Effects of the synthetic inertia from wind power on the total system inertia: simulation study

The future power systems face several challenges; one of them is the use of high power converters that virtually decouple primary energy source from the AC power grid. An important consequence of this modified the total system inertia and affecting its ability to overcome system frequency´s disturbances. The wind power industry has created a controller to enable inertial response on wind turbines generators: Synthetic Inertial. This paper evaluates the effects of the synthetic inertia provided by wind turbines on the total system inertia after a system frequency disturbance. The main contribution of this paper is to demonstrate that during an under-frequency transients on future power systems, the synthetic inertia not completely avoid worse scenarios in terms of under-frequency load shedding. The extra power delivered from a wind turbine during frequency disturbances can increase “momentary” the total system inertia and substantially reduce the rate of change of frequency providing time for the active governors to respond. However, synthetic inertia might not completely avoid under-frequency load shedding.