Small-signal stability analysis of smart grids considering high penetration of power electronics converters and energy markets

Future smart grids are expected to have a high amount of renewable energy sources as well as an advanced metering and communication infrastructure. These communication technologies offer dynamic information that can be sent to the utilities and used by the power system operators. The power system operators drive the scheduling optimization of the generators usually at a different and slower timescale. However, as the exchange of information get closer to real-time, it is possible to turn this into a closed-loop control-based problem, that adjusts the generator and load power outputs constantly as system conditions change. Under this new scenario, it is possible to observe interactions between the markets and the physical power system. This work proposes a methodology to assess the stability of future smart grids, with high penetration of power electronics converters and considering the coupling between the power systems and energy markets. The power system and energy market are modeled to form a feedback system that can be assessed by the Nyquist stability criterion. The simulations are done in the MATLAB/SIMULINK environment using the WSCC 3 machine 9 bus power system.