Frequency support by synthetic inertia from variable speed wind turbines

Abstract

This paper investigates the possibilities for frequency support by synthetic inertia from variable speed wind turbines. A model for representing synthetic inertia in PSS/E (Power System Simulator for Engineering) has been developed. It allows the user to relatively simple implement different control strategies to find the most suitable strategy for a particular power system. Furthermore, it can be used regardless of the existence of wind turbine models in the power system model and is connected separately to any arbitrary bus in the power system. The results from the simulations show that the frequency nadir is reduced when implementing frequency support by synthetic inertia from wind turbines. As the wind power integration increases the frequency nadir is further improved when wind turbines can provide synthetic inertia. Regarding recovery, the results indicates that in order to minimise the risk of an under-frequency event the energy should be taken during a frequency overshoot and/or distributed in time, i.e. not all wind power plants should recover at the same time. However, these studies of synthetic inertia provided by wind turbines are still in the early stage and further work will be performed.