Exploration of Power Grid Stability with the Introduction of Renewable Energy Sources

Exploration of Power Grid Stability with the Introduction of Renewable Energy Sources

Verschueren, Wouter (TU Delft Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science)

Cvetkovic, Milos (mentor)
Palensky, Peter (graduation committee)
Kittel, Tim (graduation committee)

Delft University of Technology

Electrical Engineering | Sustainable Energy Technology

2020-04-09

With the reduction of gas reserves and the goal of achieving zero carbon emissions by 2050 in mind, the Dutch government is taking steps to switch to alternative energy sources and to strengthen the electrical power grid. Transient stability or the ability to return to stable conditions after a disturbance is paramount to the operation of an electrical power grid. The introduction of renewable energy sources and decentralized generation changes the way a power grid will react to this disturbance. Renewable Energy sources are mostly connected by power converters resulting in a decrease in inertia compared to the total of the power grid. A high penetration of “power electronic interfaced generation” gives rise to the need for an updated outlook on how to design and operate the grid and essential is to model and test the power systems before and during use. However, steady-state analyses might not reflect reality close enough, when power electronics become a major factor in the grid.
To give perspective on the change in grid stability, an IEEE 39-bus benchmark of a power grid is modelled and perturbed by power drops on different load busses. Within this IEEE 39-bus model, the generation sources are replaced, step-by-step, by either a representation of a grid following voltage source inverter, a representation of a current source inverter, or a representation power and voltage constraint. The results of a steady-state voltage stability analysis and a small signal stability analisys are compared to a range of dynamic indicators extracted from a dynamic simulation of the before mentioned perturbations. This comparison gives an indication on the change in transient stability of the overall grid considering the integration of power electronic sources and also shows the difference in stability between the power electronic models themselves.

Grid Stability

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:7c20d76d-f66d-4a51-86ef-8c350a447b13

Student theses

master thesis

© 2020 Wouter Verschueren