A wide-area SVC controller design using a dynamic equivalent model of WECC

In our recent work [1] we constructed a reduced-order five-area model of the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) power system using mathematically derived parameters from real PMU data. These parameters include inter and intra-area impedances, inertias, and damping values for aggregate machines representing five geographic areas. In this paper we use this reduced-order model as a tool to design an SVC controller to damp the inter-machine oscillation modes, which in the full-order model corresponds to inter-area oscillations. The controller input is chosen via statistical variance analysis, and its parameters are tuned to improve slow mode damping. The model is implemented in a real-time digital simulator, and emulated for various disturbance scenarios to illustrate the effectiveness of the SVC using a metric for dynamic performance. The resulting closed-loop response is promising in aiding damping of inter-area modes in the WECC, especially at a time of increasing penetration of wind and other renewable resources.