A new hybrid PLL for Interconnecting Renewable Energy Systems to the Grid

There is a need to develop new control strategies for interconnecting Renewable Energy Sources (RES) to the power system due to the ever increasing penetration of RES and in particular for wind power systems (WPS). The control strategies are typically based on a fast and accurate detection of the phase angle of the grid voltage which may be estimated by using a Phase-Locked Loop (PLL) control circuit. The performance of the PLL under normal and abnormal operational conditions is a crucial aspect, since the RES is desired to operate to support the power system under grid fault conditions. This paper investigates the performance of three different PLLs: a synchronous reference frame PLL (dqPLL), a stationary reference frame PLL (αβPLL), and a decoupled double synchronous reference frame PLL (ddsrfPLL). The results of this investigation motivate to the development of a new hybrid PLL which is a combination of the abovementioned PLLs and uses the advantages of each PLL. The proposed decoupled stationary reference frame PLL (dαβPLL) may be an appropriate solution to use in an interconnected RES with Ride Through Fault (RTF) capability, since it prevails the other PLLs with regards to its accuracy under unbalanced faults. Further, it has a lower deviation of the estimated phase after the fault occurs. The performance of the new hybrid dαβPLL is verified through simulations and experiments. Further the new PLL is used in an interconnected RES through experiments under normal and RTF operation.