Wide-area monitoring of power systems with high penetration of distributed generation

Abstract

Wide-area monitoring of systems with high penetration of distributed renewable energy is complex because of the size of modern power systems and the various transmission and distribution levels at which distributed energy resources (DERs) are installed. The wide geographical spread and continuous growth of DERs increase system complexity, resulting in new stability, operational, and security challenges [1-4]. Simultaneously, this trend is accompanied by significant and often unpredictable changes in power transfers caused by power market policies [5], sudden changes in renewable generation output power [6], and more flexible transmission systems and generation systems, including the installation of HVDC interconnections, large offshore wind farms, and increasing distributed generation, particularly wind and solar PV [7, 8]. Together these issues pose new security and operational challenges that must be addressed using advanced monitoring and control techniques.Key drivers of these challenges are increasingly variable and uncertain operating scenarios and reduced system strength and inertia caused by the large-scale integration of inverter-based resources. In addition, there is a trend toward a more distributed generation often located in remote system regions.This chapter discusses different topics in wide-area monitoring of power systems with geographically distributed generations, such as frequency and voltage monitoring techniques, PMU placement in hierarchically distributed power systems, the identification of coherent reactive power sources, and the problem of model reduction of nonlinear and unstable systems. Likely directions for further developments in the field of wide-area monitoring are identified.Recent studies that use high-order singular value decomposition techniques are also examined to evaluate the performance and accuracy of wide-area monitoring techniques in systems with significant renewable power generation and storage technologies.