Implications of Grid-Forming Inverter Parameters on Disturbance Localization and Controllability

TL;DR

This paper explores how inverter parameters affect disturbance localization and controllability in power systems, highlighting implications for future wide-area control design.

Contribution

It demonstrates the relationship between inverter inertia and system response, proposing models to analyze disturbance localization and controllability.

Findings

Lower inverter inertia leads to greater disturbance localization.

Increased controllability suggests actuating inverters for system control.

Models effectively capture frequency dynamics in inverter-based systems.

Abstract

The shift from traditional synchronous generator (SG) based power generation to generation driven by power electronic devices introduces new dynamic phenomena and considerations for the control of large-scale power systems. In this paper, two aspects of all-inverter power systems are investigated: greater localization of system disturbance response and greater system controllability. The prevalence of both of these aspects are shown to be related to the lower effective inertia of inverters and have implications for future widearea control system design. Greater disturbance localization implies the need for feedback measurement placement close to generator nodes to properly reject disturbances in the system while increased system controllability implies that widearea control systems should preferentially actuate inverters to most efficiently control the system. This investigation utilizes reduced-order linear time-invariant models of both SGs and inverters that are shown to capture the frequency dynamics of interest in both all-SG and all-inverter systems, allowing for the efficient use of both frequency and time domain analysis methods.