Wide Area Control of Inverter Based Power Grids

Grid-integration of inverter-based resources (IBR) affects the frequency stability of power networks due to reduced inertia and deteriorated fast frequency response. Coordinated control of grid-following (GFL) and grid-forming (GFM) inverters is necessary to overcome these issues. This paper proposes a wide area control technique for the grid-connected inverters in a power network. Two global signals are defined: wide area grid-following (WGFL) and wide area grid-forming (WGFM), which are obtained from phasor measurement units (PMUs) placed at different IBR-connected and synchronous generator-integrated high-voltage buses in the network. The proposed WGFL signal is used for calculating the modified angle for the phase-locked-loop operation of GFL inverters. The WGFM modifies the operating frequency of GFM inverters. The PMU data for the proposed method is analyzed at the nodal phasor data concentrator (PDC). However, PDCs are vulnerable to communication delays and data loss. To solve this problem, an existing wide-area-predictive-control approach is associated with the proposed method. The performance of the proposed WGFL and WGFM signal-based control is verified through PSCAD/EMTDC simulation of the 39-bus New England test system and 418-bus Indian power network for different operational scenarios, to observe its effectiveness over conventional GFL and GFM operations and the Distributed synchronized control technique.