Power converters in distribution grids - new alternatives for grid planning and operation

The increasing number of distributed energy resources (DER), mostly connected via power electronic devices and their continuous development lead to decreasing costs of power electronic converters. This provides a chance for their future use as standard devices in distribution grids. In this paper a power electronic grid interconnector (GIC) is presented to locally ensure the statutory quality of supply for subscribers without dependency from upstream grid (UG) quality parameters. Due to the decoupling of frequency and voltage from the UG a set of new alternatives for grid operation and planning is achievable. To investigate those options the GIC and the CIGRÉ benchmark network are modeled in DIgSILENT PowerFactory and simulation results are depicted throughout this paper.