Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Grid-Forming Inverters for Stability Improvements in Bulk Power Systems with High Inverter-Based Resources Penetration

Conference ·
 [1];  [1];  [2];  [1];  [3];  [4]
  1. Electric Reliability Council of Texas
  2. ERCOT
  3. BATTELLE (PACIFIC NW LAB)
  4. Electric Power Research Institute

The grid-forming inverter (GFM) has been considered recently as a means to enhance grid stability in areas with Inverter-based Resources (IBRs) concentration. This paper assesses the potential improvements the GFM can bring to Bulk-power Systems (BPS) through two distinct studies. The first study was conducted on West Texas in ERCOT with presence of more than 35GW of IBRs, the Grid-Following (GFL) batteries were replaced with GFM batteries. The results demonstrate that the GFM significantly improved the voltage profile and active power injection during and after a fault. The second study focused on a local area within ERCOT grid. In this case, a battery operating as GFL within the local study area was replaced with a GFM battery. The findings clearly illustrate that GFM can strengthen the area and allow a higher IBRs power generation and a higher power export from the local study area.

Research Organization:
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
DOE Contract Number:
AC05-76RL01830
OSTI ID:
2537865
Report Number(s):
PNNL-SA-194035
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English