Cost-Effective Dynamic Control for Transmission Systems

Management of flows over today's power grid is becoming increasingly complex owing to the volatility introduced due to non-dispatchable sources like PV and wind. The need for autonomous and precise control over power flows in the transmission system is felt. This paper proposes a hybrid transformer-based solution to add dynamic control over voltages, power flows and impedances on transmission systems. The proposed technology involves augmenting a conventional transformer with a fractionally rated converter. The approach shows numerous improvements as well as cheaper cost points over traditional FACTS-based approaches. Further, a modular approach towards using this technology is presented to enable high reliability, redundancy and resiliency for the transmission grid. System level simulations are presented here to showcase the approach's feasibility.