Grid-Forming Inverter Control for Renewable- Dominant Microgrids: A Simulated Low-Inertia Stability and Fault-Ride-Through Study

This article presents a clearly labeled simulated empirical study in Electrical and Electronics Engineering. A simulated 5-MW islandable microgrid containing photovoltaic generation, battery storage, and a reduced synchronous-machine contribution was modeled under grid-following and grid-forming control. Droop, virtual- synchronous-machine, and matching-control variants were evaluated during load steps, generation loss, short- duration voltage faults, and weak-grid conditions. The virtual-synchronous-machine grid-forming case reduced simulated frequency nadir deviation by 41% relative to the grid-following baseline and restored stable operation faster after a 20% generation loss. Matching control produced the best weak-grid synchronization but required more conservative current limiting during faults. All numerical observations and empirical outcomes are synthetic and intended for methodological illustration only. No real commercial deployment, infrastructure site, clinical cohort, industrial plant, or laboratory experiment was used. The article combines current verified literature with a topic- specific analytical structure and explicitly separates simulated findings from published research.