2017 International Conference on Electromechanical and Power Systems (SIELMEN)
The Impacts of Distributed Generation Penetration
into the Power System
Minh Quan Duong, Ngoc Thien Nam Tran
The University of Danang - University of Science and
Technology
Danang, Vietnam
dmquan@dut.udn.vn, namtran1196@gmail.com
Abstract—Nowadays, fossil fuels are depleted more and more.
Renewable energy is one of the best solutions to replace
conventional energy. The significant growth of Renewable energy
sources indicates that it plays an important role in national
energy system in near future. Distributed Generation (DG)
technology is one of the technologies that gains more and more
attention all around the world. According to International
Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the number of countries
ratifying renewable energy targets has risen to 180. These
countries aim to synchronize the Distributed Generation to grid,
including small scale of PVs (Photovoltaics) power plants and
WPPs (wind power plants). The aim of this paper is to survey the
impact level of DG penetration into the grid. To investigate these
impacts, this paper uses a test system 9-BUS provided by IEEE to
model the integration of DG into the grid, by using ETAP
software. Three penetration levels are simulated to examine the
influence of DG plants into the electrical grid. Four scenarios
have been considered to check frequency, voltage and fault levels
of DG. The results show that the system performs well while
penetration is under 30% of the electrical grid. The higher is the
penetration of DG, the lower is the stability of the system. This
requires analysis and solutions to develop a more stable system.
Keyword—Distributed generation DG; DFIG; ETAP; PV
power plants; Transient stability; Wind power plant; 9BUS test
system
I. INTRODUCTION
Soon, renewable energy sources will contribute
significantly to the overall energy demand in the world in
general and in Vietnam in particular. However, electricity
produced from renewable energy sources is unstable and
electricity system operators face difficulties in integrating
energy sources into the existing grid.
Currently, the development of renewable resources and
their integration to grid are increasing. Many studies have
been carried out for the purpose of synchronizing renewable
energy sources.
The most notable of these is distributed Generation (DG)
technology that is a trend of development in the coming years.
In general, DG can be defined as: “Any power plant in the
transmission, distribution or consumption network that
978-1-5386-1846-2/17/$31.00 ©2017 European Union
Gabriela Nicoleta Sava
Mircea Scripcariu
Faculty of Power Engineering
University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest
Bucharest, Romania
gabriela.sava@energ.pub.ro
contributes to generating capacity to meet the needs of the
load and the grid”.
However, many research articles show that depending on
the level of DG penetration that has negative impact on the
grid, DG may cause voltage instability, short circuit current
increase and frequency instability [1] – [3]. Previous research
results show that 25% DG penetration improves the transient
stability of the grid, while higher penetration causes
disturbance, caused by synchronous generators that cannot
provide enough power capacity when DG suddenly
disconnects [4]. During the study process, there are many
limitations in simulation due to less software features. DG can
be simulated only by using conventional sources, and is
difficult to understand the effects of incidents.
This paper examines the impact of the penetration of DG
(PV and wind energy) into the grid by using ETAP software, a
specialized software for simulating power systems with
multiple calculation tool, which shows the overview results for
frequency, voltage and short circuit current. The effects of the
influence on the electrical grid, and the relationship between
frequency and voltage are shown in more detail. DG
penetration is divided into multiple scenarios with various
impact levels of wind and PV starting at 20%, 30% and finally
50% in the same grid conditions to reflect the impact of the
increase of renewable energy on the grid.
II. DG INTEGRATED IN POWER SYSTEM
An IEEE 9BUS system [5] was used with a total load
capacity of 310MW to investigate the penetration of DG. In
Fig.1 is presented the electrical network system with mixed
sources as conventional synchronous generators and DG (wind
power plant-WPP, PV power plant-PVPP).
The DG plants will be gradually connected to the grid to
achieve the levels of penetration that are simulated through the
scenarios below.
Scenarios 3 and 4 are the same, but it will be
investigated the penetration level of these two cases on
different incident assumptions during the simulation.
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 DG1: 2 WPPs, 2 PV PPs.
DG2: 1 WPPs, 1 PV PPs.
DG3: 3 WPPs.
CB: Circuit-breaker

Fig.1. IEEE 9 BUS system in ETAP.

TABLE I. LIST OF SCENARIOS Wind turbines are used in simulation based on the Vestas
model (V90-2.0MW) [7] with rated power of 2MW, the cut-in
Scenario Base 1 2 3 4
speed is 3m/s and the rated speed is 10m/s.
Total DG % 0 20 30 50 50
Doubly Fed Induction Generator [8] – [9] is installed in the
DG power(MW) 0 60 90 150 150
wind turbine to achieve maximum power at a fixed turbine
Wind (%) 0 13 20 40 40 speed [10].
PV (%) 0 7 10 10 10
Each wind power plant consists of 10 turbines with a total
Number of wind power plants 0 2 3 3 3 installed capacity of 20MW, connected to the BUS 0.69kV
Number of PV power plants 0 2 3 6 6 and then in turn is increased to 33kV and 230kV as shown in
Fig. 3.
A. PV power plant:

Fig.3. Wind power plant modeling.

C. Sequence of incidents in simulation:
Three tests were simulated in the ETAP software,
including transient frequency stability, transient voltage
stability and short-circuit current. The incidents are listed in
Table II and Table III.
Fig. 2. PV power plant modeling. (With Circuit breaker- CBV and impedance The loss of PV based on bad weather causes disturbances
of line-ZPV)
to the transmission line from PV generation to the transformer,
and the power from PV cannot be transmitted to load.
Each PV power plant is designed from 10 PV panels (PV
Array-PVA), each panel consisting of 4500 Suniva ART245- TABLE II. SEQUENCE OF INCIDENTS FOR SCENARIOS 1-3
60-3 [6] panels have a total installed capacity of 10MW. The
inverters change the connection of the PV array to the BUS Time (s) Incident
0.69kV, then use a step-up transformer (T) to increase the 20 Short-circuit occurrence
voltage level from 0.69kV to 230kV (Fig.2) 30 Short-circuit clearance
80 Loss of PV
B. Wind power plant: 100 Loss of wind

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 In case of the WPP generation, assuming an incident of
wind speed exceeding 25 m / s, it will force the turbine to stop
abruptly to protect the components causing the output power
to drop sharply. These scenarios simulate the sudden loss of
PV and WPP generations.

TABLE III. SEQUENCE OF INCIDENTS FOR SCENARIO 4

Time (s) Incident

20 Short-circuit occurrence
30 Short-circuit clearance Fig.5. Frequency response when DG accounts for 30%.
80 Loss of wind
When the PV power is lost at 80 seconds, the frequency
100 Loss of PV
fluctuates only slightly with ± 0.3%. However, up to 100
III. SIMULATION RESULTS seconds, when the capacity of the wind power is lost, the
system loses all 150MW from the DG plant, the frequency
A. Transient frequency stability:
starts to drop sharply as shown in Fig.6 and the grid loses its
The loss of PV generation and wind generation by the DG stability.
technology, or the loss of load will cause system frequency
fluctuations. The main reason is the lack of inertial support.
When the network has a high level of penetration with DG, the
inertia of the whole system decreases resulting in high
frequency deviation. Frequency deviation is determined by
equation [11]:

ௗ ଵ
ܲ௚ െ ܲ௟ ൌ ቀ ‫ܬ‬ ή ߱௘௟ ቁ (1)
ௗ௧ ଶ ௦௬௦

where Pg is the power generated by DG, Pl is the load power,

Ȧel is the angular frequency and Jsystem is the system’s inertia.
The simulated results give a clearer view about this problem.
The simulated graph shows that in case that the penetration
level of DG is 20% (case 1-Fig. 4) and 30% (case 2-Fig. 5),
the grid is not significantly affected. Incidentally, the loss of
PV and wind power causes very small frequency fluctuation,
with a deviation of less than 0.3% that can recover easily.
Thus, with a penetration level below 30%, DG does not
significantly affect frequency and the grid stability.
In scenario 3, when the DG accounts a penetration level of
50%, during the normal disturbance, the graph presents no
significant fluctuation.
Fig.6. Frequency response when DG accounts for 50%, the PV loss first.
This can be explained by the equation [11], with a
constant load, a large amount of power is lost from the DG
and the wind turbine generators no longer can operate causing
system inertia to increase. Thus, the frequency drops sharply.
In case 4 and Scenario 2, the wind loss happens at 80
seconds and the PV loss at 100 seconds as shown in Fig. 7.
The loss of 120MW of wind power is enough for frequency to
decline sharply. The grid may be broke-out in such situation.
This shows that the wind power and wind turbine inertia can
cause strong impacts on the grid with high DG penetration.

Fig.4. Frequency response when DG accounts for 20%. Fig.7. Frequency response when DG accounts for 50%, the wind loss first.

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 The generators connected in parallel with the grid must
operate with a synchronous speed to maintain frequency to the
desired value, any difference can cause frequency deviation
[12]. The modulating valves in the generator's primary motor
may change over the millisecond time frame (ms) to meet
power fluctuations. However, a sudden loss of registered for
large capacity of DG plants makes the conventional
synchronous generators cannot meet the lost capacity. In case
3, when the 30MW PV power is lost, the regulator valves of
the generator are still able to compensate for this, so the
Fig.9. The transient voltage process when DG accounts for 30%.
frequency is only slightly fluctuated, but when the 120MW of
the wind power is lost, the valves cannot compensate this large
On the other hand, with DG accounting for 50% when
amount of power. As a result, synchronous speed starts to
wind power is lost, the generator voltage starts to drop sharply
decrease, frequency also decreases. On the other hand, in the
[14]. Because the frequency and the synchronous speed
case of 4 when the wind generation is lost at 80 seconds, the
decrease rapidly causing the grid voltage to drop (Fig.10 and
frequency also decreases rapidly. The cause is due to the
Fig.11), the grid can be collapsed.
inertial characteristics of the turbine, although the inertia of
the generator in the turbine is smaller than that of conventional
synchronous generators, they still have inertial responses due
to turbine kinetic energy, while PV generation have not any
moving part in the power generation process that there is no
inertia [13]. Therefore, inertial control methods must be
developed when DG enters the grid at high levels [11].

B. Transient voltage stability:

With the loss of DG plants, the frequency fluctuation
causes the unstable generator synchronous speed leading to
the magnetic flux through stator the change rapidly. These
causes unstable generator output voltages. Therefore, the grid Fig.10. The transient voltage process when DG accounts for 50% when the
PV lost first.
voltage is fluctuated in the sequence of incident. The output
voltage of the synchronous generator is determined by the
formula [14]:

E RM S = 2π N s Φ f (2)

where: Ns is the number rounds of one-phase windings of

stator, ĭ is the magnetic flux through stator, f is the system’s
frequency. The simulation graphs show this clearly.

Fig.11. The transient voltage process when DG accounts for 50% when the
wind lost first.

In stable working conditions, the connection of DG will

Fig.8. The transient voltage process when DG accounts for 20%.
In common incident, the higher level penetration of DG,
the faster is the voltage likely to recover. When the DG plants
are lost, the result is the same as the frequency transition. With
DG accounting for 20% - 30% the voltage is not significantly
affected by the loss of wind and PV (Fig.8 and Fig.9).
cause overvoltage, when DG at the end of the line, occurring
from 20% penetration and between the 30% line. In case of
light load, DG generates more power than the load needed that
causes the voltage drop to decline. The capacitors contribute
to the overvoltage phenomenon. On the other hand, in large
load case, voltage drop occurs, especially when DG is at the
wire end (from 20% penetration) but the least impact when
DG at the end of the line (50-100% penetration). Because of
the large load, the system must provide more reactive power,

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which increases the voltage drop on the line causing the Then, the loss of wind and PV power at this penetration
under-voltage phenomenon [15, 16]. level gives a similar result in the frequency response and
voltage (from Fig.16 to Fig.19). The loss of DG in the form of
C. Fault current:
wind power with too large a capacity causes system inertia to
In this paper, there are four Buses selected to create three- change, frequency and synchronous speed is greatly reduced,
phase short-circuit faults to evaluate short-circuit currents and thus the transmitter power is affected. As a result, the
fault level with DG penetration. Selected Buses include: BUS transmission power decreases as fast as the simulated graph,
5 connects to 2 DG plants (2 wind generations and 2 PV the grid can be broke-out.
generations), BUS 6 has the lowest load without any DG
source, BUS 8 connects only with 3 wind power plants, and
BUS 9 is an intermediate BUS connected to a DG plant (one
wind generation and one PV generation). Short-circuit current
results are shown in Table IV.

TABLE IV. FAULT CURRENT

Fault current at 0% Fault current at

BUS Augmentation
DG 50% DG
BUS 5 3.4 kA 3.8 kA 12%
BUS 6 3.1 kA 3.2 kA 3%
BUS 8 3.6 kA 4.3 kA 19% Fig.12. Active power transmission when DG accounts for 20%.
BUS 9 5.1 kA 5.5 kA 8%

It can be observed that with high levels of DG

penetration, the short-circuit current at each BUS increases,
which results in an increase in the fault level. The more BUS
connected to wind and PV generations, the higher short-circuit
current. Therefore, there must have active methods to remove
the effect of the three-phase fault as well as its effects on the
equipment and the grid. The rising short circuit currents
require a bigger size of the protection devices and higher
levels of protection.
Fig.13. Reactive power transmission when DG accounts for 20%.
D. Tranmission power of the system:
Similar to the voltage and frequency response, DG lost in
the form of wind and PV also cause unstable system
transmission power. Incidents occur that alter the frequency
and synchronous speed, which results in fluctuating
transmission power, which can be seen from the simulated
graphs.
When DG accounts for under 30%, three-phase short-
circuit faults reduce the transmission power, then gradually
recover but recovery time is quite long. When DG are lost in
the form of wind and PV generation, the system transmission
power is only slightly affected, small variations then recovery Fig.14. Active power transmission when DG accounts for 30%.
(from Fig.12 to Fig.14). This result is similar to frequency and The use of DFIG systems in wind turbines generates that
voltage. supply both active and reactive power. PV generation in
On the other hand, when the DG accounts for 50%, the nature generates DC power so it only supplies active power.
incidents become more serious. Three-phase short-circuit Therefore, when PV generation are connected to the grid,
makes the power drop sharply to below 5MW, the amplitude inverters must have internal reactive power compensation
fluctuation when recovering is large, but the ability to recover capacitors or external reactive power compensation measures
faster than the above cases. using SVC, STACOM, etc.

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 IV. CONCLUSION
The higher is the penetration level of DG, the lower will
be the reliability of the system. The fault level will increase
and that requires reasonable location of DG power allocation
as well as appropriate size selection of equipment to protect
the grid. In the DG system, wind power plays an important
role in stabilizing the grid frequency. There should be more
research on wind power plant. PV generations are frequently
affected by the obscurity that results in the loss of the output
power of the battery, thus this requires remedies. The scatter
Fig.15. Reactive power transmission when DG accounts for 30%.
of DG increases the probability of an incident, so the need for
zoning and focus on DG plants. There are means to solve the
problem of weather forecasting in the area, thus limiting the
effects caused by the weather. The optimum level of DG
integration into the grid today is 30%. If DG penetration
exceeds 30%, the demand for Smart Grid Systems becomes
necessary.

Fig.16. Active power transmission when DG accounts for 50% when the PV
lost first.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work has been funded by University POLITEHNICA
of Bucharest, through the “Excellence Research Grants”
Program, UPB – GEX 2017. Identifier: UPB- GEX2017, Ctr.
No. 11/2017 (GREENHOUSE)”. This research is funded by
Funds for Science and Technology Development of the
University of Danang under project number 21/HDD-KHCN-
2017.

Fig.17. Reactive power transmission when DG accounts for 50% when the PV
lost first.
Fig.18. Active power transmission when DG accounts for 50% when the wind
lost first.
Fig.19. Reactive power transmission when DG accounts for 50% when the
wind lost first.
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