A Fast Weakness Analysis Method for Renewable Energy Integration

Abstract

Grid planning and operation are facing challenges of integrating conventional and renewable resources while maintaining essential reliability services. Potential power grid reliability issues may arise when a large number of renewable energy resources (RERs) are connected to a weak power grid. These issues may become significant due to the interactions among RERs interconnected electrically close in a power network. Weakness analysis based on grid strength assessment is useful for identifying the potential weak grid issues. However, when taking into account the effect of the interactions among RERs on grid strength at the individual points of interconnections (POIs), the weakness analysis becomes computationally challenging to identify the weakest combination of POIs from a large number of potential candidates in a realistic power grid. In this paper, a fast identification method is proposed by analyzing the impact of power network structure on grid strength. The efficacy of the proposed method is demonstrated through numerical simulation case studies based on a realistic power grid.