A Flexible-Combined Heat and Power System Interface Converter's Benefits in Increasing Stability Margin of a Microgrid with High Renewable Penetrations

The flexible combined heat and power (F-CHP) is a concept proposed by the Department of Energy, United States. It enables cogeneration plants in small to mid-size manufacturing facilities as microgrid-controlled distributed energy resources (DER) for operation in local areas with high aggregated renewable energy penetration. At the same time, because of the higher number of grid-tied power electronics-based converters for renewable energy integration, the grid is becoming more vulnerable in terms of stability. In this paper, it is found that the F-CHP converter can also avoid the onset of dynamic interactions thus increasing the allowed renewable integration amount. Different control schemes and the power of the F-CHP converters' impact on these benefits are also discussed.