Consensus Damping of Inter-Area Oscillations using Utility-Scale Solar-Battery Generation

Abstract

There are increasingly routine situations where inverter-based generation from wind and solar power resources provides more than 50% of generation capacity during light load conditions in various regions of North America. This leads to increasing concerns for meeting NERC power system reliability and frequency stability requirements. This paper presents a method for designing a decentralized consensus protocol such that utility-scale solar-PV generation is able to detect and compensate for power flow oscillations. The method incorporates local synchrophasor measurements in conjunction with wide-area SCADA messages to inject controlled power flows to increase system damping. Simulation results for a three-area interconnected power system corresponding to a major disturbance event that occurred June 17, 2016 in the US Eastern Interconnection indicates the benefits of the proposed method for improving frequency recovery and minimizing power flow oscillations.