ICSET 2008
Stability Analysis of Microgrids with Constant Power Loads
Duminda P. Ariyasinghe and D. Mahinda Vilathgamuwa, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract— In this paper, thorough analysis is carried out
on a microgrid system with a constant power load. Constant
power loads make the system to be unstable due to their
negative impedance characteristics and this is proved for the
microgrid system by deriving the small signal state space
model for the system and then observing the location of the
system poles. Subsequently, a sensitivity analysis is carried
out to check whether it is possible to eliminate the instability
of the system by tuning the voltage and current controller
gain values of the microgrid inverter system. Also by
transforming small signal state space model to Laplace
domain, stability conditions are derived for the microgrid
with a constant power load connected parallel with other
loads. From these conditions, the loading limit of the constant
power load for making the system stable is obtained. These
theoretical loading limits obtained are proven using a model
of microgrid simulated in Matlab/Simulink platform.
I. INTRODUCTION
E ver increasing energy demand has led to generating
power locally using small power generators mostly by
renewable form of energy due to their environmental
friendly nature. These generators are usually known as
distributed generators (DG) and are gaining popularity.
With the proliferation of critical loads, the necessity for
reliable power supply systems increased dramatically. The
reliability of the power supply can be improved
substantially by introducing parallel connection of two or
more DG units as can be seen in [5], [7]. This concept
further extended to a concept called microgrid. A
microgrid is a cluster of loads and microsources operating
under a unified controller within a certain local area [6].
Several approaches of parallel connection of DG units
have been proposed but to increase the system reliability it
needs to minimize communication with each other and
avoid master-slave relationship between the units by
making all units identical. These requirements are satisfied
by using a control scheme for parallel connected inverters
that is based on frequency and voltage droops where the
controller uses only locally measurable variables [1]. Since
they have their own control strategy these parallel DG
units can provide uninterruptible power to critical loads
during a fault in the utility by disconnecting itself from the
utility and operating in islanded mode. After utility fault is
restored microgrid is connected back to the utility
smoothly after synchronization.
A modern day utilization subsystem extensively uses
power electronic converters and motor drives. The
Duminda P. Ariyasinghe is with CB&I Lummus Pte Ltd, 2 Ayer
Rajah Crescent, Singapore 139935. (email: ariy0001@ntu.edu.sg)
D. Mahinda Vilathgamuwa is with the School of Electrical and
Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50, Nanyang
Avenue, Singapore 639798. (email: emahinda@ntu.edu.sg)
279
978-1-4244-1888-6/08/$25.00 
c 2008 IEEE
expansion of these solid state devices has led to the
improvement in performance and flexibility of the power
system loads that they are connected to, but they have a
drawback as tightly regulated power electronic converters
tend to show negative impedance characteristics because
of their characteristics similar to a constant power load
(CPL) [3, 4]. Due to these unique characteristics, there are
issues of instability when CPLs are connected to the
system.
Since distributed generation is gaining popularity and
for certain it will be used extensively in near future, it is
important to analyze what happens when CPL is connected
to the microgrid system. Therefore, in this paper, a small
signal state-space model is derived for the microgrid
system to determine the eigen-values of the system and
stability. Subsequently, a sensitivity analysis on controller
parameters is conducted to observe how closely they are
related to system poles that governs the stability of the
system. Finally, an assessment is done when CPL and
constant impedance load (CIL) are connected to a DG
system. Intentionally, throughout the study, the microgrid
is assumed to be operating in the islanding mode as the
dynamics of the microgrid is more apparent when it is in
this mode than in the grid connected mode.
II. EIGEN-VALUES AND SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS FOR THE
MICROGRID
The microgrid considered for this analysis consists of
two DG units connected to a CPL via two separate
transmission lines. Each DG has a LC filter at the output to
filter out high frequency noise introduced by the switching
of IGBTs’ in the inverter. These filter parameters
considered equal for both DG units and are represented by
Lf and Cf.
In order to model the CPL, considering small
perturbations in voltage and current since average power
drawn is constant by the load as in [3], the following
expressions can be obtained.
ΔVmax V (1)
= − max = − R
ΔI max I max
CPL
The small-signal behavior of the load can be defined as
2
Vmax Vrms
RCPL = = (2)
I max P
The absolute value of the load is equal to the
impedance of the CPL at its operating point. If there is a
phase difference between the voltage and fundamental
component of the current which is the case for constant
power loads with controlled rectifier at the front stage,
then the small signal model will have an inductive
component in addition to the resistive component. Then,
the CPL is described as given in (3) where is the delay d
iload

angle of the controlled rectifier. vref

dt iref

rCPL = − RCPL cos α vO i v

LCPL = − RCPL sin α

i
(3) v

Throughout this section, the CPL is considered to be

having a controlled rectifier at the front end to make the
Fig. 3. Controller block diagram of each distributed generator
analysis more complete. Each DG unit in the microgrid is
comprised of a DC source, a PWM voltage source inverter
The voltage and current controller can be expanded as in
(VSI) and a LC filter. The control of the microgrid mainly
Fig. 3 to show the complete controlling principle used in
refers to the control of the PWM inverter.
individual DG system.
This designed controller would generate the required
The whole system in Fig. 1 can be represented in small
PWM signals to drive the IGBT switches of the inverter
signal state space model in the form of
such that desired voltage and power level of the load are •
met. Δ x = [ A]Δx + [B ]Δu (4)

Lf
In this expression Δx is the vector of the state variables
and Δu is the vector of independent sources. A and B
Cf
Rtx represents the respective system matrices. The system state
variables Δx can be written as in (5).
Ltx
Lf
The following equations show the procedure of
derivation of state space model for the microgrid system.
Using the state space model it is possible to determine the
Cf
system characteristic equation and thereby determine the
Fig. 1. The microgrid with distributed generators connected to a common system poles which indicate the stability of the system.
bus Considering the voltage across the filter capacitor of
inverter 1 shown in Fig. 1 for a small perturbation in the
The microgrid is represented in schematic form as in current can be expressed as in (6).
•
Fig. 1. In this figure, only the output inverter of each DG is 1 (6)
Δv = Δi 1 1
shown for clarity and they are marked as inverter 1 and Cf
inverter 2. The control strategy used in each DG has been
developed as in [1] and is represented in Fig. 2 in block Since the load bus voltage is v1 using Kirchhoff’s
schematic form. voltage law the small signal model of load current iload can
As shown in Fig. 2, inner current and outer voltage- be written as in (7)
controllers are used for controlling the three-phase PWM • ω ω (7)
Δi load = Δv − Δi
voltage source inverter [1]. (− RCPL cos α ) 1 tan α load
iref vO* vO L f

vref
Cf Since iO1 and iO2 are currents going to the load following
v i
v (8) can be deduced
iO
• ω ω •
(8)
Δi O1 = − Δv1 − Δiload − Δi O 2
Fig. 2. Complete block schematic representation of the distributed RCPL cos α tan α
generator

A proportional controller with gain of Gv is used in the Similarly output voltage v2 can be derived in terms of v1
outer voltage compensator which is used to force the and transmission line parameters which give (9)
voltage v measured across the filter capacitor to track its • Δv1 Δv2 Rtx (9)
reference sinusoidal waveforms vref. The output of the Δ iO2 = − + − ΔiO 2
voltage controller generates the reference current iref which Ltx Ltx Ltx
is compared with the measured capacitor current i before A small perturbation in output voltage v01 of inverter 1
feeding them to the current controller which uses a and current reference value iref1 of current controller can be
proportional controller with a magnitude of Gi. The inner written as in (10) and (11) respectively by looking at the
current loop is included to stabilize the system by rapidly control block diagram shown in Fig. 3.
compensating for sudden changes in the load voltages.

[Δx]T = [ΔQinv Δvref1 Δvref 2 Δv1 Δv2 Δiref1 Δiref 2 Δi1 Δi2 ΔiO1 ΔiO2 Δiload ] (5)

280
 ΔvO1 = GV G I ( Δv ref 1 − Δv1 ) + G I ( Δi ref 1 − Δi1 ) (10)
Parameter Value Parameter Value
•
1 (11) vref1, vref2 220 V v1 ,v2 220V
Δ v ref 1 = Δiref 1
G
iref1, iref2 15A i1 ,i2 10A,11A
Active power taken by the load is always constant as
load being a constant power load. Total active power cosα (PF) 0.85 ω 314
drawn by this constant power load can be written as 5mH 20μF
Lf Cf
P = Pinv1 + Pinv 2 − Ptx losses (12) Ltx 3mH Rtx 3.4Ω
δ 0.218 RCPL 30 Ω
Where Pinv1 the active power contribution from inverter GV 2.0 GI 0.2
1 and Pinv2 is the active power contribution from inverter 2.
Ptxlosses is the transmission line power losses due to the G 0.001
resistance of the line. But transmission line losses can be
neglected because line resistance is negligible. Since active Fig. 4(b) shows the loci of the eigen-values. It could be
power contribution from DG1 (Pinv1) is given as noticed that the 5th eigen vector move further into the RHP
making it more unstable.
vO1v1 (13)
Pinv1 = sin δ 1 To see what is the bearing on RHP eigen values when
ωL f Gv is reduced is shown in the loci shown in Fig. 4(c). Even
though now the 5th eigen-vector moves towards the RHP
After linearizing above will give (14) and since load is certain other eigen vectors which are in LHP move
constant power type the individual inverter will also supply towards RHP before the 5th vector move towards the LHP.
constant active power throughout. Therefore ∆Pinv1=0 in Since it is not possible to find a situation where all the
(14). eigen vectors are in LHP for a given Gv controller values
current controller gain value (Gi) is changed to see the
vO1 v1 vO 1v1 behavior of the RHP poles.
ΔPinv1 = sin δ 1 .Δv1 + sin δ 1 .ΔvO1 + cos δ 1 .Δδ 1 (14)
ωL f ωL f ωL f

600
Equation (15) shows the Linearized reactive power
400
flowing from inverter 1.
200
RHP eigen value
Imaginary

⎛ 2v v ⎞ v v v (15)
ΔQinv1 = ⎜ O1 − 1 cos δ 1 ⎟ΔvO1 − O1 cos δ 1 Δv1 + O1 1 sin δ 1 .Δδ 1
0
⎜ ωL ωL f ⎟ ωL f ωL f
⎝ f ⎠ -200

-400
Rearranging the above equations the state space model
for the microgrid system can be derived which is in the -600

form of (4). To see the stability of the system an example -500 0 500 1000 1500
scenario is created which has the following system Real

parameter values given in Table 1. Notice that a stable (a)

microgrid model is initially developed with non-CPL load
-5000
to derive the gain values of controllers GV, GI and G. The
-4000
same values are used in the microgrid system connected to
-3000
CPL.
-2000
For the parameters given in Table I, the system eigen- -1000
Imaginary

values can be calculated and plotted them in complex 0

5th Eigen value

plane. It was noticed that the 5th eigen-value lie in the 1000

RHP as shown in Fig. 4(a) thus making the system 2000

unstable. 3000

Then a sensitivity analysis was performed on the eigen- 4000

values to observe how they react to the controller gain 5000

-6000 -4000 -2000 0 2000 4000 6000 8000
values so that the RHP eigen values can be moved to LHP. Real

Firstly, how the eigen-values react to voltage controller (b)

gain Gv is checked when it is increased from 2 to 50.

TABLE I
PARAMETER VALUES OF THE MICROGRID SYSTEM

281
 600

400

200
5th Eigen value
Imaginary

-200

Fig. 5. Circuit diagram of DG system connected to CIL and CPL via

-400
transmission lines
-600

To compensate the negative resistance of CPL, the CIL

-600 -400 -200 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200
Real that need to be connected also can be considered to be a
(c) resistive load. Then the small signal equivalent circuit can
be shown as in Fig. 6 and CIL is represented as RCIL.
800

600

400

200
Imaginary

-200

-400

-600
Fig. 6. Small signal equivalent circuit of the DG system
-800

-6000 -4000 -2000 0 2000 4000 6000 Then applying Thevenin’s theorem to get the equivalent
Real
circuit looking from the load side, a small signal equivalent
(d) circuit as shown in Fig. 7 can be deduced.
Fig. 4. (a) Location of poles in the complex plane (b). Loci of eigen
values close to RHP when Gv is increased from 2 to 50 (c). Loci of
eigen-values closer to RHP when Gv is decreased from 2 to 0.002. (d)
Loci of eigen-values closer to RHP when Gi is increased from 0.2 to 50.

It is observed that even the current controller Gi cannot

make the system stable. Fig. 4(d) shows the loci of eigen-
values when Gi is increased from 0.2 to 50.
Fig. 7. Thevenin equivalent circuit the DG system
It can be concluded that it is not possible to make the
microgrid system with CPL, stable by individually tuning
Thevenin equivalent voltages seen from the load side is
the current and voltage controllers. Therefore need to think
given by (16) and (17). Thevenin equivalent impedances
about a different strategy to make the microgrid system
can be obtained by short circuiting all the voltage sources
with CPL stable. Proceeding section gives a new approach
and getting the impedance seen by the load side as given in
to see whether it is possible to make the system stable.
(18) and (19).
III. LOADING LIMIT OF THE MICROGRID 1 sCeq1
ΔVth1 = ΔVac ,1 (16)
Req1 + sLeq1 + 1 sCeq1
Since CPLs have negative impedance characteristic it is
worthwhile to see what happens when it is connected in 1 sCeq 2
parallel with constant impedance load (CIL). This way it ΔVth 2 = ΔVac ,1 (17)
Req 2 + sLeq 2 + 1 sCeq 2
would be possible to see whether we can compensate the
effects of negative impedance that is modeled as the CPL.
Therefore, the microgrid model is considered to be as
Z th1 =
(1 sC )( R
eq1 eq1 + sLeq1 )
(18)
shown in Fig. 5, where two DG units are connected to the Req1 + sLeq1 + (1 sCeq1 )
load bus via separate feeder lines. For simplicity of
analysis, for this case, the CPL is considered to be a load
that consists of diode rectifier at the front end. Then the
Z th 2 =
(1 sC )( R
eq 2 eq 2 + sLeq 2 )
(19)
CPL can be modeled as simple negative resistor (-RCPL) in Req 2 + sLeq 2 + (1 sCeq 2 )
small- signal analysis as given in [3].

Applying Kirchhoff’s current law to node A (20) can be

derived and using superposition theorem (21) and (22) can
be derived.

282
 ⎛ 1 1 1 1 ⎞ ΔVth1 ΔVth 2 (20) Req Leq C eq V0,rms
ΔVo ⎜⎜ − + + ⎟⎟ = +
⎝ RCIL RCPL Z th1 Z th 2 ⎠ Z th1 Z th 2 235mΩ/km 2mH /km 8.6 pF/km 230V

⎛ 1 ⎞⎛ 1 sC eq1 ⎞
⎜ Z ⎟⎜⎜ ⎟ (21) The load is a combination of conventional resistive load
ΔVo ⎝ th1 ⎠ R eq1 + sLeq1 + 1 sC eq1 ⎟
= ⎝ ⎠ (CIL) and a CPL. Active power of the resistive load can be
ΔVac1 1 − 1 + 1 + 1 varied from 0 to 10 kW and that of the constant power load
RCIL RCPL Z th1 Z th 2
can be varied from 0 to 5 kW. The CPL implemented is a
chopper fed DC motor drive and power drawn by it is
⎛ 1 ⎞⎛ 1 sC eq 2 ⎞
⎜ Z ⎟⎜⎜ ⎟ (22) varied by changing the motor load torque. Simulations
ΔVo ⎝ th 2 ⎠ Req 2 + sLeq 2 + 1 sC eq 2 ⎟
= ⎝ ⎠ have been done for different combinations of loading to
ΔVac 2 1 − 1 + 1 + 1
RCIL RCPL Z th1 Z th 2 verify the conditions derived in (23) to (25).
The two feeder lines are selected such that the DG
By expanding the above equation and applying Routh system 1 is connected to the load bus with a 1 km long
Hurwitz criterion, the stability conditions (23) to (25) can feeder line and DG system 2 is also connected to the load
be obtained. Therefore, necessary and sufficient condition bus via again a 1 km long feeder line. In this case, line
for small signal stability are determined by the conditions lengths are made to be as small as 1 km to show the CPL
obtained in (23), (24) and (25) when the CPL and CIL effect on the microgrid. Both the feeder lines have per km
operate in parallel and the DG units are connected to these parameters as given in Table II. The CIL is initially
loads as shown in Fig. 5. connected to the microgrid and it is disconnected from it
after 0.5 s. In the simulation, CPL considered draws 2kW
Req1 Req 2 + RCIL RCPL >0 (23) of power while the CIL draws roughly around 7kW of
power.
⎡ Leq1 + Leq 2 + Req1 Req 2 ( Ceq1 + Ceq 2 ) ⎤
PCIL + VO2, rms ⎣ ⎦ >P (24)
( Leq1 Req 2 + Leq 2 Req1 ) CPL
12000

10000

(C + Ceq 2 )( Leq1 Req 2 + Leq 2 Req1 )

8000
P ower, W

eq1
PCIL + V 2
O , rms > PCPL (25) 6000

Leq1 Leq 2 4000

2000

There are few ways to stabilize the system based on 0

0 0.2 0.4 0.6
Time, S
0.8 1 1.2 1.4

(25). (a)
• By having a higher R/L ratio for the feeder
impedance linking loads and DGs. Usually,
distribution level feeders have higher R/L value 1000

compared to that of transmission level feeders. 500

Voltage, V

• By increasing Ceq of the two feeder lines. This is 0

quite easily done by adding a filter capacitor. -500

• By increasing the operating voltage V0,rms. This is -1000

not possible without transferring the whole system 0.2 0.4 0.6
Time, S
0.8 1 1.2 1.4

to operate at higher base voltage range. This (b)

makes the microgrid system configuration to be 600

changed therefore found to be not feasible. 400

200
Voltage,V

IV. SIMULATION RESULTS

-200

-400

The microgrid model shown in Fig. 5 including all the

-600

controlling blocks are developed in Matlab/Simulink 0.4 0.42 0.44 0.46 0.48 0.5 0.52 0.54 0.56 0.58

Time, s
environment in order to verify the conditions derived in (c)
(23), (24) and (25). The microgrid consists of CIL and
CPL connected to two DG systems through a feeder line as
shown in schematic form in Fig. 5.
Parameters shown in Table II are used in the
MATLAB/Simulink simulation setup.

TABLE II
PARAMETERS OF THE MICROGRID SIMULATION MODEL

283
 [3] Ali Emadi. “Modeling of power Electronic Loads in AC
50

40
Distribution Systems using the generalized State-Space averaging
30 method,” IEEE transactions on Industrial Electronics, vol. 51,
20
Current, A
10
No.5, pp 992-1000, 2004
0 [4] A. Emadi, “Modeling, analysis and stability assessment of multi-
-10

-20
converter power electronic systems,” Ph.D. dissertation, Elect. Eng.
-30 Dept., Texas A&M University, College Station, Tx, 2000.
-40
[5] A. Van der Frans and K. Bouwknegt, “A control strategy for the
-50
0 0.5
Time, S
1 1.5 redundant parallel operation of an ensemble of static ups systems of
the parallel type,” in Proc. EPE Firenze, 1991, pp. 148-152.
(d)
[6] R. Lasseter, ‘Microgrids,” in Proc Power Eng. Soc. Winter
Meeting, Jan. 27-31, 2002, pp.305-308.
Fig. 8. (a) Active power drawn by the loads, (b) three phase voltage [7] F. Katiraei and M.R. Iravani, “Power Management Strategies for a
waveform, (c) The zoom up view of voltage at 0.5s and (d) current Microgrid With Multiple Distributed Generation Units,” IEEE
waveform at load bus Transaction on Power Systems, Vol. 21, No. 4, November 2006.

For initial 0.5 s, the condition given in (25) is satisfied

and voltage remains stable apart from the initial transient
occurred due to sudden connection of CIL and CPL. As
expected since the condition given in (25) is not satisfied
after 0.5 s, voltage at the load bus becomes unstable.
Zoom-in view shown in Fig. 8(c) shows how the voltage
becomes unstable after 0.5 s. Note that again the CPL is
modeled as chopper fed DC motor drive. The spikes
appearing in the voltage waveform before and after 0.5 s
are due to the converter switching noises of CPL and since
CPL remains same throughout the simulation one can
safely say that these switching noises don’t have any
bearing on the voltage instability occurring after 0.5 s.
Voltage collapses soon after 1 s and microgrid starts to
malfunction as it cannot supply the power requirement of
the CPL anymore. Therefore, the active power supplied by
the microgrid becomes zero after the voltage collapse has
occurred after 1 s.

V. CONCLUSION
In this paper, a detailed analysis is carried out to
investigate the effect of CPL on a microgrid system when
it operates in stand alone mode. Eigen-value analysis is
done after getting the small signal state space model of the
system. A sensitivity analysis is carried out to determine
whether it is possible to move RHP poles to LHP by
changing the current and voltage controller gain values.
As variations of gain values cannot make the system stable,
an investigation is carried out to determine whether the
system could be made stable with CPL by paralleling it
with CIL. The loading limits that would keep the system
stable when there is CIL and CPL connected in parallel is
obtained. From these results it can be found that it is
always necessary to carefully select the loads that are to be
connected to the microgrid at the designing stage
especially if they are to be operated in the islanding mode
when there is a grid fault. It is advisable to have CIL with
CPL to avoid instability by selecting the loads according to
the conditions derived previously.

REFERENCES
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and real-time testing of controllers for multibus microgrid system,”
IEEE Trans. Power Electron., vol.19, pp.1195-1204, Sep. 2004.
[2] T. Kawabata and S. Higashino, “ Parallel operation of voltage
source inverters,” IEEE Trans. Ind. Applications. Vol. 24, pp 281-
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