Specialized hierarchical control strategy for DC distribution based shipboard microgrids: A combination of emerging DC shipboard power systems and microgrid technologies

Recently, DC distribution has been more and more considered in shipbuilding industry as an emerging solution due to its potential to enhance the system performance in terms of fuel economy, reliability, volume and weight. Moreover, there is a growing trend to integrate alternative power sources (APSs) and energy storage systems (ESSs) into next-generation ships, and thus reducing cost and emission. In this context, the future shipboard power systems (SPSs) are expected to be compatible with various generation methods and complex onboard power consumers, which can be naturally identified as islanding microgrids (MGs). In this paper, specialized hierarchical control strategy is proposed to coordinate the system operation and meet the requirement of shipboard applications. Several advantageous functions are achieved by proposed control strategy. A study case of DC SPS is modeled and simulations are carried out to verify the proposed control strategy.