Instability incident during remote independent power producer commissioning in BC hydro system and corrective actions to enhance system stability

In British Columbia, there are generating stations including independent power producers that are located in remote areas with low population density. Interconnection of such remote generating stations may result in transient and small-signal instability due to long radial lines and weak inter-connections. In this paper, a small signal instability incident during the synchronization of a remote independent power producer to the BC Hydro system has been reported and analyzed. The stability analysis has been conducted to identify the nature of instabilities and to develop corrective actions for enhancing the system stability. Herein, small- and large-signal transient stability evaluations of the power system have been presented using PSS/E software package.