Patent Application: US-51353107-A

Abstract:
this invention deals with an advanced real - time grid monitoring system suitable for both single - phase and three - phase electric power systems . this invention provides an essential signal processing block to be used as a part of complex systems either focused on supervising and diagnosing power systems or devoted to control power processors interacting with the grid . this invention is based on a new algorithm very suitable for real - time characterization of the grid variables under distorted and unbalanced grid conditions . the main characteristic of this invention is the usage of a frequency - locked loop , based on detecting the grid frequency , for synchronizing to the grid variables . it results in a very robust system response in relation to existing technique based on the phase - angle detection since grid frequency is much more stable variable than the grid voltage / current phase - angle , mainly during grid faults . moreover , the algorithm supporting this invention is very efficient and can be implemented in regular industrial microprocessors . these features make the rtgms object of this invention ideal to be applied in the control of distributed generation systems , flexible ac transmission systems , power quality conditioners and uninterruptible power supplies . in all these systems , the fast and precise real time detection of the voltage and / or current sequence components under grid fault conditions is a crucial matter .

Description:
the pll - based monitoring systems have been conventionally used as an essential block in the control of complex grid connected systems . however , they can cause control and detection errors under generic grid conditions . as an example , modern grid code requirements for the connection of wind turbines ( wt ) to the grid have demonstrated how limited conventional monitoring and synchronization systems can become for implementing control systems allowing fault ride - through capability in wt . in relation to precedent systems , this invention presents an advanced real - time grid monitoring system with two main specific characteristics : the monitoring system object of this invention is based on the detection of the grid frequency by using a frequency - locked loop ( fll ). this makes the presented rtgms much more robust than its predecessors based on the phase - angle detection using a pll since grid frequency is more stable variable than the grid voltage phase - angle , mainly during grid faults . the algorithm supporting the monitoring system object of this invention can be implemented in regular industrial microprocessors since it is computationally simpler than other algorithms in existing pll approaches . in this invention no phase - angles are used and consequently no trigonometric functions are necessary in the implementation . fig1 shows the block diagram of the advanced real - time monitoring system object of this invention when it is applied to a single - phase system . in this case it is constituted by two fundamental building blocks : the quadrature signal generator ( qsg ), { 1 } in fig1 . the qsg is a functional block in charge of generating a pair of orthogonal signal , ν ′ and qν ′, synchronized to the input signal ν . in the qsg , signal ν ′ will be in phase with ν , and qν ′ will be 90 degrees leaded or lagged in relation to ν , depending on the technique used in the qsg . different qsg have been reported in the literature . the simplest qsg techniques , e . g . the use of a transport delay buffer or an all - pass first - order filters , are not frequency adaptive and do not block harmonics . more sophisticated techniques , e . g . the application of the inverse park transformation or the hilbert transformer [ 8 ], can be used in single - phase systems but entail a high computational burden . studies conducted in this invention have demonstrated that a qsg based on the usage of a second order generalized integrator ( sogi ) offers excellent results in terms of harmonics rejection , simplicity , speed and accurately , giving rise to a lower computational load than other existing techniques . the sogi - based qsg can be understood as a particular implementation of a band - pass filter and it is not frequency adaptive itself . therefore the motoring system in this invention uses an additional frequency loop to keep the qsg tuned with the input signal . as previously mentioned , conventional grid monitoring systems are habitually based on the usage of a pll . it means that the synchronization system estimates the phase - angle of the either phase voltage ( single - phase ) or voltage vector ( three - phase ). however , the phase - angle is a very unstable variable under grid fault conditions . moreover , trigonometric functions are always necessary to deal with the phase angle which increases the computational load of the monitoring algorithm and makes system analysis complex . in this invention , the grid frequency is the key variable of the monitoring system ( fll ). it gives rises to a very robust monitoring algorithm since grid frequency is a much more stable than the grid phase even in faulty grids . there are not precedents in the literature reporting the use of a fll for grid monitoring purposes . the main parameters of the supervised signal can be calculated using the monitoring system of fig1 as follow : v ^ ′ = ( v ′ ) 2 + ( qv ′ ) 2 ; cos ⁢ ⁢ θ ′ = v ′ v ^ ′ ; sin ⁢ ⁢ θ = qv ′ v ^ ′ ; ω ′ , ( 1 ) where { circumflex over ( ν )}′ is the estimated peak value of the input signal ν . moreover , cos θ ′ and sin θ ′, with θ ′ the estimated phase - angle of the input signal , are calculate easily from the output variables . in ( 1 ), ω ′ is the estimated value for the grid frequency . three independent single - phase systems like that shown in fig1 could be used to monitoring a three phase system . however , in such case it is much more efficient to consider the three - phase system as a whole to obtain its characteristic parameters . fig2 shows the block diagram of the grid monitoring system object of this invention when it is applied to three - phase systems . in this case , the three - phase variables are translated from the abc to the αβ reference frame by using the clarke transformation ; marked as { 3 } in fig2 . two qsg are used to obtain the in - quadrature version of the αβ signals and this block is called the dual qsg ( dqsg ); marked as { 4 } in fig2 . since both qsg work at the same frequency , only on fll is necessary for the effective tuning of the dqsg . once the set if in - quadrature signal on the αβ reference frame are available , the sequence components are calculated by of the positive / negative sequence calculator ( pnsc ). the pnsc works in real time , which makes necessary the usage of the instantaneous symmetrical components ( isc ) calculation method [ 9 ]. in this invention however , instead to use the calculation on natural reference frame originally proposed by lyon , the clarke transformation is applied to formulate this calculation on the αβ reference frame ( stationary and orthogonal ) [ 10 ]. positive and negative components at fundamental frequency of the monitored variable are available at the output of the pnsc and characteristics parameters can be calculated as follow :  v + ′  = ( v α + ′ ) 2 + ( v β + ′ ) 2 ; cos ⁢ ⁢ θ + ′ = v α + ′  v + ′  ; sin ⁢ ⁢ θ + ′ = v β + ′  v + ′  ; ω ′ , ( 2 ⁢ a )  v - ′  = ( v α - ′ ) 2 + ( v β - ′ ) 2 ; cos ⁢ ⁢ θ - ′ = v α - ′  v - ′  ; sin ⁢ ⁢ θ - ′ = v β - ′  v - ′  , ( 2 ⁢ b ) where | ν +′ | and | ν −′ | are the voltage amplitudes and θ +′ and θ −′ are the phase angles of the positive and negative sequence voltage components , respectively . ω ′ is the estimated grid frequency . fig1 shows a general block diagram of the single - phase implementation of the rtgms object of this invention . in this figure , the block marked with { 1 } is the quadrature signal generator ( qsg ) and with { 2 } is the frequency - locked loop ( fll ). fig2 shows a general block diagram of the three - phase implementation of the rtgms object of this invention . in this figure , the block marked with { 3 } is the clarke transformation ([ t αβ ]), with { 4 } is the dual qsg ( dqsg ), and with { 5 } is the positive / negative sequence calculator ( pnsc ). fig3 shows the specific implementation of the second - order generalized integrator ( sogi ) developed in the research conducted in this invention . in relation to other conventional sogi implementations , this implementation presents a particular distribution of integrators and multipliers , which gives rise to a more stable response in presence of transients in the input variables . fig4 shows the structure of the sogi - based qsg used in this invention . the block marked with { 6 } represents the sogi . this specific qsg implementation can be understood as a particular implementation of an adaptive band - pass filter , where input ω ′ sets the tuning frequency and gain k sets the damping factor of the qsg . fig5 shows the structure of the frequency controller in fll . this controller receives the qsg error signal ( ε ν ) and the in - quadrature signal ( qν ′) to perform an inner phase detection which is used as the input of an integral controller with gain γ . the output of this controller is ω ′, the tuning frequency of the qsg . fig6 shows the block diagram of the positive - negative - sequence calculator ( pnsc ) on the αβ reference frame , having two sets of in - quadrature signals at the input . fig7 shows a detailed diagram of preferred embodiment for the rtgms object of this invention applied to a three - phase system . the three main building blocks , namely the dqsg , the fll and the pnsc are highlighted in this figure . fig8 shows the frequency response of three - phase monitoring system in the detection of the positive sequence component , i . e ., the bode diagram from ν α to ν α +′ with ω ′= constant . fig9 shows some experimental results regarding the response of the three - phase real - time grid monitoring system ( dsogi - fll ) in presence of a voltage sag type c . ( a ) faulty grid voltage ; ( b ) amplitudes and phase - angles detected ; ( c ) detected positive - sequence signals ; ( d ) detected negative - sequence signals fig1 shows some experimental results regarding the response of the three - phase real - time grid monitoring system ( dsogi - fll ) in presence of frequency variation ( from 50 hz to 60 hz ). ( a ) faulty grid voltage ; ( b ) amplitudes and phase - angles detected ; ( c ) detected positive - sequence signals ; ( d ) detected frequency . fig1 shows some experimental results regarding the response of the three - phase real - time grid monitoring system ( dsogi - fll ) in presence of harmonics ( thd = 5 %. ( a ) faulty grid voltage ; ( b ) amplitudes and phase - angles detected ; ( c ) detected positive - sequence signals ; ( d ) ripple in the detected frequency ( magnified ) a more detailed description of the building blocks constituting a preferred embodiment of the rtgms object of this invention will be given in the following . even though this invention can be used for monitoring either current or voltage , only grid voltage will be considered in the following for the sake of simplifying . the block diagram shown in fig3 depicts the specific sogi implementation performed in this invention . this particular layout of multipliers and integrators offers a more stable response in front of sudden variations of the input signals . transfer function if the sogi depicted in fig3 is : denominator of transfer function in ( 3 ) evidences the resonant characters of the sogi , giving rise to two complex poles at ± jω ′. consequently , the sogi will act as an ideal infinite - gain integrator when input signal f is sinusoidal signal at ω ′ frequency . according to the ideal integrator character for ω ′ frequency , the system shown in fig4 is used to track the input signal ν . characteristics transfer functions of such system are given by : according transfer functions of ( 4 ), output signals of the system shown in fig4 , i . e ., ν ′ and qν ′ are in - quadrature signals , with qν ′ 90 °- lagged respect to ν ′. for this reason , system of fig4 is called as quadrature signals generator ( qsg ) in this invention . t sogi - based qsd of fig4 can be understood as a particular implementation of an adaptive filter in which its dynamics is set by the input ω ′, setting its tuning frequency , and the gain k , setting its damping factor . transfer functions of ( 4 ) reveal that the sogi - based qsg provides band - pass and low - pass filtering characteristic to the direct and in - quadrature outputs respectively , ν ′ and qν ′, which is interesting to attenuate harmonics and noise from input variable ν . system shown in fig4 is frequency adaptive and its synchronization to the grid variables is achieved by adjusting the ω ′ parameter . however , qν ′ will be always 90 °- lagging ν ′, independently of both the frequency of ν and the values of ω ′ and k . conventional monitoring systems use a phase locked - loop ( pll ) for grid synchronization . conventionally , the input stage of a pll is a phase - detector ( pd ) by means of which phase of the input signal is compared with the phased detected by the pll . phase - angle is a very unstable variable during grid fault conditions and conventional pll - based monitoring systems give rise to detection errors under such faulty grid conditions . fig5 shows the structure of the controller in the fll . this controller does not work directly with the input signal ν for detecting the phase - angle error in the output of the qsg . instead of this , this invention uses as an input the error signal of the qsg , ε ν . the error signal ε ν is multiplied by the in - quadrature signal , qν ′, in order to obtain an inner variable phase - detector . the output of this multiplier is applies as an input to an integral controller with gain γ . the output of this integral controller is ω ′, the tuning frequency of the qsg . the detection system resulting from earlier described arrange is simpler than conventional pll and neither phase - angle nor trigonometric functions are used for frequency estimation , being possible to talk about a frequency - locked loop ( fll ) instead of a pll . the most remarkable characteristics of the proposed fll - based rtgms are its robustness , simplicity , precision , and effectiveness monitoring signals resulting from grids faults which are used to be characterized by remarkable phase - angle jumps . in conventional pll - based gms , the grid voltage phase - angle is the main adaptive variable in the detection algorithm . in the proposed fll - based rtgms , the fundamental adaptive variable is not the grid voltage phase - angle but the grid frequency which confers a great stability to the detection system . in three - phase applications , instantaneous positive - and negative - sequence components , v abc + and v abc − , of a generic three - phase voltage vector v abc =[ v a v b v c ] t are given by : v abc + = [ v a + v b + v c + ] t = [ t + ] ⁢ v abc ; v abc - = [ v a - v b - v c - ] t = [ t - ] ⁢ v abc ( 5 ⁢ a ) this invention is based on the usage of a qsg generating a set of in - quadrature signals ν ′ and qν ′, therefore it is of interest in this invention to apply the clarke transformation to translate the voltage vector from the abc to the αβ reference frames as follow : so instantaneous positive - and negative - sequence voltage components on the αβ reference frame are calculated as : v αβ + = ⁢ [ t α ⁢ ⁢ β ] ⁢ v abc + = ⁢ [ t α ⁢ ⁢ β ⁢ ] ⁡ [ t + ] ⁢ v abc = ⁢ [ t α ⁢ ⁢ β ] ⁡ [ t + ] ⁡ [ t α ⁢ ⁢ β ] t ⁢ v α ⁢ ⁢ β = ⁢ 1 2 ⁡ [ 1 - q q 1 ] ⁢ v αβ , ( 7 ⁢ a ) v αβ - = ⁢ [ t α ⁢ ⁢ β ] ⁢ v abc - = ⁢ [ t αβ ] ⁡ [ t - ] ⁢ v abc = ⁢ [ t α ⁢ ⁢ β ⁢ ] ⁡ [ t - ] ⁡ [ t αβ ] t ⁢ v αβ = ⁢ 1 2 ⁡ [ 1 q - q 1 ] ⁢ v α ⁢ ⁢ β , ⁢ ⁢ where ⁢ ⁢ q = ⅇ - j ⁢ ⁢ π 2 ( 7 ⁢ b ) is a phase - shift time - domain operator to obtain in - quadrature version ( 90 °- lagging ) of an original waveform . the block diagram of the positive / negative sequence calculator ( pvsc ) is shown in fig6 . in this invention , a set of quadrature signals ν ′ and qν ′ are obtained from the earlier presented sogi - based qsg . taking into account that are necessary two quadrature generators , one for α and another for β components , the quadrature generator in the αβ domain will be called from now on as dual qsg ( dqsg ). the dqsg is marked with { 4 } in fig2 . from ( 7 ), the amplitude and phase - angle of the positive - and negative sequence components can be calculated from the output of the pnsc as follow :  v + ′  = ( v α + ′ ) 2 + ( v β + ′ ) 2 ; cos ⁢ ⁢ θ + ′ = v α + ′  v + ′  ; sin ⁢ ⁢ θ + ′ = v β + ′  v + ′  , ( 8 ⁢ a )  v - ′  = ( v α - ′ ) 2 + ( v β - ′ ) 2 ; cos ⁢ ⁢ θ - ′ = v α - ′ ⁢  v - ′  ; sin ⁢ ⁢ θ - ′ = v β - ′ ⁢  v - ′  , ( 8 ⁢ b ) where | ν +′ | and | ν −′ | are the voltage amplitudes and θ +′ and θ −′ are the phase angles of the sequence components . gathering the three main blocks previously presented , the proposed rtgms for three - phase applications is sown in fig7 . in relation to previous approaches for real - time monitoring of three - phase systems , the system presented in this invention is extremely robust and simple , and overcomes all the drawbacks of earlier solutions ; achieving proper positive - and negative - sequence components identification even under severe faulty grid operating conditions . when v αβ is a positive - sequence balanced sinusoidal voltage at frequency ω , its α - β components keep the following relationship : therefore , the transfer function from ν α to ν α +′ in the complex frequency domain is given by : p ⁡ ( j ⁢ ⁢ ω ) = v α + ′ v α ⁢ ( j ⁢ ⁢ ω ) = 1 2 ⁢ k ⁢ ⁢ ω ′ ⁢ ( ω + ω ′ ) k ⁢ ⁢ ω ′ ⁢ ω + j ⁡ ( ω 2 - ω ′ ⁢ ⁢ 2 ) ( 11 ) where ω ′, the frequency detected by the fll , is supposed to be in steady - state . conducting a similar reasoning on the β signal , it can be concluded that ν β +′ has equal amplitude than ν α +′ but is 90 °- lagging it . to know how ν αβ +′ will be when ν αβ is a negative - sequence vector it is only necessary to substitute ω by − ω in ( 11 ). fig8 plots the amplitude of the transfer function of ( 11 ) for positive - sequence ( ω & gt ; 0 - continuous line ) and negative - sequence ( ω & lt ; 0 - dashed line ) voltages at the input of the dsogi - fll . fig8 reveals that , in steady - state and regarding positive - sequence detection , the dsogi - fll acts as both a low - pass filter for positive - sequence and a notch filter for the negative - sequence . fig8 also shows that the smaller value for the gain k the more selective response of the system , which is interesting for harmonics rejection . however , this high selectivity entails higher oscillations in the response and longer stabilization time . consequently , a trade - off between frequency selectivity and response speed should be adopted . conclusions obtained for the detection of v αβ +′ are directly applicable to the detection of v αβ −′ , being only necessary to swap the roll of the positive - and negative - sequence components . the three - phase implementation of the real - time grid monitoring system object of this invention has been evaluated in an experimental set - up . the sampling frequency of the digital controller were the dsogi - pll algorithm was implemented was set to 15 khz . in the following results from such experiments are shown . in a first experiment the ac - power source suddenly decreases the rms voltage of one phase from 1 pu to 0 . 45 pu . this fault is propagated through δγ transformer as a dip type c , being { right arrow over ( v )} + = 0 . 818 | 0 ° pu and { right arrow over ( v )} − = 0 . 182 | 0 ° pu the positive - and negative - sequence phasors during the fault . fig9 shows the waveforms from this first experiment , where it is remarkable the high speed in the detection , achieving precise results in less than one grid cycle . it is worth to notice that the detected phase - angles for both the positive - and negative - sequence voltages show a coherent evolution before the grid fault happens . it is because of the nonidealities of the experimental plant , which are giving rise to a very faint but steady imbalance in the grid voltage . the high sensibility of the dsogi - fll allows detecting this tiny negative - sequence component before the grid fault occurrence . in a second experiment the grid frequency varies from 50 hz to 60 hz . waveforms of fig1 validate the frequency - adaptive characteristic of the dsogi - fll which is able to overcome this big jump of frequency without oscillations in about 40 ms . a third experiment is devoted to evaluate the immunity of the dsogi - fll to distortion in the grid voltage . the grid voltage waveform was distorted with a thd of 5 %. according to the waveforms shown in fig1 , it is notable the high quality of the positive - sequence detected voltage . since the insignificant amplitude of the negative - sequence component , there exists high distortion in the phase - angle calculated by ( 7b ) for this component . as fast as the negative - sequence component amplitude rises to higher levels , distortion in its phase - angle calculation decreases . conventional grid monitoring techniques come from the evolution of the well known single - phase pll technique and hence all of these conventional monitoring algorithms are based on the detection of the phase - angle of the voltage or current to be monitored . the usage of synchronous reference frames and trigonometric functions is a common characteristic in the implementation of phase detectors and voltage controlled oscillators in such conventional grid monitoring techniques . this invention presents a new monitoring system which is not based on the detection of the phase - angle but based on the detection of the grid frequency . therefore , the phase detector and the voltage controlled oscillator of the conventional systems are not necessary anymore under the proposed grid monitoring approach . a frequency adaptive filter based on second - 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