On the virtual inertia provision by BESS in low inertia power systems

Abstract

This paper emphasizes the importance of battery energy storage systems (BESS) for frequency stability in low inertia power systems. A mixed input signal is considered for the BESS control, consisting of the frequency variation and the rate of change of frequency, as a solution to deploy the BESS for providing both inertia and primary frequency control. A sensitivity analysis on the influence of each input signal and the reaction time of the BESS on the frequency control, as well as on the frequency stabilization was performed. Simulation are conducted on a two-area interconnected power system to study and validate the capability of BESS to provide virtual inertia and contribute to system frequency regulation.

Battery Energy Storage Systems in the United Kingdom: A Review of Current State-of-the-Art and Future Applications

“…BESSs could be used to mimic the inertial response of SGs as follows: the interface converters could be controlled to reproduce the generator dynamics, and the battery would provide the energy for controlling the active power output. Due to their capability to regulate the active power output very fast and precisely, BESSs are very well suited for this application, constituting a promising alternative to enhance frequency stability in low-inertia power systems [7].…”

“…Ref. [7] presents the control of a BESS to provide both inertia and primary frequency control, and highlights the important role of BESSs in contributing to frequency stability in low-inertia power systems. This research area at the moment is still in the infancy but appears very promising for power systems with high amount of RESs.…”

“…Thirdly, these power electronics-based sources deteriorate the power quality of the grid, due to the injection of harmonic components [5,6]. Finally, an increasing concern of system operators is the decrease in system inertia associated to the retirement of fossil-based plants [7].…”

“…For example, BESSs are used to store excessive generation from RESs; they are deployed at customers' facilities by acting as "emergency supply"; they are used to defer network upgrade or in energy arbitrage applications [1,11,14]. In addition to the aforementioned services, there is a significant potential for the expansion of use of BESSs to additional emerging applications, including harmonic mitigation and provision of synthetic inertia [7,15,16].…”

Assessment of primary frequency control through battery energy storage systems

“…There are several studies on the impact of BESSs on primary frequency control. The contribution of BESSs to frequency stability after a contingency is discussed in [5,6,7,8,9]. The use of BESSs to regulate the frequency within a microgrid is studied in [10,11].…”