Integration of Small Hydropower Plants into Microgrids: Overview, Control, and Modeling Challenges

Hydroelectric power is a dispatchable energy source and plays a crucial role in maintaining stability in islanded microgrids through grid-forming control. This paper presents a comprehensive overview of the modeling and control strategies for small hydropower plants (SHPs), their integration into microgrids, and their interactions with other distributed energy resources (DERs), such as solar power. The study focuses on examining key challenges related to stability, modeling, and control of SHPs to promote hybrid power integration within a microgrid. To address these challenges, recommendations for improving the performance of microgrid-based small hydropower plants are proposed, including advanced control techniques and the implementation of Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) simulations to enhance the accuracy of modeling, testing, and validation.