Michell J. Quintero-Duran

In power grids that integrate renewable energy sources, the virtual synchronous machine (VSM) or synchronverter offers a viable solution to the challenge posed by reduced inertia. This technology employs inverters to transfer power to the electrical network that relies on a control algorithm emulating the dynamic behavior of synchronous machines. Over the past decade, it has been applied in various contexts, leveraging its control structure based on the fundamental equations of synchronous machines. Although several review articles have been published on control strategies for grid-forming inverters, they often lack a specific focus on recent developments related to the synchronverter. Therefore, this paper aims to fill that gap by presenting a detailed review on high-quality research databases to retrieve recent documents published in recent years. These documents were classified according to journals, conferences, and books. A keyword bibliographic analysis was performed to identify the attractive topics related to the synchronverter control strategy. The paper reviews recent improvements in and applications of the synchronverter, identifying emerging trends and new potential use cases to provide a workflow guide for readers and researchers, as the documents are presented in comprehensive tables, streamlining the process of locating specific references. In addition, some advantages and disadvantages of synchronverters are reported.

The synchronverter is a device used in some microgrids to perform self-synchronization and represent the behavior of a synchronous machine. However, the original control has been proposed for balanced networks, which is not present in all distribution systems. In unbalanced networks, the negative sequence may appear and generate a double frequency oscillation when delivering power or a non-symmetrical current from the inverter; thus, it must compensate unbalanced load. Therefore, this article shows that a synchronverter can be synchronized using the positive sequence even when there are voltage unbalances. The proposed strategy was simulated in the Simulink-Matlab© software, considering an unbalanced power grid with a single inverter and a load. The results confirm the effectiveness of this strategy, as the synchronverter can follow the grid frequency and the wave shape amplitude after starting the frequency droop control.

The paper presents a methodology based on a Modified Binary Bat Algorithm (MBBA) and Improved Seed Population search that provides nearly optimal solutions to the power loss minimization problem, considering network reconfiguration and a...

This paper presents an adaptation of a new meta-heuristic algorithm known as Cuckoo Search (CS) to solve the distribution network reconfiguration problem (DNRC), where the objective is to minimize the real power losses subject to constraints such as voltage levels in nodes, current levels in branches, and maintaining a radial topology in the distribution test system. The performance of the proposed method is compared with a popular meta-heuristic algorithm, Ant Colony Optimization (ACO). The methods have been tested on the IEEE 37 bus radial distribution system. Experiments were carried out to compare the simulation time, which is a critical measure for the real implementation of the method in real power distribution systems.