Reliability of the Future Smart Grid and the Role of Energy Storage

The electric power grid is in a state of transition with increasing penetrations of inverter based resources. With power electronics becoming more capable and less expensive, power flow control devices like solid state transformers will become more prevalent. While the advanced capabilities of solid state transformers will improve stability and enable new control approaches, the reliability of solid state transformers will have to be very high to maintain the reliability of the grid today. This paper employs the IEEE 34-bus test feeder configured to represent a future smart grid to explore the impacts of solid state transformers at each node, as well as opportunities for energy storage to improve reliability.