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Title: Evaluating Methods for Measuring Grid Frequency in Low-Inertia Power Systems

Conference ·

Accurate measurement of grid frequency is a critical component of reliable grid control. Traditionally, inverters and phasor measurement units (PMUs) have used methods such as phase locked loops (PLLs) and discrete Fourier transforms (DFTs) to measure frequency. However, as inverter-based resources (IBRs) such as solar and wind have increased, these conventional frequency measurement methods have yielded incorrect frequency measurements leading to unreliable control in some cases. One challenge is measuring frequency during transient events. During these events, measured frequency may contain significant spikes due to the disrupted waveform, much more rapid and significant than any expected physical frequency dynamics. New methods must balance between suppressing spikes in frequency during faults, and providing fast, accurate, measurements in all other grid operation conditions, especially during events with a high rate-of-change-of frequency (ROCOF), which are more prevalent in high-IBR power systems. This paper first surveys frequency measurement methods that have been proposed to reduce measurement errors during transient events in low-inertia grids. Then, both conventional and more novel frequency measurement methods are tested against an IEEE standard and industry recommendations, and their performance is evaluated for events simulated in PSCAD. Results quantify trade-offs in performance during different grid conditions and lead to suggestions for the most appropriate frequency and ROCOF measurement methods for low-inertia grids.

Research Organization:
National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Office of Workforce Development for Teachers and Scientists, Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship (SULI) Program
DOE Contract Number:
AC36-08GO28308
OSTI ID:
1883204
Report Number(s):
NREL/CP-6A40-83784; MainId:84557; UUID:2ed16265-28dc-45b1-9d95-cfbccf70282c; MainAdminID:65154
Resource Relation:
Conference: Presented at the 2022 IEEE Kansas Power and Energy Conference (KPEC), 25-26 April 2022, Manhattan, Kansas
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (9)

PMU Multilevel End-to-End Testing to Assess Synchrophasor Measurements During Faults journal March 2019
Open-Source PSCAD Grid-Following and Grid-Forming Inverters and A Benchmark for Zero-Inertia Power System Simulations conference April 2021
Stability assessment of a system comprising a single machine and inverter with scalable ratings conference September 2017
Inertia and the Power Grid: A Guide Without the Spin report May 2020
Fault-tolerant grid frequency measurement algorithm during transients journal September 2020
Field Measurement of Frequency and ROCOF in the Presence of Phase Steps journal June 2019
Reliable Rate-of-Change-of-Frequency Measurements: Use Cases and Test Conditions journal September 2020
Precise ROCOF estimation algorithm for low inertia power grids journal August 2022
A Method for Correcting Frequency Estimates for Synthetic Inertia Control journal January 2020