Category Archives: Tech Blogs

Technical discussions of timely power system issues.

Distributed Generation: Interconnection Steady State Impact

Jingjia Chen, Ketut Dartawan, Ricardo Austria Distributed generators (DGs) are small generating units that are connected to the distribution network at voltages below 69 kV. DG units usually have capacities of 10MW or less, and are based on different energy … Continue reading

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Distributed Generation: Things You Don’t Want to Miss!

by K. Dartawan, R. Austria What is Distributed Generation (DG)? Unlike big generation stations connected directly to the utility’s transmission grid, DG is typically smaller, about 10 MW or less connected to the distribution network or customer side. The DG … Continue reading

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A Closer Look at Wind Curtailment

 by Pterra Consulting  Wind farms are unique to power systems in that the construction and development time is much shorter than that of transmission lines and other bulk system facilities.  Wind farms can be placed into service well ahead of … Continue reading

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Distributed Generation Impact: Sympathetic Tripping of Protection Devices

by E. Cano, K. Dartawan, R. Austria One potential impact of interconnecting distributed generation (DG) is the potential sympathetic tripping of overcurrent (OC) protection devices, where a healthy feeder trips unnecessarily for a fault on another feeder. The sympathetic tripping … Continue reading

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A Methodology for Estimating Potential Curtailment of Wind Farms

 by Pterra Consulting Figure 1 A wind farm integrated into a transmission grid is subject to curtailment due to temporary or long-term insufficient capacity on the transmission lines.  Maintenance outage of a nearby line, dispatch of competing wind farms and availability of other generators are examples … Continue reading

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High Voltage Concern at Wind Farms?

If we think about wind turbines as induction generators, one would assume that these would be VAR (reactive power) sinks, demanding vars from the grid to be able to deliver watts.  However, that may be true from the point of … Continue reading

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HVDC Technology: When 2,000 MW is 2,000-Plus-1,200 MW

  by Pterra Consulting   In this Blog, we discuss the amazing story of how a lowly 2,000 MW HVDC line was able to support a transmission capacity increase of 3,200 MW.  Read on …

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Power Flow Solution Techniques

by M. Gutierrez, M. Elfayoumy, R. Tapia, R. Austria (This Blog is an introductory discussion of the AC power flow at a beginner level.  Other Blogs on this site discuss more advanced aspects of the power flow, including convergence and … Continue reading

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HVDC Technology: DC Overlay on an AC System

by R. Austria, K. Dartawan, M. Elfayoumy, M. Gutierrez, R. Tapia “Will a 2,000 MW HVDC line transfer 2,000 MW?” The answer, which we’ll try to explain in this blog, is “plus or minus“ if the DC line is being built to … Continue reading

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Converging the Power Flow 3: Mitigation

by R. Austria  A power flow that doesn’t converge is annoying, to say the least.  For one, any information you try to use from a non-convergent solution is moot and questionable (recall that a power flow is a solution of a set of equations … Continue reading

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