Page 1 of 5 2015-ESC-0060

Effective Topologies for Large Scale Integration of Renewable Energy with the Grid
A Review

Muhammad U sman Ahsen Junaid Basil Siddiqui

Khalid Electrical Maintenance II Department of Electrical
National Refinery Limited Engineering
Electrical Maintenance
Karachi, Pakistan University of Waterloo
Pak-Arab Refinery Limited
ahseni@live.com Waterloo, Canada
Karachi, Pakistan
Basil.siddigui@uwaterloo.ca
usman.khalid@neduet.edu.pk

Abstract-The paper addresses several constraints associated regulate the active and reactive power by regulating frequency
with wide scale deployment of grid integrated renewable energy and voltage to maintain the grid stability. But the wide scale
system such as stability, active and reactive power regulation, use of such power electronic converters requires maintaining
LVRT (Low Voltage Ride Through) , power factor improvement the power quality due to high frequency switching and
and demand side management. While highlighting its challenges, presence of harmonics due to the non-linear behavior of
potential solutions to the problems are also discussed using converters. In case of wind energy, there lies an additional
different FACTS (Flexible AC Transmission system) family challenge of being non-dispatchable in nature, which means
devices and PHEV (Plugin Hybrid Electric Vehicles) . Finally a
the extraction of active power from wind is instantaneous and
typical power system is modeled on Matlab-Simulink showing a
it has to be utilized right at the instant when it is produced
voltage compensation system of a power system using SVC and
which require fast responding generating units. One possibility
the grid integration with active and reactive power control using
is to use the natural gas units in conjunction with the wind
PHEV.
turbine but it has high carbon foot prints. The hybrid
Keywords-Demand Side Management; Energy Policy; generation of wind and solar energy give the good
FACTS; PHEV; Renewable energy; V2G System combination [10]. One of the problems associated with the
solar energy is the requirement of significant irradiance to
produce maximum power output. More research work is
I. INTRODUCTION
needed to maximize the efficiency of solar cells to ensure
With the depleting reserves of fossil fuels and the maximum power conversion.
continuous rise in power demand, the alternate energy
resources are now the primary consideration of today's power
II. GRID INTEGRATION TECHNOLOGIES
engineers. It has been estimated that the total energy demand
of the world will be doubled by 2050 [15]. With this soaring This paper present solutions to connect renewable energy
rise, renewable energy, especially wind and solar energy has sources with the grid while still maintaining the grid stability
become the fastest growing field than any other technology. and power flow. Some of the solutions to the challenges have
Wide scale deployment of renewable energy generation is been addressed along with their possible solutions
subjected to several constraints which restrict it to become a
major competitor against conventional fossil fuel generation. A. Flexible AC Transmission Controller (FACTS)
These constraints resulted primarily due to inherent technical Improved utilization and integration of renewable energy
issues with the renewable sources. However with the ongoing can be made possible by using several power electronic based
research and enhanced incentive based energy policy, much of technologies; one of this is FACTS (Flexible AC
its limitations have been mitigated. This paper investigates Transmission System). STATCOM, one of the types of
some of the constraints along with their possible solutions FACTS controller can be used to maintain the voltage and
provide reactive power compensation. In case of PV or wind
For wind and solar energy generation both distributed and
central large scale technology can be adopted. The major integration with the grid, DC to DC converters are used to

problem is the unavailability of both sources throughout the maintain the DC voltage produced by the PV module and to

day as per requirement [l3]. Since this generation is highly make it reach to the optimal point necessary for grid

stochastic and uncontrollable therefore it is also difficult to integration. The STATCOM can also be used to eliminate the

ensure the stability between the grid and the load all the time. need of DC to DC converter in between voltage source

In wind energy generation system, the increased use of such inverter and the PV module. STATCOM can be used not only

power electronic equipment has shown the better control over to maintain the inherent fluctuation of voltage associated with

grid especially under faulty condition [20-24]. The major renewable energy such as wind and solar but it can also be

challenge which wind energy poses to the grid is the used to maintain the same in event of fault occurrence due to

fluctuation of voltage due to relatively weaker control on nonlinear load. Recent studies have proved that STATCOM

reactive power. Various power electronic devices are used to can be used to deliver reactive power during sudden drop in
voltage due to fault to maintain the system voltage under

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 2015-ESC-0060 Page 2 of 5

acceptable limits [8] [1]. One common fault associated with
the renewable energy is the chain disconnection of Distributed
Generation (DG). This effect becomes even more critical in
case of wind energy generation employing Squirrel Cage
Induction Generator (SCIG) which tends to disconnect itself
from the grid whenever the voltage reduces below its preset
operating point. Hence the use of SATCOM can also provide
Low Voltage Ride Through (LVRT) by providing reactive
power support to the system. Now a days, DFIG (Doubly Fed
Induction Generators) is used which has a greater stability
margin [2]. Under normal condition, while STATCOM
provides reactive power compensation, the power factor of the
system also get improved.
feeders and transformers [17-19]. In a simulation, the three
phase dynamic load is also included to show the impact of
voltage drop and losses. After compensation by SVC, the
system voltage remain stabilized to 0.965 V (p.u) as shown in
Fig. 2. The voltage stabilization also complies with the
acceptable limits of 5% deviation from the unity [16]
B. PHEV (Plug in Hybrid Electric Vehicle) Charger
102 \
v(p:� :: \,�
\ .
. ........... .......... .....'......................' ...····················c·························,·······.................,.......................... .......•.•.............. ............. .........., ..............···········H
, ,
.

O .96f- ········· ·· , =oc · ·,·

=_ · · ···· ·······,· · ············ , ........... ... ,.. .............. , ......... ... . ., .......... .... ···,·········· · ···········H
UPFC (Unified Power Flow Controller), the types of _
0.94 f- .. j . .... ......... ..... .+.. -.............+---
. -. . .............-.+- ..=---;."""=:::.......;...................... -+ . .- .............. + .•..•...... ·+····· ······ · ··H
· · ·
FACTS Controller provides two degrees of freedom as ....
-
--
.

0.92f-· · ·-······;······················;··········-·····...;.................... + ........... .. . +......-.......; ................. . . ;c=-�::::... .... ·i· ····-······· ·H

compared to the STATCOM which provided only provides
0.9f- ; ............... + ............... + ..............., + ............... + .. .. ..... +
. . .. .................. i-
,.....- .. =--r-I
reactive power control. UPFC is the combination of two
0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.2
Voltage Source Converters namely STATCOM and SSSC TIme II)
(Static Synchronous Series Compensator) connected via
common DC link. Shunt Converter (STATCOM) injects a Fig. 1 Voltage drop in transmission network.
reactive current in the transmission line to maintain the
voltage oscillations as well as balancing the power flow
104
between the series converter (SSSC) and the transmission line.
102 iA
Similarly the series converter is used to inject controllable
voltage to balance the active power flow in a transmission 1 AI\} il\(\ A vV'
\1 v
v
vlp·u ) �-------.
line. Hence UPFC can provide a comprehensive control over �
'1!VI
0.98 A
------
reactive as well as an active power. Besides all such �
0.96
advantages associated with UPFC, one major constraint is its
application in the pre-established system effectively utilizing 0.94
� .
o 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 0.14 0.16 0.18 0.2
capacitor banks to regulate reactive power. Since UPFC is TIme It)

entirely converter based therefore it needs a decommissioning

of existing capacitor banks. The installation cost of the
renewable energy system and its power converters is relatively
higher than its counter parts [14]. Therefore removal of
capacitor banks which constitutes significant percentage of
overall investment will result in the capital loss thus increasing
the payback period for this topology
The Hybrid Power Flow Controller is the improved form
of FACTS controller providing active and reactive power
controlling with the minimal hardware modification [3]. In
this topology series switching converter is replaced by the
thyrister controlled variable impedance or SVC which results
in reduced cost of hardware modification or converter. During
research it was observed that HPFC can inject a similar
controlled voltage in series like the UPFC hence providing the
active and reactive control with the reduced cost [4].
Fig. 3 shows the simplistic model in Simulink, Matlab for
the diesel power generation system feeding the infinite bus
over long transmission line. The reactive power compensation
is provided by Satic VAR Compensator (SVC), a FACTS
family device, providing voltage stability due to excessive
voltage drop in transmission line. The system is capable of
providing a voltage controllability when the excessive voltage
drop occurred due to fault or overloading. The same FACTS
device can also compensate voltage rise due to Ferranti effect
on long unloaded transmission line. It can be seen from the
Fig. 1 that the uncompensated system has the voltage drop up
to 0.9 V (p.u). In a power system, voltage drop and energy
losses arises primarily due to over load problem in main
Fig. 2 Voltage Regulation in transmission network using Svc.
So far it is discussed that UPFC, A FACTS device can
effectively be used for the active and reactive power control
but it has the limitation of being expensive as compared to
other family FACTS devices. Other technology, Plug in
Hybrid Electric Vehicle has also been famous to provide the
grid power flow regulation. PHEVs are hybrid vehicle which
have the capability to be charged from an external electrical
power source [12]. Although the vehicle is a load but
mounting solar panel on the roof of such vehicle give them
capability to act like a small power source. Such vehicles have
the provision to run on combustion engine as well as on grid
electrical power through the plug.
It has been found that inverters (AC to DC) can be used to
provide reactive power compensation and voltage instability
but very little work is done on the combined active and
reactive power compensation using PEV chargers. Sufficient
literature is available on the active power control using
frequency regulation but no analytical study is done so far on
the combined voltage and frequency regulations [5]. In
frequency regulation, charging and discharging of the battery
is used to regulate active power. During discharging state the
power not used by the load can be provided back to the grid.
The major constraint here is the depreciation of the life of

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Page 3 of 5 2015-ESC-0060

Cull -T-

Goto'

r----�incUn
u �------�-,
L' F-------l-t--,

D
u jio-------j-+--I
f--t-----�Ca'p Control

u jio------t
TSCOUTPUT

&.Is Sa r 3 Infinte Bus

Diesel I1Qlne
���-I�==�= �==t��=: =:===:rE==I �I'1
Bus Bar 1 Line 1 Line2
Speed & Voltage
CClI'lIrol

� AetJve Power <-10KW)

D
PQ

I:(D
e.acti",e Powe.r (·t()I[))(\tM)
"-++---
IndudiveLoad FCM"TSC
c

Sl..It:5ystem SlX)pe4

Got""

Fig. 3 Simulation of FACTs based Voltage Compensation.

� fi · ;-[!I
�p

�
UOvOb.la:JAfI
c.o'

NH.+IbJIIIKJ

D I _
D-= ...
T� 5-:-05 �.

""..""�

Fig. 4 Simulation of solar PHEV integrated with grid

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 2015-ESC-0060 Page 4 of 5

of such Demand Response (DR) program along with benefits

of using greener efficient fuels [6].

One major constraint which usually arises when simulating

large array of solar or wind generation with the grid is in
computing high frequency transients. Since converters usually
switches in KHz therefore computing such large network on
economical low cost PC become very difficult. One of the
useful methods to compute such large networks is dynamic
averaging. By ignoring high frequency components and
preserving low frequency components with small step size, we
can obtain a significantly modest result [7]. It has been
observed that the averaged modelling demonstrates a
significantly higher speed than a conventional physical model
yet achieving the modest results [11]

III. CONCLUSION
Fig. 5 Active and reactive power without PQ Control
The deployment of grid integrated renewable energy
system possesses several constraints which if remain
unaddressed can pose serious threat to grid stability and
reliability. It is found out that FACTs devices have dependable
performance in grid active and reactive power flow regulation.
Similarly, solar based PHEVs can also provide ancillary
service to the grid such as frequency and voltage regulation
along with DSM. It is estimated that 70% of the oil refined in
the world is used in transportation sector. Due to the depleting
reserves of oil and gas, major automobile companies are now
tending to develop hybrid cars. The development of effective
PHEV system will not only help automobile industry to meet
their current challenges and but also help utility in enhancing
grid stability and demand management.

Fig. 6 Active and reactive power with PQ control REFERENCES

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