News & Blog

As with most new technologies, the early versions of wind and solar inverters and associated plant control systems were rather simple. Today’s versions, however, are some of the most advanced devices on the grid, using digital controls, power electronics, and advanced communications systems that can provide a wide range of features and grid services. For…

Regions such as Hawaii, South Australia, Ireland and Texas have recently experienced significant growth of inverter-based renewable generation, mainly wind and solar, and are now operating with very high instantaneous penetration in excess of 50-60%. As this penetration increases globally, several regions have identified limitations and challenges which indicate that it may not be feasible…

The majority of devices that are based on power electronics (Statcoms, HVDC links, batteries, wind plants, PV solar plants, variable speed motors, converter-based loads, etc.) do not contribute synchronous inertial response to the system. As the grid transforms from the retirement of conventional thermal generation and additions of converter-based resources, it is prudent to consider…

The 10th anniversary edition of the ESIG forecasting workshop returned to the scene of the inaugural workshop in St Paul, MN on June 19-21, 2018.  To many of those that attended the first workshop on Feb. 21-22, 2008, it was apparent that there have been significant but in some cases subtle changes over the past…

Synchronous inertia characterizes the ability of a power system to oppose changes in electric frequency after large and sudden changes in active power production or consumption. The level of inertia present in a system at any time is dependent on the amount of kinetic energy stored in rotating masses of synchronously-interconnected machines: both generators and…

Since the early 1900s, with the proliferation of alternating current rotating generators and development and setup of electric grids, the electrical frequency in the network has nobly served as the pulse of the electric power system. The electrical frequency connects the speed of rotation of the generators to the power consumed by the loads. Thus,…

President Trump directed Energy Secretary Rick Perry to prepare “immediate steps” to halt the loss of “fuel-secure power facilities.”  Secretary Perry sent a letter to FERC saying the “resiliency of the electric grid is threatened by the premature retirements of these fuel-secure traditional baseload resources” and provided a proposed rule to better compensate them.  While…

The South Australian (SA) power system exhibits one of the highest penetrations of asynchronous generation worldwide, with only one AC interconnector to a neighbouring power system. The installed asynchronous generation amounts to approximately 2 GW including two transmission connected battery energy storage systems (100 MW and 30 MW respectively). This is supplemented by approximately 900…

Where we are Energy Systems Integration (ESI) is the process of coordinating the operation and planning of energy systems across energy vectors and/or other infrastructures and/or geographical scales to deliver reliable, cost-effective energy services with minimal impact on the environment. There is nothing dramatically new in ESI compared to how the energy system has evolved…

Imagine a future where all physical power system requirements needed for reliability are met through efficient market mechanisms. Procurement and compensation for the full set of system services would be signaled through a wide range of discretized, multi-timescale market products. Both demand- and supply-side resources could equitably and transparently participate. Real-time pricing, with fully responsive…