New Controls of Photovoltaic Solar Farms for Transmission and Distribution Applications

光伏(PV)太阳能发电场在夜间闲置，其昂贵的基础设施未得到利用。在之前的发现资助中，我们开发了一种新的技术，即光伏STATCOM，它可以在夜间和白天利用太阳能发电场作为动态无功补偿器。2016年12月，在安大略省Bluewater Power Sarnia的公用事业网络中，这一点在一个10千瓦的光伏太阳能发电场上得到了展示，这是世界上第一次。这项技术已经在不同的国家获得了7项授权专利和11项申请。这项研究计划旨在开发一种接近市场成熟的PV-STATCOM技术，该技术经过验证，可用于多兆瓦太阳能发电场，具有新的功能和优化的储能系统。光伏STATCOM可以提供柔性交流输电系统(FACTS)设备通常提供的所有功能(额定±200 MVA的成本通常为5000万美元)，成本降低50-100倍。这些电网支持功能包括：i)改善现有输电线路的稳定性和电力传输，从而避免/推迟昂贵的新输电线路的建设(约250万美元/公里)，ii)缓解同步发电机和风力发电场中的次同步谐振，从而防止对发电机轴和风电场控制的昂贵损害，iii)避免关键电机的电压不稳定和失稳，从而避免客户的重大经济损失(通常是石油化工行业中电机停机的100万美元/小时)，iv)提供组合的频率调节和功率振荡衰减，从而帮助避免系统分裂和停电，以及v)增加配电馈线的托管容量，“智能逆变器”是一种新兴的技术，用于在光伏太阳能发电场提供有功和无功控制，正在北美迅速部署。这项研究计划还旨在开发光伏STATCOM作为一种经过现场验证的新型“智能逆变器”，它提供几种新的智能逆变器(类似FACTS)功能，以及传统的智能逆变器功能，速度快50-60倍。光伏太阳能技术是全球发展最快的技术。结果表明，在现有太阳能发电场的逆变器上安装价值50万美元的PV-STATCOM控制器，可以将太阳能发电场转变为价值5000万美元的等效STATCOM。光伏STATCOM技术在太阳能发电场的应用可能会为加拿大公用事业公司带来巨大的节省，避免安装昂贵的FACTS设备(加拿大已经有30多个这样的SVC/STATCOMS)，ii)通过在夜间和白天销售实际电力之外提供几种电网支持功能，为加拿大光伏太阳能发电场创造新的收入机会，以及iii)加拿大逆变器制造商的新业务。该项目将培养8名博士、2名MESC、10名孟加拉人和5名NSERC USRA学生。

Photovoltaic (PV) solar farms are idle in night with their expensive infrastructure unutilized. A novel technology of utilizing solar farms both in the NIGHT and day as a dynamic reactive power compensator named by us as PV-STATCOM, has been developed in previous Discovery Grant. This was demonstrated on a 10 kW PV solar farm for the FIRST-TIME-IN-THE WORLD in Dec. 2016 in the utility network of Bluewater Power Sarnia, ON. This technology has got 7 granted patents and 11 pending in different countries. This research program aims at developing a near market ready PV-STATCOM technology validated for multi MW solar farms with novel functions, and with optimized energy storage systems. The PV-STATCOM can offer all the functions normally provided by Flexible AC Transmission Systems (FACTS) devices (typically costing $50 Million for ±200 MVA rating) at 50-100 times LOWER cost. These grid-support functions include i) improving stability and power transfer in existing transmission lines, thereby avoiding/deferring construction of expensive new transmission lines (about $2.5 Million/km), ii) mitigation of subsynchronous resonance in synchronous generators and wind farms, thus preventing costly damages to generator shafts and wind farm controls, iii) obviating voltage instability and destabilization of critical motors, thus avoiding major financial losses to customers (typically $ 1 Million/hr of shutdown for motors in petrochemical industries), iv) providing combined frequency regulation and power oscillation damping, thus helping avoid system splitting and blackouts, and v) increasing hosting capacity of distribution feeders, thus enabling significantly increased grid connections of PV solar and wind farms.“Smart inverters” is emerging technology for providing real and reactive power controls on PV solar farms, which is rapidly being deployed in North America. This research program also aims at developing PV-STATCOM as a novel field-validated “Smart Inverter” which offers several new smart inverter (FACTS-like) functions, and also conventional smart inverters functions at 50-60 times FASTER speed.PV solar technology is the fastest growing technology worldwide. It is shown that installation of PV-STATCOM controller worth $ 0.5 Million on inverters of an existing solar farm can transform the solar farm into an equivalent STATCOM worth $ 50 Million. Application of PV-STATCOM technology on solar farms can potentially bring: i) Huge savings to Canadian utilities in avoiding installation of expensive FACTS devices (there are more than 30 such SVCs/STATCOMs in Canada already), ii) New revenues making opportunities to Canadian PV solar farms by offering several grid support functions both during NIGHT and in addition to sale of real power in daytime, and iii) New line of business for Canadian inverter manufacturers. This program will train 8 PhD, 2 MESc, 10 MEng and 5 NSERC USRA students.