Session 10:

General Overview of Interconnection Standards

& Grid Codes for High Penetration PV

October 21, 2015 – Santiago, Chile

Michael Coddington
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Golden, Colorado, U.S.A.
 DISCLAIMER

ISGAN is an initiative of the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM). It is formally

organized as the Implementing Agreement for a Co-operative Programme
on Smart Grids (ISGAN), operating under a framework of the International
Energy Agency (IEA). The views, findings and opinions expressed herein do
not necessarily state or reflect those of any of ISGAN’s participants, any of
their sponsoring governments or organizations, the CEM, the IEA
Secretariat, or any of the IEA’s member countries. No warranty is expressed
or implied, no legal liability or responsibility is assumed for the accuracy,
completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or
process disclosed, and no representation is made that its use would not
infringe privately-owned rights. Reference herein to any specific
commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark,
manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its
endorsement, recommendation, or favoring.
Putting the Pieces Together for Sound
Grid Codes!

Codes and standards

for Generation Systems
are Critical to Safety,
Reliability, Power
Quality and Cost.

They help define

exactly how things are
to be properly
designed, built, and
operated.
Interconnection Standards & Grid Codes
 Codes & Standards Will Differ by Location,
but Should be Avaiable

Utility Safety and Interconnection Building Electrical Codes,

Clearance Standards Standards DG & Inverter Standards
 North American Standards & Codes

Critical Codes & Standards

• ANSI C84.1 (Voltage Limits)
• NESC (Utility Safety & Clearances)
• NEC (Electrical Building Code)
• UL 1741 (Inverter Safety Standard)
• IEEE 1547 (Interconnection @ PCC)
 Interconnection Standards & Grid Codes

Utility Standard for Voltage Service Limits

 NESC is an International IEEE Standard

NESC Requirements for De-energized Work

• Section 444 of the NESC details

“De-energizing equipment of lines
to protect employees”
• Isolate - operate switches,
disconnects and lock-out / tag-out
• Test for Voltage
• Install protective grounds on each
side of the work location

Utility Safety and Clearances Standard

 Interconnection Standards & Grid Codes

National Electrical Code - NEC

NFPA 70

• Applies to Residential, Commercial and Industrial

facilities
• Often used in utility power plants, service centers
• Articles 690 (PV systems) & 705 Interconnected
Electric Power Production Sources
• Most countries have an electrical code for building

National Code for Safe Building Wiring

 Interconnection Standards & Grid Codes

UL 1741
Inverters, Converters, Controllers and Interconnection System
Equipment for Use with Distributed Energy Resources

• Applies to the Inverter and interconnection

equipment
• Inverters should be listed to this standard
• Harmonized with IEEE 1547
• Underwriters Laboratories – Standard for Safety
• UL Develops Codes for ALL Countries, Regions
Inverter Safety Standard (Harmonized)
 IEEE 1547 Standard for Interconnection

Purpose
• Provides a uniform standard for
interconnection of DR with EPS
• Provides requirements relevant
to the performance, operation,
testing, safety considerations,
and maintenance of the
interconnection
• Planned to harmonize with IEC

Interconnection Standard at Point of Common Coupling

 IEEE 1547 Clause 4 - Specifications

1. General Requirements (details on next slide)

2. Response to Area EPS Abnormal Conditions (v or f )*
1. Area EPS Faults (cease operation during faults)
2. Recloser Coordination (must clear before reclose)
3. Voltage Ranges (clearing times ≤ 2 Sec.) *
4. Frequency Ranges (clearing times ≤ 2 Sec.) *
3. Power Quality
1. DC injection (<0.5% of full rating at POI)
2. Flicker (no objectionable flicker, see IEEE 519)
3. Harmonics (THD <5%, see table 3)
4. Islanding
1. Unintentional Islands
2. Planned Island Systems
 IEEE 1547 General Requirements

• Active voltage regulation allowed with Utility Coordination

• Grounding scheme shall not cause overvoltages
• DR shall not cause voltage fluctuations > ±5% typical
• Secondary Network requirements*
• NP shall not be used to isolate network from DR
• DR shall not cause operation of NP or prevent reclosing of NP
• >50% of NP must be energized
• No equipment shall be overloaded
• DR shall not energize a de-energized circuit
• DR must have provisions for monitoring
• Interconnection system must withstand:
• Electromagnetic Interference (EMI)
• Voltage or Current surges
 Power Quality Topics for Standards & Codes

These Power Quality Issues Should be Addressed by

Interconnection Standards and Codes

• Transients • Waveform Distortion

• Impulsive • DC Injection
• Oscillatory • Harmonics
• Short-Term Variations • Inter-harmonics
• Interruption • Sub-harmonics
• Sags • Notching
• Swells • Noise
• Long-term Variations • Flicker
• Sustained Interruptions • Ferro-resonance
• Under-voltage • Anti-Islanding
• Overvoltage • Reactive power support
• Voltage Imbalance
 DG Potential Effects on Power Quality

Variability in solar or wind resource causes sudden changes in

generation, which can lead to flicker and hunting in utility
voltage regulation system

Examples
• Cloud passage for solar
• Rapidly-changing shading from nearby objects (e.g.
blowing tree) for solar
• Irregular and turbulent wind patterns
• Rhythmic variations from when wind turbine blade
passes tower
 IEEE 1547 Limits on Harmonics

When the DR is serving balanced linear loads, harmonic current injection into
the Area EPS at the PCC shall not exceed the limits stated below in Table 3.
The harmonic current injections shall be exclusive of any harmonic currents
due to harmonic voltage distortion present in the Area EPS without the DR
connected
 Harmonics – Limiting Harmful Harmonics

• Harmonics are sinusoidal voltages or currents having frequencies that are

integer multiples of the fundamental system supply
• The voltage distortion created by nonlinear loads may create voltage distortion
beyond the premise’s wiring system, through the utility, to another user.
Voltage with Harmonic Distortion
3
Fundamental
5th order harmonic
7th order harmonic
2 Total Waveform
voltage [pu]

-1

-2
0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02 0.025 0.03
time [s]
 IEEE Power Quality Standards

• IEEE SCC-22: Power Quality Standards Coordinating Committee

• IEEE 1159: Monitoring Electric Power Quality
• IEEE P1564: Voltage Sag Indices
• IEEE 1346: Power System Compatibility with Process Equipment
• IEEE P1100: Power and Grounding Electronic Equipment (Emerald Book)
• IEEE 1433: Power Quality Definitions
• IEEE P1453: Voltage flicker
• IEEE 519: Harmonic Control in Electrical Power Systems
• IEEE P519A: Guide for Applying Harmonic Limits on Power Systems
• IEEE P446: Emergency and standby power
• IEEE P1409: Distribution Custom Power
• IEEE P1547: Distributed Resources and Electric Power Systems
Interconnection
 IEC Power Quality Standards

• 61000-1-X - Definitions and methodology

• 61000-2-X - Environment
• 61000-3-X - Limits
• 61000-4-X - Tests and measurements (e.g. 61000-4-30 is power quality
measurements)
• 61000-5-X - Installation and mitigation
• 61000-6-X - Generic immunity & emissions standards
• E.g.: IEC 61000-4-11 - voltage sag immunity - 16 amps or less
IEC 61000-4-34 - voltage sag immunity - more than 16 amps
IEC 61000-4-30 - Power quality measurement methods
• IEC SC77A: Low frequency EMC Phenomena - essentially equivalent of
"power quality”
 Harmonics from DG and other Generation

Inverters
• Older line-commutated inverters had significant harmonic issues
• Newer inverters have negligible harmonics (often < 2% THD)

Synchronous Machines
• High impedance relative to utility system (e.g. sub-synchronous
reactance seen by harmonics is ~15%)  harmonic voltage distortion
is often intolerable when supplying VFDs
• Islanding, Fault current contribution
• Certain designs supply significant triplen harmonics

Asynchronous (Induction) Machines

• VAR Support required – PFC: can cause resonance, self-excitation
(overvoltage, ferroresonance)
• Unbalanced fault contribution
Unintentional Islands
Overview of the German PV
Experience and Inverter
Firmware Modifications
 WHY SMART GRIDS?

 German PV Capacity ~45 GW in 2015

 German goal of 66 GW of PV by 2030
 U.S installed more PV than Germany in 2013
 U.S. PV Capacity is nearly 20 GW today
 U.S. expected to add 6 GW PV in 2014
 Over 350,000 U.S. homes now have PV
 U.S. Goal of 100 - 300 GW PV by 2030 (DOE)
Germany
 Distributed, But Not Integrated

• German PV Deployment driven by policies that

commanded widespread political support
• Policies drove Feed-In Tariffs (FIT) that were VERY
generous (70¢/kWh for 20 Years) backed by the
German Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG)
• Large FIT are no longer needed to promote new
renewables
• Electric rates have more than doubled since 2000
(currently 40¢/kWh)
• Today, PV “self-generators” pay 6¢/kWh to use
their own generation in order to support the grid
Germany Exports PV Power Some Days!
 The Germany Frequency Problem

• PV in Germany was initially installed with

inverters that disconnect at 50.2 Hertz
• Retrofits were necessary to mitigate this issue
• All inverters greater than 3.68 kVA must be
retrofitted with the Droop Function so they
do not trip offline at the 50.2 Hertz level
• Estimated cost for this “solution” has been
over €300,000,000
The Frequency “Droop” Function

Source: EPRI The Integrated Grid 2014

 Other PV Issues in Germany

• Significant and common overvoltage or loading issues

on distribution feeders
• Most PV connected to low-voltage circuits, and PV
capacity can triple or quadruple peak load
• Risk of massive disconnection of PV systems due to
frequency events
• Lack of stabilizing inertia from large rotating machine
generation has raised concern of properly maintaining
frequency and voltage on the grid

All Countries should adopt Standards based on the

lessons from Germany to avoid similar challenges!
Gracias