Large-Scale Simulation of Modern Electric Power Systems

Computer simulation techniques are essential to electric power system studies to reduce risks and improve reliability. Modern power systems are undergoing significant changes with better monitoring and communication capabilities, higher levels of renewable penetration, and a considerable number of connected power electronics devices. There arises a pressing need for a testbed with structural and functional representations of modern power systems, including wide-area measurement, energy management, communication, and measurement-based control.The topic of the dissertation, Large-Scale Simulation of Modern Electric Power Systems, is broad. This dissertation will cover two aspects of the topic. The first aspect is the design and implementation of a communication network enabled large-scale testbed (LTB) for wide-area measurement-based control verification. The second aspect is the modeling and control of voltage source converter (VSC) based multi-terminal dc (MTDC) networks.In detail, the LTB section introduces the concepts and techniques that are being used in the current implementation. A proposal of a cyber-physical system (CPS) design for the next-generation LTB follows. The VSC MT-HVDC part covers a) the steady-state power ow analysis of ac/dc hybrid systems, b) positive-sequence transient dynamics models of VSC with inertia emulation and frequency response capability, and c) an application of multi-terminal dc for integrating offshore wind generation with inertial and frequency support.The outcome in the testbed section includes an implementation of the CURENT LTB. A decoupled architecture enabled by distributed messaging environment allows for building up a simulation environment with modules for simulation, communication, energy management, and wide-area control. The LTB also features module interchangeability by adopting a unified communication format that makes the modules agnostic of each other. The testbed has successfully demonstrated state estimations, frequency control and damping control on the CURENT test systems.In the VSC-based MTDC modeling section, the power ow model is able to handle systems with more than 10,000 buses at a calculation speed faster than MATLAB-based open-source packages. The transient models of the VSCs and the dc network demonstrate power transfer capability for inertial response and frequency control in a single grid and a multi-area grid with offshore wind generations.