Theses and Dissertations Collection

Renewable energy sources (RES) are becoming increasingly prevalent in modern power systems. This increased penetration of RES helps to reduce carbon emissions due to power generation, but the nature of wind and solar electricity generation creates some unique problems from a power system stability perspective. Frequency stability in particular is a difficult aspect to maintain in a system with a high penetration of renewables. This is in part due to their lack of generator inertia and inability to alter generation on demand, requiring external power electronic devices to regulate the flow of power they produce to be in line with the stability needs of the system. As the world moves ever onward towards net-zero carbon emissions from power generation, new technologies or new applications of existing technologies will be needed to maintain a secure and stable power grid.

In this thesis, it is shown that a modest SVC bank can effectively damp frequency oscillations caused by a misbehaving wind park due to load fluctuations. By using a PMU to track frequency and applying principles of Bode loop shaping, a frequency compensator is designed that allows the SVC to achieve this frequency damping while maintaining its ability to regulate voltage, the most common use case for SVCs, at the same time. By identifying system modes using non-parametric broadband power spectral density (PSD) estimation and designing the compensator around them, these common power electronic devices, SVCs and PMUs, can be used to add a great deal of frequency stability to systems that traditionally struggle with frequency control, specifically renewable energy sources such as wind parks that are rapidly increasing in prevalence in modern power grids.