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Dynamic Droop Control in Low-Inertia Power Systems

Jiang, Yan ; Pates, Richard LU and Mallada, Enrique (2021) In IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control 66(8). p.3518-3533
Abstract

A widely embraced approach to mitigate the dynamic degradation in low-inertia power systems is to mimic generation response using grid-connected inverters to restore the stiffness of the grid. In this article, we seek to challenge this approach and advocate for a principled design based on a systematic analysis of the performance trade-offs of inverter-based frequency control. With this aim, we perform a qualitative and quantitative study comparing the effect of conventional control strategies-droop control (DC) and virtual inertia (VI)-on several performance metrics induced by L2 and L∞ signal norms. By extending a recently proposed modal decomposition method, we capture the effect of step and stochastic power disturbances, and... (More)

A widely embraced approach to mitigate the dynamic degradation in low-inertia power systems is to mimic generation response using grid-connected inverters to restore the stiffness of the grid. In this article, we seek to challenge this approach and advocate for a principled design based on a systematic analysis of the performance trade-offs of inverter-based frequency control. With this aim, we perform a qualitative and quantitative study comparing the effect of conventional control strategies-droop control (DC) and virtual inertia (VI)-on several performance metrics induced by L2 and L∞ signal norms. By extending a recently proposed modal decomposition method, we capture the effect of step and stochastic power disturbances, and frequency measurement noise, on the overall transient and steady-state behavior of the system. Our analysis unveils several limitations of these solutions, such as the inability of DC to improve dynamic frequency response without increasing steady-state control effort, or the large frequency variance that VI introduces in the presence of measurement noise. We further propose a novel dynam-i-c droop controller (iDroop) that overcomes the limitations of DC and VI. More precisely, we show that iDroop can be tuned to achieve high noise rejection, fast system-wide synchronization, or frequency overshoot (Nadir) elimination without affecting the steady-state control effort share, and propose a tuning recommendation that strikes a balance among these objectives. Extensive numerical experimentation shows that the proposed tuning is effective even when our proportionality assumption is not valid, and that the particular tuning used for Nadir elimination strikes a good trade-off among various performance metrics.

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Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Frequency control, low-inertia power systems, static and dynamic performance
in
IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control
volume
66
issue
8
article number
9244565
pages
16 pages
publisher
IEEE - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
external identifiers
  • scopus:85111778528
ISSN
0018-9286
DOI
10.1109/TAC.2020.3034198
project
Scalable Control of Interconnected Systems
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
5e31da3c-6a86-4954-87e1-be1fbba5731f
date added to LUP
2021-08-26 15:00:32
date last changed
2022-05-20 10:00:48
@article{5e31da3c-6a86-4954-87e1-be1fbba5731f,
  abstract     = {{<p>A widely embraced approach to mitigate the dynamic degradation in low-inertia power systems is to mimic generation response using grid-connected inverters to restore the stiffness of the grid. In this article, we seek to challenge this approach and advocate for a principled design based on a systematic analysis of the performance trade-offs of inverter-based frequency control. With this aim, we perform a qualitative and quantitative study comparing the effect of conventional control strategies-droop control (DC) and virtual inertia (VI)-on several performance metrics induced by L2 and L∞ signal norms. By extending a recently proposed modal decomposition method, we capture the effect of step and stochastic power disturbances, and frequency measurement noise, on the overall transient and steady-state behavior of the system. Our analysis unveils several limitations of these solutions, such as the inability of DC to improve dynamic frequency response without increasing steady-state control effort, or the large frequency variance that VI introduces in the presence of measurement noise. We further propose a novel dynam-i-c droop controller (iDroop) that overcomes the limitations of DC and VI. More precisely, we show that iDroop can be tuned to achieve high noise rejection, fast system-wide synchronization, or frequency overshoot (Nadir) elimination without affecting the steady-state control effort share, and propose a tuning recommendation that strikes a balance among these objectives. Extensive numerical experimentation shows that the proposed tuning is effective even when our proportionality assumption is not valid, and that the particular tuning used for Nadir elimination strikes a good trade-off among various performance metrics. </p>}},
  author       = {{Jiang, Yan and Pates, Richard and Mallada, Enrique}},
  issn         = {{0018-9286}},
  keywords     = {{Frequency control; low-inertia power systems; static and dynamic performance}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{8}},
  pages        = {{3518--3533}},
  publisher    = {{IEEE - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.}},
  series       = {{IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control}},
  title        = {{Dynamic Droop Control in Low-Inertia Power Systems}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TAC.2020.3034198}},
  doi          = {{10.1109/TAC.2020.3034198}},
  volume       = {{66}},
  year         = {{2021}},
}