Impact of prosumers on frequency stability of the Australian Future Grid

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of high penetration of non-synchronous generation (NSG) and different penetration levels of price-responsive users equipped with rooftop photovoltaics-battery storage (PBS) (sometimes times referred to as prosumers) on the frequency stability of the Australian future grid. To do this, we employed a generic demand model proposed by the authors that captures the interaction between prosumers and an independent system operator (ISO) to provide the initial conditions for frequency stability assessment. In this approach, the ISO aims at minimising the total electricity costs, while prosumers' aggregation aims at maximising their self-consumption. To capture the inter-seasonal variation of renewable resources, we perform time-series simulation for a whole year. The results show the connection between NSG and frequency response of the system and how the system frequency response is affected with high penetration of NSG. Further, low PBS capacity of prosumers can worsen the frequency response of the system, whereas a higher PBS capacity of prosumers can improve the frequency response of the system due to a flatter net demand profile compared to the low PBS capacity.