Analysis of Power System Transient Stability Due to Increased Integration of Geothermal Power

Today, there are postulations of increasing global climate change which have sparked interest in the use of alternative green energy sources including geothermal. Currently, hydro power accounts for over 60 percent of the installed capacity in Kenya and is sourced from various Hydro power plant (HEPs) stations spread around the Tana River, Turkwel and Sondu Miriu and the rest comes from geothermal energy, thermal and wind. To meet the growing demand for electric energy, Kenya though the Vision 2030 medium industrialized country blue print, the nation plans to build numerous geothermal plants in coming years for the 5530 MW from geothermal energy alone. The optimum solution indicates that geothermal capacity should be increased from the current 198MW to 5,530 MW in the planning period, equivalent to 26% of the system peak demand by 2031. The system expansion plan over the 20 year plan period indicates that 26% of the total installed capacity will be obtained from geothermal, 19% from Nuclear Plants, 13% from coal plants and 8% from imports. Wind and Hydro plants will provide 9% and 5% respectively while Medium Speed Diesel (MSD) and Gas Turbines (GTs) will provide 9% and 11% of the total capacity respectively. This will immensely increase the proportion of geothermal energy of the total generated energy in the power system. This addition of geothermal power will change the power system dynamics especially power system stability. This research proposal aims to carry out an impact assessment by analyzing power system transient stability due to increased Integration of geothermal power in the Kenya. The research on transient stability is motivated by the large number of GPPs to be integrated to the system, geothermal resources being in volcanic area and uncontrolled load connectivity. As the large numbers of geothermal power plants are connected to the Kenyan power system, their impact/ effect on system transient, small signal, and frequency and voltage stabilities need to be interrogated by transmission operators, power system engineers and scholars. Thus, this research will develop and simulate geothermal plants power plants dynamic condition, as GPPs penetration increases with emphasis on variable inertia constant and load location from generators and at the same time, perform an impact assessment study of geothermal for purposes of establishing transient stability margins as integration of geothermal continues to rise. Impact assessment of system transient stability analysis of the power system with steady increase in geothermal penetration, with system supplying an equally increasing composite load, under system fault will eventually be evaluated. The research will be based on model in power system simulation software like MATLAB, DigSILENT or other comparable software.