DER Coordination Strategy for Volt/VAR Control using IEC61850 GOOSE Protocol

Voltage profile regulation is one of the challenges in the era of distributed energy resources (DERs) and microgrid evolution. In this paper, a coordination strategy between DERs and traditional voltage regulation devices is proposed to avoid violation of the ANSI C84 (voltage regulation) standard. The coordination strategy utilizes the IEC61850 GOOSE communication protocol to communicate the DER's operation mode with regulators/capacitors to avoid overcompensation. The proposed approach is tested using a three-phase DER with a power distribution system that is both modeled and simulated in the FPGA-based real-time simulation (OPAL-RT) and GOOSE message that is formulated using Schweitzer software (AcSELerator Architect). The results show the proposed approach can reliably use GOOSE protocol and DERs as active voltage sources, according to IEEE 1547-2018 standard, without violating ANSI C84. The results also provide open questions with a clear direction for future research to investigate how to use the GOOSE protocol for advanced coordination strategies and decentralized feedback control systems between DERs and existing field devices in power distribution systems.