IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - May/June 2021 - 39

The inverter's behavior is largely software defined,
providing a high level of flexibility as well as unique
performance characteristics and opportunities.
wider bandgaps, such as silicon carbide (2.3-3.3 eV) and gallium
nitride (3.4 eV), could have significantly higher operating voltages, higher operating temperatures, lower on-state resistances,
and faster device switching.
Higher-frequency switching and higher-voltage operation are
especially desirable for power electronics. The higher switching
frequency permits the use of smaller components in the low-pass
filter that extracts the 60-Hz component from the switched waveform, and higher-voltage operation can lead to greater operating
efficiency through reduced resistive losses and new application
opportunities for solid-state transformers. These advantages
likely will cause wide bandgap use in inverters to accelerate.
Higher switching frequencies could lead to more precise
control over individual pulses of energy injected from the
inverter into the power system, and that precision of control
could one day facilitate the development of novel protection techniques in IBR-energized systems. However, the
trend toward higher-voltage converters might also lead
to lower-current designs that would further reduce the fault

current available from IBRs and potentially make protection more challenging.

Challenges Posed by IBRs
for Microgrid Protection
DERs in general, and IBRs in particular, pose different challenges to the protection system. At the distribution system
level, they can cause several issues, such as sympathetic
tripping, coordination loss, protection blinding, and failed
autoreclosing. In general, the challenges associated with protecting IBR-based systems stem from the fact that IBRs do
not exhibit conventional synchronous-machine short circuit
behavior, including transient, subtransient, and steady-state
responses. In the following sections, we elaborate on the protection challenges associated with IBRs in more detail.

IBR Fault Current Signatures
The reliance of IBRs on semiconductor switches and the fact
that IBR fault currents are largely determined by their nested

Inverter
P/Q/Power Factor
Setpoint

Power Control
Loop

Internal Current
Control Loop

Output Filter

Current Measurement
P and Q
Calculator

Voltage and Current Measurement

(a)
Inverter
Internal Voltage
Control Loop

Internal Current
Control Loop

Output LC Filter

Current
Measurement
Phase Lock Loop

Frequency
Setpoint
Voltage Setpoint

Frequency and Voltage
Droop Control

P and Q
Calculator

Voltage
Measurement
Voltage and Current
Measurement

(b)

figure 3. IBR control diagrams: (a) grid-following and (b) grid-forming inverters.
may/june 2021	

ieee power & energy magazine 	

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IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - May/June 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - May/June 2021

Contents
IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - May/June 2021 - Cover1
IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - May/June 2021 - Cover2
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