Stability tool for electric power systems with a high penetration of electronic power converters

Abstract

The increasing use of electronic converters is making possible the development of more sustainable, efficient, and reliable electric power systems, but it is also introducing new challenges that need to be addressed. Power system stability is one of them since the converter multiscale coupling between control loops and the mutual effects of multiple converters make the traditional approaches and specialized software available not fully adequate. In this context, this paper presents a software tool called CSTEP capable of carrying out small- and large-signal stability analysis for electric power systems strongly dominated by electronic converters. By utilizing the tool description, the paper provides the reader with a systematic methodology to obtain the system dynamic representation, and with some software tools for the analysis of the large and small-signal stability. Finally, the validity and functionality of CSTEP have been tested with the implementation of three use cases: a simple ac use case to illustrate the application of the system algorithm step by step, an IEEE 5-bus use case to validate the tool with already established commercial software and a more realistic system based on a medium voltage CIGRÉ benchmark to highlight the potential applications of the tool. The results show that, unlike existing tools that simplify or neglect the electric part of the grid (filters, line impedances, etc.), CSTEP can predict power system instabilities caused by the interactions of fast control loops of electronic converters with the electric part.