With the rapid increase in energy consumption, the demand for small hydro power plants (SHPs) is increasing. The impact of these plants is significant, due to their low environmental damage, low execution cost, and minimum management cost. Moreover, in rural areas, they can also be used to facilitate drinking water and irrigation systems. This study considers a small hydro power plant (SHP) including a turbine with a permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG) attached to the DC microgrid through a voltage source converter (VSC) model. In this paper, a sliding mode controller is proposed to minimize the steady state errors and stabilization problems in an SHP-based DC microgrid. The asymptotic convergence of the proposed controller is analyzed using the Lyapunov stability theorem. Based on the Lyapunov stability theorem, the control law derives to ensure the asymptotic convergence to effectively minimize the steady state errors and improve the closed-loop system stabilization. The proposed control law also guarantees stable operation in a short limited time. As results, the proposed controller confirms speedy convergence of steady state error dynamics with negligible oscillations and reduces the limitation of chattering notably, without any loss in control accuracy. The simulation results illustrate the robustness of the proposed controller when subjected to disturbances and system nonlinearities.
Cite this article as: Singh I, Prasad S. Sliding mode control strategy for a small hydro electric plant-based DC microgrid. Turk J Electr Power Energy Syst. 1(2), 90-98, 2021.