Improving transient stability of photovoltaic-hydro microgrids using virtual synchronous machines

Transient stability of photovoltaic-hydro microgrid systems is poor due to lack of inertia and the intermittent nature of photovoltaic systems. The stability of such systems can be improved by using virtual synchronous machines which add inertia into the system to allow for higher PV penetration without losing stability. A PV-hydro system was simulated in MATLAB/Simulink to analyze the transient stability problems due to PV fluctuations and/or load or generation changes. Virtual synchronous machine was added which reduced the frequency deviations and the high rate of change of frequency. The results indicate that the transient stability of photovoltaic-hydro microgrid systems can be improved by using virtual synchronous machines using a minimum amount of energy storage. However, the power requirements of the virtual synchronous machine's converter was found to be high compared to the overall system size. Furthermore, high PV penetration levels were achieved by adding virtual synchronous machine to the system.