Complexity Reduction for Converter-Driven Stability Analysis in Transmission Systems

The high penetration of power electronic converters with complex control systems is changing the power system dynamics, introducing new challenges such as converter-driven stability incidents. Traditional stability analysis methods, suitable for classical problems like voltage, frequency, and rotor angle stability in large systems, are insufficient for addressing the fast control dynamics of converters, which involve electromagnetic phenomena. These phenomena require detailed converter and network modeling, which can be performed in both the frequency and time domains, enabling the respective stability analyses to be carried out. However, frequency domain methods, based on small-signal impedances linearized at a single operating point, inherently ignore time domain phenomena like switching events and nonlinear behaviors. In contrast, time domain electromagnetic transient (EMT) simulations are effective for analyzing converter-driven stability but are computationally intensive when applied to large transmission systems with numerous use cases. Therefore, to reduce the simulation complexity in EMT tools, a complexity reduction procedure is proposed in this paper. Leveraging the advantages of the frequency domain, such as faster simulation times and information on wideband frequency characteristics of the system, this procedure utilizes the small-signal impedances and introduces a method for network reduction. The procedure also uses the frequency domain stability analysis method to screen for critical network use cases. Primarily, this procedure is a frequency domain toolchain encompassing frequency domain stability analysis and frequency domain network reduction. The result of the toolchain is a reduced network size and reduced network use cases that can be used for EMT simulations. The procedure is applied to an IEEE 39 bus system, where converter-driven stability is evaluated for two use cases. Furthermore, the network reduction method is tested on a critical use case, demonstrating reductions in network size and computation times without compromising the quality of stability analysis results.