Optimal planning of Renewable energy generators in modern power grid for enhanced system inertia

Abstract

In recent times renewable energy sources have become an integral part of the modern power grid. As a result, the overall system inertia of the grid has been reduced, thus leading to frequency instability issues such as fast rate of change of frequency. Thus, to compensate for the declining inertia, it is important to carefully select renewable energy generators (REGs) and energy storage systems (ESS) in order to ensure the stability of the power grid, while also controlling greenhouse gases emissions in line with environmental standards. Therefore, this paper proposes an optimal planning model of REGs and ESS, considering the inertia requirement of the grid. The objective function is formulated to minimize the cost of operation, emissions, and investment in new REGs and energy storage units while maximizing the system inertia. The model was developed as a mixed integer linear programming problem and solved using CPLEX solver in GAMS. Finally, the model was validated using a modified IEEE 9-bus system and compared under three scenarios. The results show that in scenario 3 where system inertia is considered in the presence of REGs and ESS, higher system inertia of 8.776 s was achieved at minimal emission and cost, which justifies the aim of the study.