Comparison of Control Strategies to Realize Synthetic Inertia in Converters

The increasing amount of renewable energy sources in the electrical energy system leads to an increasing number of converter-based generators connected to the electrical power grid. Other than conventional power plants that are often connected to the grid via synchronous generators, converter-based generators do not provide mechanical inertia intrinsically. Therefore, ensuring frequency stability in the electrical power grid might become even more difficult in the future. With the concept of synthetic inertia, the converter-based generators partially imitate the behavior of conventional generators. By implementing such a concept in converters, they are capable of contributing to frequency stability as well. This paper compares two strategies to realize synthetic inertia by modeling converter-based generators in MATLAB/SIMULINK and simulating their behavior in a small Microgrid. The results prove that any kind of realization of synthetic inertia helps to improve frequency stability. Each of the two investigated strategies may have their scope of application in a future electrical energy system.