Inertia estimation of wind power plants based on the swing equation and Phasor Measurement Units

High penetration of wind power plants may have an adverse impact on power systems' stability by reducing the inertia, and problems like frequency stability could appear due to total inertia in the system being reduced, making the power system more vulnerable to disturbances. However, most recent grid codes include an emulation inertia requirement for wind power plants, because modern wind turbines are capable of providing virtual inertia through power electronic converter controls to improve frequency stability issues. Because of this, it is necessary that the inertia estimation analyze and quantify the impact of the inertia reduction in power systems. In this paper, an implementation of a methodology for the inertia estimation of wind power plants is presented. It is evaluated through synchrophasor measurements obtained from a Real-Time Digital Simulator (RTDS) implementation, using industrial Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs). This methodology is based on the swing equation. Furthermore, a comparison of the results obtained between two professional tools RSCAD and DIgSILENT PowerFactory is performed, in order to evaluate the accuracy and the robustness of the methodology. This methodology is applied for the inertia estimation of an equivalent of the southeast zone of the Mexican power system, where there is a large-scale penetration of wind power plants. The results demonstrate that this methodology can be applied in real power systems using PMUs. © 2017 by the authors.

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