EAPSI: The Estimation of a Power Grid Resiliency Metric Using Wide Area Measurements

Schmitt Andreas J, Mountain Lakes NJ

Investigators

Abstract

The number of renewable energy sources continues to grow as demand for electricity increases. While using more renewable energy has many benefits, there are issues that need to be addressed before large amounts of power can come from renewables. Specifically, the addition of renewables to the power grid decreases the consistency and stability of the system. One metric which allows for the assessment of power grid stability is grid inertia . Inertia provides information on how much system conditions will change after an event such as a large power loss. This is also known as the resiliency of the system. The project will estimate the value of inertia in the grid with the use of wide area measurements from locations throughout the grid. The research will be done in collaboration with Dr. Byongjun Lee at Korea University, whose research deals with system stability using wide area measurements. The widespread implementation of phasor measurement units (PMU) to the grid provides grid-wide system data . These wide area measurements allow for analysis that was not previously possible. One area that has benefitted from the addition of PMUs is stability analysis. As more renewables are added to the system, these stability analyses will become increasingly important. While traditional sources use large machines to generate power which increases the inertia, renewables do not contribute significantly to the system inertia. When larger percentages of the power generated are from renewable sources, the overall system inertia will decrease which means the power grid will be less resilient. The aim of this project is to use the data from PMUs to estimate the inertia value in the grid such that additional stability analyses can be done in the future to ensure that the grid can use renewables effectively. This NSF EAPSI award is funded in collaboration with the National Research Foundation of Korea.