Power Quality Issues

with Renewables
Professor Arindam Ghosh

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Power Quality with Renewables

 There are several power quality issues with the

interconnection of renewable energy.
 Usually, rooftop PVs are supposed to be connected at
unity power factor.
 They are not allowed to correct bus voltages.
 This causes a rise in the voltage along the feeder so much
so that the PV converters might trip.
 On the other hand, if the converters are allowed to absorb
reactive power, their size will increase.

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Power Quality with Renewables (Contd.)

 This will also increase the line losses.

 Also, rooftop PVs, spread over various distribution feeders,
can cause reverse power flow and severe unbalance in the
system.
 The main concerns with wind integrations are:
 Voltage and reactive power control;
 Frequency control and
 Fault ride through capability.
 We shall discuss some of these in this lecture.

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Ybus Matrix Formation

 The first step is to convert the impedance diagram into and admittance
diagram using Norton’s equivalent.
 I1  V1  V1   I1   I1 
I  V  V  I  I 
   Ybus       Ybus    Z bus  2 
2 2 2 1 2

0 V3  V3  0 0

         
0 V
   
4 V4  0  0
Load Flow
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Ybus Matrix Formation (Contd.)

 Consider Bus-1 that connects nodes 1 and 2.

 The current injected is
I1  Y1V1  Y12 V1  V2   Y13 V1  V3 
 Y1  Y12  Y13 V1  Y12V2  Y13V3
 In a similar way we can write the injection into the other
nodes to get
 I1  Y1  Y12  Y13  Y12  Y13 0  V1 
I    Y Y  Y  Y  Y  Y  Y  V 
 
2 12 2 12 23 24 23 24  2 
0   Y13  Y23 Y13  Y23  Y34  Y34  V3 
    
0
   0  Y 24  Y34 Y24  Y 34  V4 

Load Flow
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Load Flow Basics

 Using the Ybus matrix and noting P – jQ = V*I, we get

n
Pi   YikViVk cos ik   k   i 
k 1
n
Qi   YikViVk sin  ik   k   i 
k 1

 Let the real and reactive power generated at bus-i be PGi

and QGi respectively.
 Also let us denote the real and reactive power consumed
at the ith bus by PLi and QLi respectively.

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Load Flow Basics (Contd.)

 Then the net real power injected in bus-i is

Pi ,inj  PGi  PLi
 The injected power calculated by a load flow program is
Pi,calc.
 The mismatch between the actual injected and calculated
values is given by
Pi  Pi ,inj  Pi , calc  PGi  PLi  Pi , calc
 Similarly for reactive power we write
Qi  Qi ,inj  Qi , calc  QGi  QLi  Qi , calc
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Load Flow Basics (Contd.)

 The load flow minimizes the above two mismatches.

 Since the magnitudes of all the voltages and their angles
are not known a priori, an iterative procedure must be
used to estimate the bus voltages and their angles in order
to calculate the mismatches.
 It is expected that mismatches Pi and Qi reduce with
each iteration.
 The load flow is said to have converged when the
mismatches of all the buses become less than a very small
number.
Load Flow
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Load Flow Basics (Contd.)

 Usually in a load flow, three different type buses are

considered – load buses, voltage-controlled buses and the
slack bus.
 Load Bus – specified in terms of real and reactive power; voltage
and angle are not known.
 Voltage Controlled (PV) Bus – specified by voltage magnitude
and real power; usually a generator bus.
 Slack Bus – specified by voltage magnitude and sets the
reference angle for the load flow program. It injects the remaining
amount of real power.

Load Flow
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Load Flow of a Single-Phase Radial
Network

 There are three different load flow approaches available –

Gauss-Seidel, Newton-Raphson and Fast Decoupled.
 In this we shall use Gauss-Seidel, which has been
discussed in the notes.
 Note that in a distribution system, there are only load
buses and a slack bus – no voltage-controlled buses.
 The PVs are considered as negative loads as they are not
required to hold the bus voltages to any rated value.

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A Radial Network

1 2 3 4 5
Zs Zf Zf Zf
VS PPV5
P1, Q1

P2, Q2 P3, Q3 P4, Q4 P5, Q5

 Bus-1 is the substation bus of 230 V; it injects P1 and Q1.

 The feeders are denoted by Zf = 0.02 + j0.01  and Zs =
5Zf.
 The PVs can be connected to one or more of the buses.
 Two load conditions are considered – light and heavy.
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Radial Network Load Flow

 Light Load: P2 = 1 kW, P3 = 1.2 kW, P4 = 1.5 kW and P5 = 2

kW.
 Heavy Load: P2 = 4 kW, P3 = 4.2 kW, P4 = 5 kW and P5 =
5.5 kW.
 All the loads are assumed to have a power factor of 0.9.
 For the light load, the voltage of bus-5 drops 225.8 V, while
it drops to 216 V for heavy load condition.
 The line loss for light load condition is 94.5 W, while for the
heavy load, it is 1.07 kW.
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Radial Network Voltages

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Radial Network PV Connection

 Now consider the light load condition.

 We shall connect PV at the different buses, one at a time.
 At first, we shall connect a 5 kW PV in bus-5.
 Then we add a 3 kW PV at bus-4.
 Following this, we add another 3 kW PV in bus 3, and
finally a 2 kW PV is added in bus-2.
 The bus voltages are now shown in the next slide.
 It can be seen that the bus voltages keep on rising with
each addition of a PV.
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Radial Network PV Connection (Contd.)

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Radial Network PV Connection (Contd.)

 Another thing of importance is the power flow from or into

bus-1.
 This is shown in the next slide, where negative power
indicates that power flows into slack bus.
 When there is no PV, bus-1 supplies the entire power.
 When one PV has been placed in bus-5, the power
dispatched from bus-1 reduces by about 5 kW.
 Subsequently as more PVs are added, the amount of
reverse power flow increases.

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Radial Network PV Connection (Contd.)

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Radial Network PV Connection (Contd.)
|V2| |V3| (V) |V4| (V) |V5| (V) Source Line loss
(V) power (kW) (W)

Heavy 219.45 217.79 216.60 215.98 19.77 1007

load
Light 226.91 226.40 226.02 225.80 5.79 95.0
Load
PV-5 229.13 229.06 229.12 229.34 0.72 21.0

PV-5,4 230.42 230.62 230.93 231.16  2.26 40.30

PV-5,4,3 231.70 232.16 232.47 232.69  5.21 92.59

PV-5,4,3,2 232.56 233.0 233.32 233.54  7.16 138.31

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Non UPF PV Injection

 The above example shows that PV power injection at unity

power factor causes the bus voltages to rise.
 The further away the bus is from the substation, the more
is the voltage rise.
 Also, the voltage rise increases as the number of PV
connected to the feeder increases.
 When there are 40 or so nodes connected to the feeder,
the voltage rise may cause the PV inverters to trip.
 Consider now non-unity power factor injection of PVs.

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Non UPF PV Injection (Contd.)

 Let us assume that a converter injects I amount of current

into a system at a unity power factor with a voltage
magnitude of V.
 Then the power injected is P = VI.
 Assume that the voltage magnitude remains constant.
 The converter absorbs (not injects) Q amount of power.
 Then the current will be

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Non UPF PV Injection (Contd.)

 This implies that the converter has to be rated

 11.8% higher if 50% reactive power (with respect to 100% real
power) needs to be absorbed.
 41.4% higher if 100% reactive power (with respect to 100% real
power) needs to be absorbed.
 We consider both these levels.
 The results are tabulated in the next two slides.
 As the Q injections increases, the voltage rise is arrested,
but the line loss increases.

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50% Reactive Injection by PVs

|V2| (V) |V3| (V) |V4| (V) |V5| (V) Line loss
(W)

PV-5 228.56 228.38 228.34 228.45 73.82

PV-5,4 229.52 229.54 229.69 229.80 137.78

PV-5,4,3 230.46 230.67 230.82 230.94 238.91

PV-5,4,3,2 231.10 231.31 231.45 231.56 316.54

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100% Reactive Injection by PVs

|V2| (V) |V3| (V) |V4| (V) |V5| (V) Line loss
(W)

PV-5 227.98 227.69 227.53 227.53 166.39

PV-5,4 228.58 228.42 228.39 228.39 328.46

PV-5,4,3 229.17 229.13 229.10 229.11 545.09

PV-5,4,3,2 229.56 229.53 229.50 229.50 701.11

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Reverse Power Flow

 The domestic load is light during the sunlight hours when

PV generation is possible.
 Therefore, if there are a large number of PVs in a
distribution feeder, then there is a possibility that reverse
power flow might occur.
 Now consider the case of a 3-phase distribution system.
 Since the installations of rooftop PVs are strictly dependent
on the customer willingness and financial situation, there
might be unequal numbers of PVs in different phases.

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Reverse Power Flow (Contd.)

 This may cause unequal reverse power flow in one, two or

all the three phases.
 This will result in a severe unbalance in the upstream
network containing the transmission system, which is
highly undesirable.
 Consider the 4-bus network of the next slide.
 It has unbalanced loads and PVs connected to only one
phase.
 It also has a DSTATCOM working in voltage control mode.

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Schematic Diagram of a 4-Bus Network

vs is
il
Ls PCC PV-1
Rs
|Vt|d
DSTATCOM LOAD-1
Feeder

PV-4

LOAD-4

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Parameters of the 4-Bus Network

System Quantities Values

Load Impedance Phase-a: 400 + j131.48 
Phase-b: 640 + j210.36 
Bus-1 Phase-c: 2400 + j788.85 
PV 300 kW
Load Impedance Phase-a: 300+j98.605
Phase-b: 560+j184.06 
Bus-2 Phase-c: 2200+j723.11 
PV 250 kW
Load Impedance Phase-a: 200+j65.737
Phase-b: 480+j157.77 
Bus-3 Phase-c: 2000+j657.37 
PV 300 kW
Load Impedance Phase-a: 100+j38.868 
Phase-b: 400+j131.47 
Bus-4 Phase-c: 1800+j591.63 
PV 350 kW

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Results of the 4-Bus Network

 The DERs are simultaneously connected at 0.3 s, while

the DSTATCOM is connected at 1.0s.
 Once the DSTATCOM gets connected, balanced amount
of 25 kW power is sent back by each phase.
 The power from phase-a is circulated amongst the phases.
 The PCC voltages get balanced, and the voltage angle is
positive.
 This means that power flows from the PCC to the utility.

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Results of the 4-Bus Network (Contd.)

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Results of the 4-Bus Network (Contd.)

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Results of the 4-Bus Network (Contd.)

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Reactive Power Consideration

 In this, none of the DERs is injecting power, while the load

consumption is high (evening peak time).
 The DSTATCOM is connected at 0.5 s.
 The unbalanced power drawn from the source gets
balanced with the DSTATCOM connection.
 The power consumed increases due to voltage control.
 The DSTATCOM sends a large amount (4.5 MVAR)
reactive power back towards the source, which is
undesirable.

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Reactive Power Problem

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Reactive Power Problem (Contd.)

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Reactive Power Control

 We define Vs = V and VP = |VP|.

 Then the source current is
V  VP   
Is 
Rs  jX s

 The real and reactive power injected to PCC are

1 V VP Rs cos   V VP X s sin   VP 2 Rs 
Ps 
Rs2  X s2  
1 V VP X s cos   V VP Rs sin   VP 2 X s 
Qs  2
Rs  X s2  

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Reactive Power Control (Contd.)

 The reactive power injected at the PCC Qs cannot be

made equal to zero by controlling angle only.
 The real power injection Ps will depend on both VP and .
 Therefore, the reactive power control cannot be achieved
without sacrificing the real power control.
 However, Qs = 0 when
VRs
VP  V cos   sin 
Xs

 A PI controller is used to force Qs to zero.

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Reactive Power Control (Contd.)

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Reactive Power Control (Contd.)

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Fault Ride-Through

 When a short circuit fault takes place in some location in

the grid, the voltage on the faulted phases will be zero.
 Due to the low impedance of transmission circuits a large
voltage depression would be experienced across large
areas on the transmission system until the fault is cleared
by the opening of circuit-breakers.
 Many studies show how faults in the grid may propagate
over very wide areas, affecting a great number of wind
farms.
 Some wind turbine technologies are known to be
susceptible to tripping even if the voltage transiently falls to
levels as high as 70%.
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Fault Ride-Through (Contd.)

 Such plants would be affected, jeopardizing the grid

stability.
 During voltage dips, induction generators tend to
significantly increase their reactive power demand to the
extent that the system voltage may be further depressed.
 This causes slower recovery of the voltage once the fault
has been removed.
 If all the wind generation in a great extension is
disconnected, there is a mismatch between generated and
consumed power, and the frequency will drop.
 If there is not enough reserve, defined by the spinning
reserve of the system, a black-out may occur.
Fault Ride-Through
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South Australia – September 28, 2016

 The state used to get 40 per cent of its power from wind.
 The rest would come from a mix of gas-fired plants and
two interconnectors with Victoria (mainly from brown coal
plants).
 Just before the power went down, there was 800 MW of
wind generation, 330 MW of gas and 610 MW was being
imported from Victoria.
 There was no local ancillary frequency control services at
that time.
 The drama took place in a 90 second window between
4:16:46 PM and 4:18:16 PM.

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South Australia Storm

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SA Blackout
 The weather triggered a series of transmission faults, and
three major 275 kV lines were lost.
 Thereafter, in two separate events, 315 MW of wind
generation got disconnected.
 This unexplained, rapid loss of wind power was the event
that began the cascading blackout.
 The operators tried to get more power via the Heywood
interconnector from Victoria.
 But this caused the interconnector to overload.
 In less than half a second an automatic-protection
mechanism cut off the power to SA in order to protect the
interconnector from being damaged.
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Ancillary Services

 Ancillary services are provided in addition to real power

generation by the electric utilities under a monopoly.
 The following services must be provided separately under
a deregulated environment:
 Reactive supply for voltage control.
 Load power consumption tracking automatic generation control
(AGC).
 Operating with spinning reserves to provide extra generating
capacity following generation outages.
 Frequency control for near instantaneous balance between
generation and consumption.
 Providing network stability services through PSS, dynamic braking
etc.
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Grid Codes

 New grid codes require all wind turbine technologies, to

have a fault ride-through capability.
 Spain requires ride-through for symmetrical 3-phase faults,
while Denmark specifies fault ride-through for
asymmetrical one- and two-phase faults as well.
 In the last slide, the typical requirement for fault ride-
through is shown before grid code modifications and after.
 Wind farms must remain connected if the voltage drop,
defined by the retained voltage rms. value and the duration
of the fault is above the curve.

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Fault Ride-Through Requirement

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