Impact of High PV Penetration on Transient Stability — a Case Study on the U.S. ERCOT System

Abstract

This study was performed to assess the impact of high photovoltaic (PV) penetration on transient stability using a series of hypothetical models of the ERCOT system. This was done by calculating the critical clearing time (CCT) when faulting various busses. Varying levels of PV penetration were used to study the system transient stability. For each case 15% wind penetration was also included. It was found that under the PV volt/Var control with plant-level GE SolarControl settings, PV penetration at lower level can slightly improve the transient stability in the ERCOT system model. However, at approximately 54% penetration of renewables (39% PV and 15% wind), transient stability starts to show declining trend. This value has slight variance depending on PV distribution.

Solar PV Frequency Control in the U.S. EI and ERCOT Interconnections — Case Studies and Recommendations

“…Literature Review Synthetic inertia has three desired functions: keeping the initial ROCOF value within ride-through capabilities of generators and loads; delaying nadir time to earn time for primary frequency response, and limiting the frequency nadir to avoid load/generator disconnection (in some systems with very low inertia). While few studies have studied PV synthetic inertia control, most inverter inertia control studies focus on wind generation, electric vehicles or inverter-based energy storage, HVDC, and virtual synchronous generators (VSG) [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. As of 2018, U.S. power grids have no standard or requirement on synthetic inertia control for inverter-based resources, as shown in Table 1.…”

Impact of High PV Penetration on Regional Power Grids

“…Ensuring power grid reliability is important to the society and economy [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]. With the increase of renewable penetration, the characteristics of the power grid is changing [10][11][12][13][14][15].…”

Comparative Assessment of Tactics to Improve Primary Frequency Response Without Curtailing Solar Output in High Photovoltaic Interconnection Grids

“…hotovoltaic (PV) and wind generation are increasing in many power grids [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]. The increase of PV penetration has an inevitable impact on the power grid primary frequency response due to the de-commitment of conventional units and consequent loss of inertia [15,[19][20][21][22][23][24].…”