Studying the Influence of Synthetic Inertia on Electric Power System Transient Stability

Abstract

Development of wind power around the world is a promising solution to the energy crisis. In power systems with a predominant share of wind power plants connected through power converters, their influence on the power system dynamic properties becomes significant. One of the important problems is reduction of the power system total inertia. In view of this, grid operators place demands on connected wind power plants for active power control and participation in frequency control. One possible solution is using synthetic inertia in the wind power plant control system. Research activities in this field place focus on improving the frequency stability and coordinating the synthetic inertia controller with other wind power plant control systems. However, the influence of synthetic inertia and its tuning on the power system stability are still poorly studied. The paper analyzes the effect of synthetic inertia on the power system transient stability. It is shown that by adjusting the synthetic inertia parameters, it is possible not only to obtain the required inertial response, but also to increase the power system transient stability. The influence of the measurement time window and frequency variation rate calculation, which is important in certain modes, is also studied. The study results are obtained for test and real-scale power system configurations.