Evaluation of Proportional and Nonlinear Damping Control Schemes in an Optimized Power Grid

Due to increasing demands for green energy, the incorporation of alternative power sources into existing electrical power grids has become a priority. However, such additional sources add to the complexity of the grid and may drastically impede synchronicity in the grid, unless the grid can be made “smart”. Here, within the context of the well-established model of Kuramoto phase oscillators with inertia, we propose and test the use of a proportional control (linear feedback) scheme to improve the synchronicity in an optimized grid. We compare our results to a recent study in which nonlinear damping was used for the same purpose. Our numerical results show that the proportional control scheme may be more effective than introducing nonlinear damping into the grid, since it produces a similar improvement in synchronicity by operating only on one of the sources, instead of on all. Based on our simulations we provide a detailed discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of using different proportional control schemes in comparison to the nonlinear damping scheme.