Page 1 of 4 2018-PSEC-0683

A Ferroresonance Study of a 240 MW Solar PV

Project
Ahmad Abdullah
Department of Electrical Power and Machines
Cairo University, Faculty of Engineering
Gizah, Egypt 12613
ahmad.abdullah@ieee.org

Abstract—Special system studies are needed to assess the
different preliminary designs of solar photovoltaic (PV) projects.
One of these is a ferroresonance study. The main purpose of a
ferroresonance study is to investigate whether the voltage within
the project can reach damaging levels under steady state opera-
tion. Ferroresonance can become a concern for solar PV project
owners due to the distributed nature of shunt cable capacitance
in the collector system. This distributed shunt capacitance can
interact with the inductance of the main power transformers
and the instrument transformers causing the voltage within the
project to reach dangerous levels. To perform a ferroresonance
study for a large 240 MW solar PV farm, a detailed electro-
magnetic transient (EMT) model of the project has to be built.
A detailed EMT model will have a large number of inverters
and thus the run time of the model becomes prohibitive even
for a single scenario. In this paper, we simplify the EMT model
focusing only on the components that need to be modeled for the
purpose of the ferroresonance study thus reducing the run time
of the EMT model. Various scenarios corresponding to different
operation modes of the project have been simulated. Simulation
results shows that the project is not susceptible to ferroresonance
except for unusual operating modes during energization and at
night when the inverters are not producing any power output.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Increased penetration of renewable energy resources into the
grid has resulted in higher demand for special system studies
[1] to assess their impact on various aspects of the power
system. One of these studies is ferroresonance study.
Ferroresonance is sustained overvoltages at the secondary
sides of the main power transformers (MPT), inverter step-up
(ISU) transformers and instrument transformers under certain
system configurations [2]. The cause of all known ferroreso-
nance overvoltages is the interaction between the capacitance
of the system (including stray, transmission line and cable
charging capacitances) and the nonlinear inductance of the
transformers.
The point of operation on the magnetization curve of the
transformer is greatly affected by the capacitance of the system
[3]. For very small capacitance and/or light loading conditions,
the operating point could lie on the saturation part of the mag-
netization curve of the MPTs, ISUs or instrument transformers
causing very high sustained overvoltages. Ferroresonance is
generally excited at low power output or unbalanced switching
of feeders. This can be understood by referring to [4], [5], [6].
Recently, solar PV project owners are concerned of trans-
former failure due to switching transients [7], [8]. Due to
that, most consulting companies recommend performing a
snubber circuit study as well as a ferroresonance study prior
to project energization. This paper deals exclusively with the
ferroresonance study. In solar PV projects, the distributed
nature of cable capacitance across a large georgraphical area
may raise a concern for ferroresonance due to the possibility
of interaction between those distributed capacitance and the
iron core of the MPTs, ISUs and instrument transformers.
The paper is organized as follows: the EMT system model
is developed in section §II. The scenarios studied are present
in section §III. Simulation results are offered in section §IV.
Conclusions are provided at the end of the paper.
II. S YSTEM M ODEL
A simplified schematic of one-line diagram of the project
is shown in figure 1 below. A detailed PSCADTM model
has been built and used for producing the results on this
report. The inverter is represented as a voltage source behind
the LCL filter. The voltage source magnitude and angle are
adjusted such that they produce the correct power flow under
the various scenarios studied. This simplified inverter model
should not affect the results as it is not known that the inverter
controls bear a relation to the ferroresonance phenomenon.
This inverter model simplification results in a drastic reduction
of runtime of the EMT model.
The project is divided into two phases and each phase is
connected to a different MPT. The low voltage sides of the
MPTs are connected to each other using a normally open tie
breaker that is closed in case one MPT fails. Due to grid
requirements, the project has 28 MVArs of capacitor banks
distributed across four capacitor banks. The capacitor banks
are attached to phase II of the project. Phase I is double the
size of phase II in terms of gross name plate, i.e., phase I is
160 MW while phase II is 80 MW. Each feeder has different
number of inverters connected to it.
The configuration of each feeder has been removed from
the paper for confidentiality reasons. Phase I has a sizable
fault current limiter on of the feeders to limit the short circuit
contribution of the project. The project is constructed over a
relatively large geographical areas and due to that the collector
system has overhead lines connecting the underground cable
to the project substation. The length of some of the overhead
lines are more than five miles.

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 2018-PSEC-0683
Fig. 1. Single Line Diagram of the project
Fig. 2. MV potential transformers magnetization curve
The MPTs, ISUs and the instrument transformers are mod-
eled utilizing their magnetization curves. Both the MPTs and
the ISUs have a knee voltage of 1.24 pu while the MV
potential transformers have a knee voltage of 1.16 pu. The
POI has a voltage of 345 kV and the HV CCVT at the project
entrance has a knee voltage of 1.2 pu. The magnetization
characteristics of the MV potential transformers are shown
in figure 2 which is the same for MPTs and ISUs but with the
knee voltage points mentioned above. The projects has two
potential transformer only each of which is installed the MV
bus of each project phase. Voltage at the secondaries of the
ISUs and instrument transformers as well as at the MV and
HV levels have been monitored.
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Page 2 of 4
The 345 kV circuit breaker supports single pole operation
and is modeled as such. All MV circuit breakers are EMA
breakers [9] that has a grounding switch mechanically inter-
locked with the breaker’s main contacts. These circuit breakers
are equipped with a mechanically interlocked switch on the
load side that grounds the load side within 1 cycle of opening
the circuit breaker’s main contacts. . Finally, Surge Arrester
V-I characteristics have been modeled according to [10].
III. M ETHODOLOGY
The analysis targeted to determine if the solar PV project
can suffer from ferroresonance under various operating con-
ditions. The operating conditions are listed in table I. The
scenarios have been designed to correspond to operating
conditions that is anticipated during the life of the project.
The project is operated with the tie breaker in the open
position and scenarios from A1 to A3 and C1 to C3 are
designed to simulate normal operation in which the project
is operated at low output or with the inverter at the idle status
producing no power. Ferroresonace is not known to be excited
under full project output and as such no scenarios for full
output power has been investigated for ferroresonance. In case
one of the MPTs are out of service, the tie breaker is closed
and the project is operated using on MPT only. Scenarios D1
to E3 simulate such conditions.
Scenarios B1 to B4 and D1 to D3 simulate the energization
of the project with the inverters disconnected. Scenarios C1 to
C3 and E1 to E3 simulate night conditions when the inverters
are online yet producing no power, i.e., “idle conditions”.
To run the scenario, the PSCADTM case has been set up
from the beginning with the correct power flow under three
phase balanced condition. After than, switching actions to
correspond for the scenarios was invoked during run-time.
For example, to set up the case for scenario B2, the HV CB
would be setup such that all of its poles are closed from the
beginning. After 1 seconds of simulations, two poles of it
are opened to simulated the scenario under study. The case
is then run for an additional10 seconds. This relatively long
simulation time is due to the fact that the for the effect of the
ferroresonance to appear, the hysteresis of the iron core has
to come into play and this is simulated within the solution
engine of PSCADTM as a integration. Thus, this relatively
long simulation time is done mainly for the integral to have
sufficient time to cause high voltages, if there any.
IV. R ESULTS
For the scenarios A1 to A3 in which is operated at 10%
capability, it was found that the project is not at risk for
ferroresonance. The scenarios from A1 to A3 simulate the
conditions that are encountered at early morning and in the
late afternoon when the sun is either still rising or setting.
The three phase voltages at the secondaries of the CCVT for
all scenarios are shown in figure 3.
Scenarios B1 to B4 which were designed to simulate project
energization showed risk of ferroresonance. The risk only
Page 3 of 4 2018-PSEC-0683

TABLE I
F ERRORESONANCE STUDY SCENARIOS

Study Scenario Study Case Description

A1 MV CBs closed with all poles of HV CBs closed (normal operation)
Inverter at 10% Output
Tie Breaker Open A2 MV CBs closed with single pole of HV CBs open
A3 MV CBs closed with two poles of HV CBs open
B1 MV CBs open and MPTs energized
Inverter Disconnected B2 Two poles of HV CBs open with MV CBs closed
B3 Single pole of HV CBs open with MV CBs closed
B4 All HV CBs poles closed with MV CBs closed
C1 MV CBs closed with two poles of HV CBs open
Inverter Idle
C2 MV CBs closed with single pole of HV CBs open
C3 MV CBs closed with all HV CBs poles closed
Tie Breaker Closed

D1 MV CBs closed with all HV CBs poles closed

Inverter Disconnected
D2 MV CBs closed with single pole of HV CBs open
D3 MV CBs closed with two poles of HV CBs open
E1 MV CBs closed with HV poles closed
Inverter Idle
E2 MV CBs closed with single pole of HV CBs open
E3 MV CBs closed with two poles of HV CBs open

Fig. 3. Secondary three phase voltages of CCVT for scenario A1 Fig. 4. Secondary three phase voltages of CCVT for scenario B2

exists when the project is energized in an unbalanced manner

in which one or two phase of the HV circuit breaker is closed
while the others are open. It was found that ferroresonance are
at the secondaries of the potential transformers at the MV level
but not at the HV side altogether. The three phase voltages at
the secondaries of the CCVT and the potential transformers for
scenario B2 are shown in figure 4 and figure 5, respectively.
Scenarios C1 to C3 were simulated to see whether the
project is susceptible to ferroresonance at night when the
inverters are online yet producing no power. It was found that
only scenario C1 is susceptible to ferroresonance. Ferroreso-
nance were found to be at the secondaries of the MV potential
transformers and it was found that the ferroresonance is not Fig. 5. Secondary three phase voltages of MV PTs for scenario B2
severe as shown in figure 6.
In case one of the power transformers fails and the project

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 2018-PSEC-0683
Fig. 6. Secondary three phase voltages of MV PTs for scenario C1
is re-energized in scenarios D1 to D4, it was found that the
project is in risk for ferroresonance unless all poles of the HV
breaker is closed. The three phase voltages at the secondaries
of the medium voltage transformers are shown in figure 7.
It was found that CCVT is not at risk of ferroresonance and
ferroresonance only occurs at the MV potential transformers
secondaries.
Fig. 7. Secondary three phase voltages of MV PTs for scenario D2
Lastly, scenarios E1 to E3 simulate the cases in which one
of the MPTs fails, the tie breaker is closed and the project
is online at night with no power output. In these cases, it
was found, similar to scenarios D1 to D4, that the project is
is susceptible to ferroresonance unless all poles of the HV
breaker is closed. It was also found that CCVT is not at risk
of ferroresonance and ferroresonance only occurs at the MV
potential transformers secondaries.The three phase voltages at
the secondaries of the MV potential transformer is shown in
figure 8.
All scenarios that were found to be in risk for ferroresonance
are pointed out in table I in the red color.
V. C ONCLUSIONS
A ferroresonance study of a relatively large solar farm has
been presented. The study modeled the project in PSCADTM in
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Page 4 of 4
Fig. 8. Secondary three phase voltages of MV PTs for scenario D3
detail. Each inverter was modeled as a voltage source behind
its LCL filter. The feeders of the collector system has been
modeled using pi-sections. The inverter LCL filter has been
retained in the EMT model due to the important role the filter
plays in the ferroresonance phenomenon. Various study scenar-
ios have been designed to simulate the operating conditions of
the solar project. These scenarios simulate project energization
and steady state at 0%, 10% or 100% project output. It
was revealed that under unusual system configuration, mainly
during energization and at night, the project is susceptible to
ferroresonance.
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