An Improved Damping Method for Virtual Synchronous Machines

A virtual synchronous machine (VSM) approach is proposed to integrate inverter-based distributed energy resource units into the power and energy system. VSMs emulate the model of a synchronous machine in the inverter's controller. Among different aspects, emulating the damper windings or devising an alternative damping strategy is critical. The damper has a major stabilizing effect against system disturbances and change. An effective damping method to improve the VSM responses is proposed in this paper. It is shown that the proposed method offers two degrees of freedom, which allows flexible adjustment of response damping without compromising the inertial response. Mathematical analysis, comparative simulations, and experimental results are presented to prove and validate this claim.