Foundations for the Future Power System: Inverter-Based Resource Interconnection Standards

Journal Article · 22 February 2024 · IEEE Power & Energy Magazine

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1109/MPE.2023.3341795· OSTI ID:2376853

Hoke, Andy; Boemer, Jens C.; Badrzadeh, Babak; MacDowell, Jason; Kurthakoti, Divya; Marszalkowski, Brad; Meuser, Mark

As power systems evolve to become reliant on solar, wind, batteries, and other inverter-based resources (IBRs), it is essential that those resources meet certain minimum performance and capability criteria designed to ensure the power system operates stably and reliably. Because those criteria, as enshrined in interconnection standards, take years to develop and are very long lived, they need to account for not only the present state of the power system but also its expected future state over the lifetime of the power plants to which they will apply. In addition, they need to be specific enough to ensure reliability without over specifying and, thereby, impeding innovation. Because power systems are shifting rapidly from a state where IBRs make up a small to medium portion of generation to one where the generation will, at times, come predominantly from IBRs, interconnection standards are especially challenging to develop today. Good interconnection standards can make the power system more reliable and less costly to operate, whereas poorly designed standards can lead to major problems, like the famous German 50.2-Hz problem, which introduced a risk of losing many gigawatts of solar on a frequency excursion and resulted in many IBRs being retrofitted at great cost to mitigate a major system reliability risk. Readying the power system by specifying forward-looking technical minimum functional capabilities for IBRs can be an effective approach to avoid future retrofits.

• Research Organization: National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)
• DOE Contract Number: AC36-08GO28308
• OSTI ID: 2376853
• Report Number(s): NREL/JA-5D00-90329; MainId:92107; UUID:dbddbcd9-be39-4037-b738-d018cb8affdf; MainAdminId:72919
• Journal Information: IEEE Power & Energy Magazine, Journal Name: IEEE Power & Energy Magazine Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 22
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY,POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION,WIND ENERGY
HVDC transmission
data models
generators
inverter-based resources
multiprocessor interconnection
power generation
power system planning
power system reliability
power system stability
reliability engineering
standards
trajectory
voltage control
wind