Advanced
Inverters and
Grid Support
John Berdner
Director of Worldwide Standards
Overview of Presentation
Grid Reliability Functions
Voltage Ride Through, Frequency Ride Through
Real Power Control Functions
Frequency/Watt, Volt/Watt
Reactive Power Provisioning and Voltage Support
Volt/Var
Impact on Anti-Islanding
Communications
Other Resources
- EPRI “Common Functions for Smart Inverters, Version 3”
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Ride Through Functions
Voltage and frequency ride through functions are the
most important features needed to improve grid stability
Historically inverters were programmed to get offline
quickly in response to grid voltage or frequency
excursions
- Existing regulatory structures in the US did not
adequately address ride through requirements.
- Requirements were written as “must disconnect” not
as “must remain connected”
- As levels of Distributed Energy Resources (DER)
increase this strategy becomes problematic.
- Loss of large amounts of DER in advance of load
shedding can lead to cascade failure.
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L/H Voltage Ride Through
EPRI Common Functions For Smart Inverters V3, page 14-2
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Voltage Ride Through Issues
Inverters can provide controlled full current down to
near zero voltage for extended periods of time but…
there are some issues.
- Very low voltages are normally seen in response to
feeder faults and additional fault current may be
undesirable.
- At very low voltages, frequency measurement signal
to noise ratio deteriorates
- Very low voltage operation of inverters may increase
power supply costs and complexity
Focus of requirements to date has been on what
happens at beginning of event. Of equal import is what
happens when / how the DER returns to service.
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L/H Voltage Ride Through
Operating Regions - Must Remain Connected
1.30
1.20
1.10
Overvoltage Region 1 - (OV1MSC)
1.00 Normal Operation Region High (NORH)
0.90
0.80
Voltage (per Unit)
0.70 Undervoltage Region 1 - UV1MSC
0.60
0.50
0.40
0.30
Undervoltage Region 2MSC - UV2MSC
0.20
0.10
0.00
0.01 0.1 1 10 100 1000
time (seconds)
OV_MSC UV_MSC
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Frequency Ride Through
EPRI Common Functions For Smart Inverters V3, page 15-2
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Frequency Ride Through Issues
Inverters can provide controlled full current down to
very low frequencies for extended periods.
- Frequency excursion is normally in response to
system level events.
- Low frequency behavior needs to be coordinated
with local load shedding schemes.
- Inverters are less sensitive to damage from low
frequency operation than rotating machines.
During high frequency excursions ride through and
Frequency / Watt functions are normally used together.
- Real power may be programmed to be at zero before
reaching the ride through limits.
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Real Power Control Functions
Real power control functions modulate real power
output in response to changes in Voltage or frequency
Typical Real Power Control functions include:
- Volt / Watt
- Reduces real power output with rising voltage
- May be possible to increase power with lower voltages
if storage is present in the system
- Can be used with ramp rate control on initial startup.
- Frequency / Watt
- Reduces real power output with rising frequency
- May be possible to increase power with lower voltages
if storage is present in the system
- Can be used with HF ride through for more stability
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Example: Real Power Control Function
Example Volt Watt Diagram Parameters
- Dead band (Vnom – V2) = no power reduction
- Response Gradient %P/Volt = (P3-P2)/(V3/V2)
- Other considerations – Response time, averaging
intervals, intentional delay
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Reactive Power Control Functions
Reactive power control functions modulate reactive
power output in response to changes in Voltage, or real
power output.
Typical Reactive Power Control functions include:
- Volt / VAr with Watt priority (available VAr or VV11).
- Provides VAr support with no reduction in real power
- VAr capacity varies inversely with solar resource
- Volt / VAr with Var priority (available VAr or VV12).
- Provides VAr support and may reduce real power
- VAr capacity is independent of solar resource
- May require specific Tarriffs or Rates
- Watt /Var (not common in the North America)
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Example: Reactive Power Control Function
Example Volt VAr Diagram Parameters
- Dead band (V3 – V2) = no power reduction
- Response Gradient %Qa/Volt = (Q4-Q3)/(V4/V4)
- Other considerations – Response time, averaging
intervals, intentional delay
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Communication – Commanded Operation
Inverters respond in “near real time” to commands from
the utility.
Example commanded modes:
On/Off (P&Q = 0)
Fixed Real Power (may require storage)
Maximum Real Power
Fixed Power Factor
Mode Change – Profile A or Profile B
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Communication – Autonomous Profiles
High speed SCADA communications is not cost
effective for high numbers of smaller systems.
Inverters can be pre-programmed with one or more
autonomous operating profiles.
- Inverters would then continue to operate according
to this profile until commanded to do otherwise.
- Provides high speed response without need for
high speed communications
Updates to profiles or changes in operating modes can
occur over public IP networks
- Customer Network or Cellular Modem (M2M)
Mode changes might also be possible over AMI system.
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Communication – Issues 1
Cyber Security of communication to DER systems
No global standard communication protocols
- DNP 3 is one common protocol used by utilities.
- Not well suited to control of large numbers of inverters
- Not used by all utilities
- IEC 61850 Data model may be a common language
- Sunspec Mapping to IEC 61850 for inverters
- DNP 3 to IEC 61850 for Utilities
Response time will be dependent on communication
system used
Not all systems will receive / respond to commands
(Stochastic planning needed)
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Questions
Thank you for your attention
John Berdner
jberdner@[Link]
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