and provides detailed design procedures for their state space modelling, stability analysis, and real-time implementation. Additionally, this study identifies areas for future research in DC microgrid design and control, which readers can explore to better understand the current state of this field and future needs. • Comprehensive review of DC microgrid architectures and control strategies. • Mathematical modeling and stability analysis for various DCMG designs. • Impact of critical loads on DCMG stability and stabilisation techniques. • MATLAB-based design demonstration of three distinct DCMG architectures. • Practical design illustration of a reconfigurable low-scale DCMG.