Sri Lankan power system frequency stability with fast growing renewable power addition

Abstract

World is moving forward to a renewable energy base era while retiring conventional thermal energy generation. With this world trend in renewable energy, Sri Lankan power sector has also planned to integrate more renewable energy into the Sri Lankan power system within recent years. This research analyzes the effect of renewable energy integration in small island mode power systems like Sri Lanka with actual measured data. Impact of the intermittent nature of the renewable power and the replacement of conventional power plants with non-inertia supportive renewable plants are mainly focused in this research work. This research demonstrates renewable power variations in Sri Lanka and subsequent power system stability with these variations. Simulation results indicate that power system is not stable with high share of renewable power integration. Combined operation of selected conventional power plants and renewable power plants has been proposed to stabilize the power system. Technological improvements of the renewable plants to mitigate adverse effects were also addressed during simulations.