Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

8-2016

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Electrical Engineering

Major Professor

Yilu Liu

Committee Members

Kevin Tomsovic, Hector Pulgar, Charles Collins

Abstract

Wind and solar generation have gained a significant momentum in the last five years in the United States. According to the American Wind Energy Association, the installed wind power capacity has tripled from 25,410 MW in early 2009 to 74,472 MW as of the end of 2015. Meanwhile, solar photovoltaic (PV) is reported that its capacity has skyrocketed from 298 MW in 2009 to 7,260 MW in 2015 by the Solar Energy Industries Association. Despite the fact that wind and solar only make up 4.4% and 0.4% , respectively, of total electricity generation in 2014, the nation is right on its track to the Department of Energy (DOE)’s goal of 20% wind and 14% solar by year 2030. The future of renewable energy is aspiring.

The rapid growth in renewable generation results in an urge to studying the reliability implication of renewable integration. For this purpose, two DOE projects were funded to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The first project, Grid Operational Issues and Analyses of the Eastern Interconnection (EI), is aimed at studying the dynamic stability impact of high wind penetration on the U.S. EI system in year 2030. The second project, Frequency Response Assessment and Improvement of Three Major North American Interconnections due to High Penetrations of Photovoltaic Generation, concentrates on the influence of high solar penetration on primary frequency response.

This thesis documents the efforts of the above-mentioned two projects. Chapter 1 gives an introduction on power system dynamic modeling. Chapter 2 describes the process of dynamic models development. Chapter 3 discusses the adoption of synchro-phasor measurement for system-level dynamic model validation and the impact of turbine governor deadband on system dynamic response. Chapter 4 presents a stability impact study of high wind penetration on the U.S. Eastern Grid. Chapter 5 documents the modeling and simulation of the EI system under high solar penetration. Chapter 6 summaries two dynamic model reduction studies on the EI system. Conclusions, a summary of the major contribution of the Ph.D. work, and a discussion of possible future work are given in Chapter 7.

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