Black Start Capability from Large Industrial Consumers

Abstract

The way of control and operation of an electrical power system has been changing rapidly with the integration of renewable energy sources (RES). One of the emerging issues that require addressing is the capability of RES to participate in the restoration process upon a total or partial system failure. However, with the continuous shutdown of large-centralised generators, which traditionally provided the black start support together with the variability of RES, the restoration process becomes much more complex. Primarily, the RES should have enough capacity to energise the load at the time of the restoration. Nonetheless, due to significant advantages, there is an increasing trend to use RES to meet the local energy demand by large industrial customers. The flexibility of shifting loads together with the surplus of RE generation could support the system operator during the system energisation process after a blackout. This paper mainly focuses on identifying the capabilities and factors that should be accounted for to participate in the system restoration process by large industrial consumers. The case study conducted on a large-scale steel factory in the UK reveals the possibility of supporting the restoration process under the bottom-up approach.