Traditionally, inertia in power systems has been determined by considering all the rotating masses directly connected to the grid. During the last decade, the integration of renewable energy sources, mainly photovoltaic installations and wind power plants, has led to a significant dynamic characteristic change in power systems. This change is mainly due to the fact that most renewables have power electronics at the grid interface. The overall impact on stability and reliability analysis of power systems is very significant. The power systems become more dynamic and require a new set of strategies modifying traditional generation control algorithms. Indeed, renewable generation units are decoupled from the grid by electronic converters, decreasing the overall inertia of the grid. ‘Hidden inertia’, ‘synthetic inertia’ or ‘virtual inertia’ are terms currently used to represent artificial inertia created by converter control of the renewable sources. Alternative spinning reserves are then needed in the new power system with high penetration renewables, where the lack of rotating masses directly connected to the grid must be emulated to maintain an acceptable power system reliability. This paper reviews the inertia concept in terms of values and their evolution in the last decades, as well as the damping factor values. A comparison of the rotational grid inertia for traditional and current averaged generation mix scenarios is also carried out. In addition, an extensive discussion on wind and photovoltaic power plants and their contributions to inertia in terms of frequency control strategies is included in the paper.

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Power systems with high renewable energy sources: A review of inertia and frequency control strategies over time

The utilization of power electronic inverters in power grids has increased tremendously, along with advancements in renewable energy sources. The usage of power electronic inverters results in the decoupling of sources from loads, leading to a decrease in the inertia of power systems. This decrease results in a high rate of change of frequency and frequency deviations under power imbalance that substantially affect the frequency stability of the system. This study focuses on the requirements of inertia and the corresponding issues that challenge the various country grid operators during the large-scale integration of renewable energy sources. This study reviews the various control techniques and technologies that offset a decrease in inertia and discusses the inertia emulation control techniques available for inverters, wind turbines, photovoltaic systems, and microgrid. This study attempts to explore future research directions and may assist researchers in choosing an appropriate topology, depending on requirements.

Future low-inertia power systems: Requirements, issues, and solutions - A review

Due to a rapid increase in the utilization of power converter-based renewable energy sources (RESs), the overall system inertia in an interconnected power system might be significantly reduced, increasing the vulnerability of the interconnected power system to the system instability. To overcome problems caused by the significant reduction in system inertia, this paper proposes a new application of virtual inertia control to improve frequency stability of the interconnected power system due to high penetration level of RESs. The derivative control technique is introduced for higher-level applications of virtual inertia emulation. Thus, the proposed virtual inertia control loop has a second-order characteristic, which provides a simultaneous enabling of damping and inertia emulations into the interconnected power system, enhancing frequency stability and resiliency. System modeling and simulation results are carried out using MATLAB/Simulink® (R2016b, MathWorks, Natick, MA, USA). Trajectory sensitivities are also performed to analyze the dynamic effects of virtual inertia control’s parameters on the system stability. The effectiveness of the virtual inertia control concept on stability improvement is verified through a multi-area test system with high RESs penetration level for different contingencies.

Virtual Inertia Control Application to Enhance Frequency Stability of Interconnected Power Systems with High Renewable Energy Penetration

Adaptive intelligent techniques for microgrid control systems: A survey

The modern power system is becoming more complicated due to the ever increasing penetration of power electronics, which is referred to as a power-electronics-dominated system (PEDS). In this case, the analysis, control, and operation of the entire power system should tone with the energy-paradigm transition pace, where the challenges should be properly tackled. After the brief introduction of grid-connected converters, this article explores stability challenges of PEDSs, especially on the low inertia issue and multitimescale characteristics, as well as the dynamics when connected to weak grids. The low inertia issue is considered as one of great challenges that power electronics introduce to the conventional power grid. Accordingly, the stability issues of PEDSs are discussed. The exploration reveals that the multitimescale coupling among various control loops and the mutual effects of multiple converters demand much more attention than ever before. The coordinated control of converters for the global stability of PEDSs is also summarized, part of which offers the possibility to solve the inertia problem. This article serves as an inspiration on potential solutions to these issues. In order to provide a more intuitive impression of the inertia problem in PEDSs, a case study is exemplified to highlight the analysis and discussion.

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On the Stability of Power Electronics-Dominated Systems: Challenges and Potential Solutions

This paper proposes a variable coefficient combined virtual inertia and primary frequency control strategy for doubly fed induction generators (DFIG) in coordination with diesel generator to participate in wind/photovoltaic/diesel microgrid frequency regulation. The frequency response characteristic is analyzed under different wind speeds with corresponding inertia control parameters different. A 10% wind power margin is preserved through overspeed control and pitch angle control to offset the decrease of wind output power after temporary extra power surge, and provide a permanent frequency support for microgrids. The influence of droop control gain setting is also illustrated under different wind velocities. By continuously adjusting the control parameters according to wind speed variation, a variable coefficient method is realized. The method can guarantee an efficient implementation of this strategy in time-varying conditions. Finally, this coordinated control strategy is tested in a storage-independent microgrid with solar, wind, and diesel generators.

Xiaoguang Hu

Papers

Coordinated Microgrid Frequency Regulation Based on DFIG Variable Coefficient Using Virtual Inertia and Primary Frequency Control