Power Converters: A Growing Challenge To Grid Stability? [Viewpoint]

Over the last 20 years, there has been a revolution as inverter-connected renewable generation has moved from being a novelty to the mainstream. Although they facilitate a huge reduction in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, the high penetration of these inverter resources is seen as a risk to system stability by many grid operators. T here have been numerous incidents of small cascade generator disconnections rightfully blamed directly on the inverter-based resource specification and designs. In some regions, inverter-based resources are already more than 50% of the total capacity. Power systems engineers are aware that grid stability will become increasingly challenging in the future as we move closer to 100% inverter-connected resources.