IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 53, NO.
2, MARCH/APRIL 2017
Emerging Power Quality Challenges Due to
Integration of Renewable Energy Sources
Xiaodong Liang, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—Renewable energy becomes a key contributor to our
modern society, but their integration to power grid poses signif-
icant technical challenges. Power quality is an important aspect
of renewable energy integration. The major power quality con-
cerns are: 1) Voltage and frequency fluctuations, which are caused
by noncontrollable variability of renewable energy resources. The
intermittent nature of renewable energy resources due to ever-
changing weather conditions leads to voltage and frequency fluc-
tuations at the interconnected power grid. 2) Harmonics, which
are introduced by power electronic devices utilized in renewable
energy generation. When penetration level of renewable energy is
high, the influence of harmonics could be significant. In this pa-
per, an extensive literature review is conducted on emerging power
quality challenges due to renewable energy integration. This paper
consists of two sections: 1) Power quality problem definition. Wind
turbines and solar photovoltaic systems and their power quality
issues are summarized. 2) Existing approaches to improve power
quality. Various methods are reviewed, and the control-technology-
based power quality improvement is the major focus of this paper.
The future research directions for emerging power quality chal-
lenges for renewable energy integration are recommended.
Index Terms—Electric energy storage, frequency control, har-
monics mitigation, power quality, renewable energy integration,
voltage control.
I. INTRODUCTION
ENEWABLE energy such as wind turbines and solar pho-
R tovoltaic (PV) systems use natural resources and provide
desirable green energy. The penetration of renewable energy is
increasing worldwide. It was reported in 2014 that wind, solar,
and biomass power plants provided 60% electricity generation
in Denmark; about 30% of electricity demand in Portugal was
supplied by nonhydropower renewable; Spain had 29% renew-
able energy generation. The advancement in renewable energy
is exciting but also creates significant technical challenges to
power industry [1], [2].
Our traditional power-generation system is designed with
large centrally controlled power plants. Renewable energy,
however, is distributed, independently controlled, and intermit-
Manuscript received July 2, 2016; revised October 10, 2016 and October 12,
2016; accepted October 12, 2016. Date of publication November 8, 2016; date
of current version March 17, 2017. Paper 2016-PSEC-0698.R2, presented at
the 2016 IEEE Industry Applications Society Annual Meeting, Portland, OR,
USA, Nov. 13–16, and approved for publication in the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON
INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS by the Power System Engineering Committee of the
IEEE Industry Applications Society.
The author is with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineer-
ing, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St John’s, NL A1B 3X9, Canada
(e-mail: xliang@mun.ca).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TIA.2016.2626253
0093-9994 © 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
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855
tent. Therefore, adapting power grids to operate reliably with
renewable energy sources can be very complicated. How to
increase flexibility and reliability, improve energy efficiency,
and power quality for tomorrow’s smart grid are important
considering the potential huge investment over next decades
on maintaining and expanding power grid to accommodate
renewable energy generation.
It was recognized that grid-connected renewable power
generation would introduce power quality issues to power grid.
From renewable energy side, renewable generation is nondis-
patchable and intermittent with high fluctuations due to varying
nature of renewable energy resources. As penetration level of
renewable generation increases over time, such high fluctua-
tions create serious power quality concerns. From power grid
side, the grid-side disturbances, such as voltage sags caused by
short-circuit faults and frequency variations due to load and gen-
eration change would interact with the interconnected renewable
energy sources, which create more complicated and uncertain
operating conditions. Power quality, among many other factors,
appears to be one of the most important aspects that could affect
the overall stability and reliability of tomorrow’s power grid [3].
Many research results about different power quality chal-
lenges and solutions due to renewable energy integration have
been reported. As smart grid attracts more attention from
academia and industry, there is an urgent need to summa-
rize existing approaches and technologies in order to better
guide future research and engineering effort in this important
area. This paper aims to offer an extensive literature review
on emerging power quality challenges due to integration of re-
newable energy sources into power grid. This paper focuses on
the control-technology-based power quality improvement in-
cluding the virtual synchronous machine (VSM) method (also
known as virtual synchronous generator method) and the virtual-
impedance-control method. The future research directions are
also recommended in this paper, which highlight major areas
with significant research potential.
This paper is arranged as follows: In Section II, power qual-
ity issues related to integration of wind power and solar PV
generation are reviewed. The current start-of-art techniques for
improving power quality using the control-technology-based ap-
proaches are summarized in Sections III and IV, principles and
applications for the VSM method for voltage and frequency con-
trol, and for the virtual-impedance-control method for harmonic
compensation are demonstrated in these sections. In Section V,
the electric energy storage is particularly reviewed; their role in
power quality enhancement is discussed. Conclusions are drawn
and future research directions are recommended in Section VI.
 856
Fig. 1. Wind power plant: (a) general configuration [5]; and (b) more detailed
typical topology [6].
II. POWER QUALITY ISSUES DUE TO INTEGRATION OF WIND
AND SOLAR PV POWER GENERATION
A. Wind Power
Wind power is produced by wind power plants. In the begin-
ning of wind energy development, the size of a wind power plant
was small ranging from under one megawatt to tens megawatts.
In the past 40 years, its size has increased significantly [4].
Wind power plants around the world had an estimated in-
stalled capacity of 159 GW and produced 273 TWh of electric-
ity in 2009. This number includes both onshore and offshore
wind. The integration challenges presented may differ between
onshore and offshore wind power, specifically for special trans-
mission technologies for offshore plants. The offshore segment
mostly located in Europe. Europe’s offshore wind capacity was
4 GW at the end of 2011 [5].
The general configuration of a wind power plant is shown in
Fig. 1(a) [5]; a more detailed topology of a wind power plant
is shown in Fig. 1(b) [6]. Comparing with the conventional
power plants, the wind power plants have significantly different
features, which are summarized in Table I [6].
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 53, NO. 2, MARCH/APRIL 2017
Usually a wind power plant can have two types of presenta-
tions in power system modeling: 1) single turbine presentation;
2) multiturbine presentation [4], [6]. The single turbine presen-
tation is considered sufficient for power system planning studies
by Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) [6]. How-
ever, further studies in [4] indicate that a large wind power plant
should be modeled by multiple wind turbines, which represent
the unique characteristics of the location, turbine types, control
setting, and line impedances. In a multiturbine presentation, a
wind power plant is divided into several groups of wind turbines,
and the wind speed is considered uniform for each group. There
are smoothing effects for power and voltage fluctuation when
multiturbine presentation is used, which more closely represents
a real wind power plant [4]. The wind power plant representation
remains to be an active research area [6].
Regarding reactive power compensation, because Type-1 and
Type-2 wind turbine generators are induction generators, capaci-
tors are added at the generator terminals to correct power factor.
Several capacitor stages can be used to maintain steady-state
power factor close to unity over the output range of generators.
However, these generators do not have the ability to control
reactive power dynamically; static synchronous compensators
(STATCOMS) or static var compensators (SVCs) are usually
needed to achieve reactive power compensation in the collec-
tor system lines, transformers, and the point of interconnection
(POI). Type-3 and Type-4 wind turbine generators can either
absorb or generate reactive power, so each generator follows
a power factor reference that can be adjusted by a plant-level
supervisory controller dynamically in order to achieve voltage
control or reactive power control at the POI. Faster-acting con-
trols local to the generator can override the power factor refer-
ence to avoid exceeding converter current and terminal voltage
limits. Depending on individual wind power plant design, addi-
tional reactive power support equipment may be added to meet
connection reactive power control and voltage ride-through re-
quirements especially for weak interconnections [6].
B. Solar PV Power
Grid-connected solar PV power can be generated by either
solar PV power plants or residential or commercial PV sys-
tems. Solar PV power plants are large-generation facilities, and
some of them exceeding 100 MW. These large-power plants
are connected to transmission systems. However, most PV sys-
tems are residential (up to several kilowatts) and commer-
cial scale (up to several megawatts) connected to distribution
networks [7].
Solar PV systems had 22 GW of global capacity and generated
20 TWh of electricity in 2009 [5]. It is stated in [5] that though
solar PV generation capacity is much smaller than wind power
capacity, it is expected to grow at a faster pace than wind over
the next several decades. By 2013, 138.9 GW of PV had been
installed globally, and the growth between 2009 and 2013 was
significant [8].
The general configuration of a solar PV power plant is shown
in Fig. 2(a) [5], and a more detailed topology of a solar PV power
plant is shown in Fig. 2(b) [7]. The topology for a residential
solar PV system is shown in Fig. 3 [9].
 LIANG: EMERGING POWER QUALITY CHALLENGES DUE TO INTEGRATION OF RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES
TABLE I
COMPARISON BETWEEN CONVENTIONAL AND WIND POWER PLANTS [6]
Conventional Power Plant
Topology One or a few large generating units, each unit could be rated at 40 to
1000 MW+
Prime mover Steam, gas, hydroturbines, or combustion engines
Dispatch Dispatchable, maneuverable between maximum and minimum limits
Real power Units have speed governors and are typically capable of automatic
control generation control (AGC)
Reactive power Units are equipped with an automatic voltage regulator, typically set for
control voltage control
Location Located where convenient for fuel and transmission access
Generator Synchronous generators
Similar to wind power plants, WECC recommends a single-
generator equivalent model for PV power plants connected to
transmission systems, which is considered to be adequate for
bulk-level power flow and dynamic simulations. For large num-
ber of PV systems connected to distribution systems, the ag-
gregated PV generation can be represented by an equivalent
generator at a transmission bus, preferably behind an equiva-
lent substation transformer and medium-voltage feeder [7]. The
solar PV power plant representation remains to be an active
research area [7].
As shown in Fig. 2(b), large PV power plants typically have
medium-voltage radial feeders, and PV inverters are connected
to these feeders via step-up transformers with several inverters
sharing one step-up transformer. Capacitors or other reactive
support might be present in PV power plants, and they work in
conjunction with the inverters to meet reactive power capability
and control requirements at the POI. Inverters have low short-
circuit current contribution, high-bandwidth controls, and lack
of mechanical inertia; therefore, PV power plants do not have
inherent inertial or frequency response capabilities [7].
C. Power Quality Issues
Power quality issues for renewable energy integration re-
fer to: 1) voltage and frequency fluctuations, which are caused
by noncontrollable variability of renewable energy resources
and also by power grid-side disturbances, and 2) harmonics,
which are introduced by power electronic converters used in
renewable energy generation. As defined by the IEEE Standard
929-2000, voltage, voltage flicker, frequency, and distortion are
four major parameters used to evaluate the power quality in
PV systems. Deviation from standard values for these parame-
ters represents out-of-bounds conditions. The inverter may be
required to ceases energizing utility lines in this case [10], [11].
1) Renewable Energy Side: Wind and solar PV power gen-
eration both experience intermittency due to a combination of
noncontrollable variability and partial unpredictability features
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857
Wind Power Plant
Typically hundreds of small generators deployed over a large area, each
unit could be rated at 1 to 5 MW
Wind turbines
Nondispatchable, limited maneuverability (curtailment, ramp rate limit,
output limit)
Real power follows the wind speed variation
Reactive power is managed at the plant level, through coordinated
control of wind turbine control and/or plant-level reactive compensation
Located where the wind resource is good, may be far from load centers
or strong transmission
Type 1—Fixed-speed, induction generator;
Type 2—Variable slip, induction generators with variable rotor
resistance;
Type 3—Variable speed, doubly-fed asynchronous generators with
rotor-side converter;
Type 4—Variable speed generators with full converter interface, a
generator can be induction, synchronous, or permanent magnet generator.
of wind and solar resources. A wind turbine needs wind to
generate electricity, and a solar PV system requires sunlight
to operate. When wind speeds and available sunlight vary, the
output of wind and solar power generation varies accordingly.
The noncontrollable variability could result in voltage and fre-
quency fluctuations on the transmission system. Such power
output fluctuation requires additional energy to balance supply
and demand of the power grid on an instantaneous basis and
requires frequency regulation and voltage support [5].
The availability of wind and sunlight is partially unpre-
dictable. However, such unpredictability can be improved
through improved weather and generation forecasting tech-
nologies, which aim to predict weather and generation output
from wind and solar resources more accurately at various
timescales [5].
At a low penetration level, the power quality issue is at de-
vice and local grid level, and the solution is usually device spe-
cific. At a high penetration level, the grid-level technologies and
strategies are needed [3], [5]. It is vital to develop appropriate
control architecture and technologies so that renewable energy
is able to take part in the regulation of future power systems in
an autonomous and responsible way.
2) Power Grid Side: Another power quality issue that affects
renewable energy integration is due to power grid-side distur-
bances. The power grid-code requirements for grid-connected
renewable power plants have experienced a continuous evolu-
tion in different countries to ensure a reliable power system
operation. According to several European grid codes, PV power
plants must be able to ride through specific disturbances without
disconnections [11]. In 2014, thre IEEE Standard 1547a released
a new definition for the voltage sag trip settings that would al-
low the equipment to ride through during voltage sag. This new
definition allows a distributed generation (DG) not to trip if the
duration of voltage sags is between default settings and maxi-
mum settings, and an agreement is met between the distributed
resource owner and the local utility. The recommended settings
from the IEEE Standard 1547a are shown in Table II [12].
 858 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 53, NO. 2, MARCH/APRIL 2017

Fig. 2. Solar PV power plant: (a) general configuration [5]; and (b) typical topology with control systems [7].

A power quality survey for three Spanish PV power plants
was carried out from 2008 to 2011 [11]. One PV power plant
had dual-axis trackers with 1-MW capacity, two fixed array
PV power plants had 4-MW and 5-MW capacities. Voltage
sags were monitored using a commercial power quality ana-
lyzer, and collected at the 20-kV high-voltage side of the POI
of the three PV power plants. The field measurements took
place from July 2008 to December 2011. Only PV power plants
and their ancillary loads are connected to the POI during field
measurements. The recorded 137 voltage sags are shown in
Table III [11]. It is found that 59% of the total recorded voltage
sags resulted in 0.8–0.9-p.u. residual voltages; another 20% led
to 0.7–0.8-p.u. residual voltage; while the rest more severe volt-
age sags were distributed at various small percentages forming
the total case.
The control system for the PV inverter and energy storage
system can be designed to improve voltage level during voltage
sags due to power grid-side disturbances, and, thus, improve PV
power plants ride through capability. This can be one of promis-
ing future research directions for renewable energy integration.

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 LIANG: EMERGING POWER QUALITY CHALLENGES DUE TO INTEGRATION OF RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES 859

statistical features are classified by the use of three machine-

learning techniques: modular probabilistic neural network, sup-
port vector machines (SVMs), and least square SVMs [14].
The solar PV systems connected to the utility power grid do
not regulate voltage, but inject current into the power grid. The
voltage operating range for PV inverters is chosen for power
system protection that responds to abnormal utility conditions,
not for voltage regulation. When the current injection from PV
systems into the power grid has large quantity, they could im-
pact utility voltage: 1) if the PV current injection on a utility
Fig. 3. Typical topology for a residential solar PV system [8]. line remains less than the load on that line, the utility’s voltage
regulation devices will continue to operate normally; 2) if the
TABLE II PV current injection exceeds the load, the corrective action is
IEEE STANDARD1547A-2014 INTERCONNECTION SYSTEM RESPONSES TO required, because voltage regulation devices do not normally
ABNORMAL VOLTAGES [12]
have directional current sensing capability. The appropriate op-
erating interconnection voltage range for solar PV system can
Default Setting Maximum Settings Clearing Time: Adjustable
up to and including (s)
be set between 88% and 110% of the nominal voltage if no
Voltage range (% of Clearing Time operating voltage settings are specified by the IEEE Standard
base voltage) (s)
929-2000 [10].
V < 45 0.16 0.16 For a wind power plant power system, the IEC Standard
45 ࣘ V < 60 1 11 61400-21 recommends that the 10-min average of voltage fluc-
60 ࣘ V < 88 2 21
110 < V < 120 1 13
tuation should be within ±5% of its nominal value [15].
V ࣙ 120 0.16 0.16 1) Conventional Methods: The reactive power compensa-
tion is one effective method for voltage control. Based on ad-
vanced power electronic technologies and innovative designs,
TABLE III
RECORDED VOLTAGE SAGS FOR THREE PV POWER PLANTS [11]
the flexible alternating current transmission system equipment
can be applied to improve the capacity, stability, and flexibil-
ity of ac transmission, making it more capable of transmitting
Residual voltage, p.u. Duration, ms
large-capacity renewable generation. Thyristor-controlled series
0–100 100–200 200–400 400–600 > 600 Total compensators can be installed in transmission lines to reduce
electrical distance, increase damping, and mitigate system os-
0.8–0.9 36 29 5 4 7 81
0.7–0.8 4 6 6 2 10 28 cillation; a SVC, a STATCOM, or a controllable shunt reactor
0.6–0.7 2 2 0 0 3 7 can be shunt installed on substation buses to solve the reactive
0.5–0.6 0 1 6 1 1 9 power compensation and voltage control problems in renewable
0.4–0.5 0 1 0 0 3 4
0.3–0.4 0 0 3 0 0 3 energy integration [4], [5], [16], [17].
0.2–0.3 0 0 0 0 1 1 2) VSM Method: Conventional generation power plants can
0.1–0.2 0 0 0 0 1 1 maintain and regulate voltage and frequency during disturbances
< 0.1 0 0 0 0 1 1
total 42 39 20 7 29 137 because a synchronous generator stores large amount of kinetic
energy due to inertia and this kinetic energy can be released or
absorbed to compensate imbalance in electrical and mechan-
III. VOLTAGE AND FREQUENCY FLUCTUATIONS ical power of the generator [18]. In a power grid, large rota-
tional masses of synchronous generators can provide significant
In a power system, voltage variation is related to reactive
amount of inertia. When a frequency variation occurs in the
power flow, while frequency variation is determined by the
system, the inertial reserve of the power system counteracts the
rate of change in real power flow [4], [13]. The smooth-
initial frequency deviation before the primary reserve brings
ing of voltage and frequency fluctuations can, thus, be
the frequency back to a steady-state value [19], [20]. Power
achieved through the control of reactive power and real power,
electronic inverters as interface between renewable energy and
respectively.
utility power grid are static without any rotational energy, which
leads to negligible inertia. Therefore, extensive usage of these
A. Voltage Control devices can reduce the equivalent rotational inertia of power
Ray et al. [14] present the classification of power quality grid. Low moment of inertia of power grid degrades frequency
disturbances caused by change in load and environmental char- stability because frequency is inversely proportional to the sys-
acteristics (such as change in solar insolation and wind speed). tem’s inertia, in this case, large frequency oscillations could
Various forms of voltage sag and swell occurrences caused by occur during severe disturbances [18], [21], [22].
such changes are considered in this study. Ten different sta- To solve this problem and enhance the power system sta-
tistical features extracted through S-transform are used in the bility, the VSM method was proposed in order to reduce volt-
classification step. The power quality disturbances based on age and frequency fluctuations and achieve renewable energy

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 860
Fig. 4. VSM method: (a) Fundamental concept [23]. (b) Active power and
reactive power flow due to variations on local induced renewable generation
side (left) and voltage and frequency variation on the grid side (right) [23].
integration. This method was first introduced by Beck and
Hesse in 2007 as a new power electronics based approach. It
models grid-connected power-electronic-based renewable en-
ergy generators as an electromechanical synchronous machine.
The fundamental concept of the VSM, real power, and reactive
power flow between the renewable energy source and power
grid through VSM is shown in Fig. 4 [23].
During the last decade, significant developments have been
made to operate power electronic converters as VSMs, which
offers a promising way for all distributed energy resources to
follow the same mechanism of conventional synchronous ma-
chines. The principle of a VSM is based on combining advan-
tages of today’s dynamic power electronic inverter technology
with those of static and dynamic operating properties of syn-
chronous machines. The goal is to control the grid-interface
converter of a distributed generator or an energy storage in such
a way that it acts like a real synchronous machine [24], [25].
The properties of synchronous machines are kept in this new
modeling approach, including the interaction between grid and
generator, such as a remote power dispatch, reaction to tran-
sients, and a rotating mass [23].
The energy storage is connected to the renewable generation
side of the VSM in Fig. 4(a). The combination of renewable
energy and energy storage can change voltage, and, thus, can
serve as the stator output of the VSM [23].
The rotational virtual inertia is a critical aspect of the VSM.
It is recommended that the virtual inertia can be attained by
adding a short-term energy storage to any DG unit together with
an intelligent control interface to the grid [26], [27]. The cor-
responding block diagram for a VSM implementation is shown
in Fig. 5(a). The emulation of the mechanical inertia effect can
also be approximately represented by the synchronous machine
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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 53, NO. 2, MARCH/APRIL 2017
Fig. 5. Inertia emulation by VSM: (a) Block diagram for a VSM
implementation—Virtual inertia attained by a short-term energy storage [26],
[27]. (b) Virtual inertia attained by a swing equation of synchronous machines
[28].
per unit power balance in the Laplace domain. A block diagram
illustrating the swing equation used for implementing the VSM,
together with its interface to the rest of the converter control sys-
tem and to the electric power system is shown in Fig. 5(b) [28].
Behaving the same as a synchronous generator, the VSM can
handle active power and reactive power flow in both directions,
as shown in Fig. 4(b), it is caused either by variations from
renewable generation side or by demands/ disturbances from
grid side [23].
Chen et al. [25] show the VSM control enhances power qual-
ity and grid stability for DG, which embodies a hysteresis con-
trolled three-phase inverter with a synchronous machine model.
The VSM-based control is able to regulate active and reactive
power separately and bidirectionally by setting virtual torque
and virtual excitation to meet the power system requirements.
Furthermore, a virtual rotating mass is implemented in the VSM
control in order to increase the inertia in the grid and improve
the transient frequency stability similar to a conventional syn-
chronous generator. The virtual damping of the VSM control
can reduce the frequency and power oscillation in the grid [25].
The combination of the reactive power compensation and the
VSM control is also investigated by researchers. A VSM-based
STATCOM controller operating as a synchronous condenser is
proposed in [24]. Virtual impedance and virtual inertia are im-
plemented in the proposed controller to make the STATCOM
operate as a variable synchronous condenser. With virtual in-
ertia, the STATCOM will naturally synchronize with the grid
accurately if there is any change in the frequency without the
risk of losing synchronization. Virtual impedance can limit the
harmonics produced by the converter itself and from the system,
where additionally negative-sequence impedance can be added
to enhance the response in case of unbalanced phase voltages
exists in the system such as during asymmetrical faults. This
VSM-based STATCOM controller is less sensitive to power
or voltage fluctuation induced by renewable energy sources
or power grid with a better synchronization performance;
 LIANG: EMERGING POWER QUALITY CHALLENGES DUE TO INTEGRATION OF RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES
Fig. 6. Comparison of PCC voltage regulation performance between a VSM-
based STATCOM controller and a conventional cascaded dq frame STATCOM
controller when power fluctuates by 0.25 p.u. [24].
therefore, it can achieve an improved voltage regulation than
the conventional STATCOM controlled in the dq frame [24].
The comparison between a VSM-based STATCOM controller
and a conventional cascaded dq frame STATCOM controller is
provided in [24]. The following features are demonstrated for a
VSM-based STATCOM controller.
1) The Q–V control loop, which is used to regulate the mag-
nitude of the bus voltage at the point-of-common coupling
(PCC), has nearly 20 dB higher gain than the dq frame
controller in the low-frequency range. This feature en-
sures a much better resistance against the PCC voltage
variation [24].
2) The VSM-based controller has a much smaller frequency
range (about two decades) of negative impedance than
the dq frame controller, it is a favorable feature which
indicates a more stable system [24].
3) When the input power to the wind farm varies by 0.25 p.u.,
the PCC phase–phase voltage is much better regulated
using a VSM-based controller as shown in Fig. 6 [24].
B. Frequency Control
The VSM method is mostly utilized for frequency control due
to its ability to add virtual inertia to control power-electronic
device-based systems.
Arco and Suul [28] demonstrate the equivalence between
VSM-based control and frequency-droop controllers. The
demonstrated equivalence links a single theoretical frame into
these two well established concepts, which have been developed
in separate contexts.
Droop-based schemes have become the preferred solution
for control of voltage-source converters (VSCs), which can en-
sure stand-alone operation and load sharing among parallel-
connected VSC units during steady state and transients, simi-
larly to traditional synchronous machines. The principle of the
frequency-droop controller is demonstrated by a block diagram
in Fig. 7. The active power Pel measured at the grid interface
of the power electronic converter is low-pass filtered before it
is used as the measurement feedback signals Pm . These fil-
ters are necessary to stabilize the control loops. Similar to the
VSM method, the instantaneous voltage phase-angle reference
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861
Fig. 7. Frequency-droop controller for microgrids [28].
Fig. 8. Comparison of various concepts for VSM and droop controllers [28].
resulting from the droop controllers is given by the integral of
the frequency reference. The equivalence between VSM-based
and frequency-droop-based controllers is shown in Fig. 8 [28].
Miguel et al. [29] propose a self-tuning VSM method to
support dynamic frequency control in a diesel-hybrid power
system. This method controls the grid-interface converter of
an energy storage system to emulate the inertial response and
the damping power of a synchronous generator. The self-tuning
algorithms are developed and used to continuously search for
optimal parameters during the operation of the VSM control
to minimize the amplitude and rate of change of frequency
variations and the power flow through the energy storage [29].
Other frequency-control methods without involving the VSM
are also developed. For example, an application of supercon-
ducting magnetic energy storage (SMES) is utilized in [30] to
minimize output frequency fluctuations of a wind farm for an
isolated power system. The SMES is a superconducting coil
that stores energy in the magnetic field generated by the dc
current flowing through it. The SMES system can acquire a
rapid response to the fluctuations of the wind power by absorb-
ing and releasing the energy. Due to this feature plus high effi-
ciency, high power density, and long life time, the SMES system
becomes a preferable energy storage solution for wind power
generation. The applications of SMES for wind farms include:
1) improve stability; 2) regulate the output power and voltage;
and 3) minimize the system frequency fluctuations [30].
The model of SMES unit consists of a delta-star transformer,
an LC filter, a bidirectional voltage-source inverter (VSI), a
dc-link capacitor, a two-quadrant dc–dc chopper, and a huge
inductor as the superconducting coil, as shown in Fig. 9. The
bidirectional VSI and two-quadrant dc–dc chopper are used to
transfer both active and reactive powers between wind generator
and superconducting coil. The capacity of SMES is determined
by the inductance and critical current of superconducting coil.
Using the SMES system, the frequency fluctuation can be sig-
nificantly reduced as shown in Fig. 10 [30].
 862 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 53, NO. 2, MARCH/APRIL 2017

Fig. 9. Configuration of a SMES unit [30].

TABLE IV
SUMMARY OF DIFFERENT HARMONIC COMPENSATION SCHEMES [35]

VCM CCM HCM

Local load harmonic Yes (without good Yes Yes

compensation damping)
PCC harmonic voltage Yes Yes Yes
compensation
DC-line current harmonic Yes (indirect current Yes Yes
rejection control)
Grid impendence variations Sensitive Insensitive Insensitive
Stand-alone operation with Yes Yes Yes
voltage control
Harmonics sharing Yes (requires information Yes Yes
of feeder impedance)

compensation: the current-control method (CCM), the voltage-

Fig. 10. Response of system frequency with variable wind speed: (a) wind
speed [30]; and (b) frequency response without and with the SMES system [30].
IV. HARMONICS
Due to application of power electronic converters/inverters,
harmonics are produced by renewable energy generation. Vari-
ous harmonics mitigation and compensation methods have been
investigated and proposed [8], [11], [31]–[35]. Active power
filters form a commonly used research stream in harmonic re-
duction [31], [32]. Another main research stream is to design
and implement innovative-control methods for grid-interfacing
converters to compensate harmonics [35], which is the main
focus in this section.
Li and He [35] provided a comprehensive review for har-
monic compensation using control of converters for renewable
energy-based DG. There are three control methods for harmonic
control method (VCM), and the hybrid-control method (HCM).
The harmonic compensation can be either for local loads or
at the PCC. A summary of different harmonic compensation
schemes is shown in Table IV [35].
The virtual-impedance-based control scheme provides an at-
tractive way to shape dynamic profiles of converters. Over
last few years, the virtual impedance method was increas-
ingly employed for controlling VSCs and current-source con-
verters (CSC), mainly driven by the fast-growing renewable
power generation and energy efficient loads in power grid. The
virtual-impedance-control loop can be embedded as an addi-
tional degree of freedom for active stabilization and distur-
bance rejection, or employed as a command reference gener-
ator for the converters to provide ancillary services. The virtual
impedance classifications based on their functions are summa-
rized in Fig. 11. The virtual-impedance-control method can be
used in stabilization, power flow control, fault ride through, and
harmonic/unbalance compensation. The principle of the virtual-
impedance-control method in various applications is summa-
rized in [36].
The application of virtual-impedance-control method on har-
monic compensation for renewable energy sources have been

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 LIANG: EMERGING POWER QUALITY CHALLENGES DUE TO INTEGRATION OF RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES 863

Fig. 11. Virtual impedance classification based on their functions for VSCs and CSCs [36].

Fig. 12. Voltage control and virtual impedance implementation [38].

reported in [8], [37], and [38]. The virtual impedance can be
placed between the interfacing converter output and main power
grid to improve system stability and provide proper sharing
of harmonic compensation among multiple DG units accord-
ing to their available ratings [35], [38]. The optimal design
value, robust implementation, and proper utilization of the vir-
tual impedance for the performance enhancement for DG are key
aspects for the virtual impedance method. A virtual impedance
design and implementation approach is proposed by considering
these key aspects in [38].
In [38], two areas of power system performance are improved
by utilizing virtual impedance approach: 1) improve system
performance during transient and grid faults; and 2) achieve
harmonics mitigation. For the first area, flexible small-signal
models of microgrids in different operation modes are devel-
oped first, the desired DG impedance range is then determined
considering the stability, transient response, and power flow
performance of DG units. An adaptive impedance concept is
proposed to further improve power control performances dur-
ing the transient and grid faults. During transients, the virtual
impedance can enhance the dynamic performance of power
controllers [36], [38]. For the second area, a robust virtual
impedance implementation method is developed, which can
effectively mitigate voltage distortions caused by harmonic
loads [38].
The control block diagram for the voltage control and virtual
impedance implementation is shown in Fig. 12 [38]. A case
study demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed virtual
impedance harmonic mitigation method: 1) without a virtual
impedance, a physical impedance with 0.047–p.u. reactance
(4 mH) and 0.031–p.u. resistance (1 Ω) is connected at the
DG output, the total harmonic distortion (THD) of the PCC
voltage is 9.21% (the corresponding waveforms, DG voltage,
DG current, and PCC voltage are shown in Fig. 13); 2) with a

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 864 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS, VOL. 53, NO. 2, MARCH/APRIL 2017
Fig. 13. Without a virtual impedance—Single DG unit with nonlinear load in
islanding operation (with physical impedance X = 0.47 p.u., R = 0.031 p.u.)
[38].
Fig. 14. With a virtual impedance—Single DG unit with nonlinear load in
islanding operation (with virtual reactance X = 0.044 p.u., physical impedance
X = 0.003 p.u., R = 0.031 p.u.) [38].
virtual impedance, a 0.044-p.u. virtual reactance is imple-
mented, and, thus, the feeder reactance is reduced to 0.003
p.u. and the resistance remains the same, the THD of the
PCC voltage is reduced to 4.77% (the corresponding wave-
forms, DG voltage, DG current, and PCC voltage are shown in
Fig. 14) [38].
Another harmonic compensation research effort is to use the
multifunctional grid-tied inverter (MFGTI) [39]–[41], an ad-
vanced grid-tied inverter, which can not only interface renew-
able energy into power grid, but also enhance power quality at its
grid-tied point as an auxiliary service. In general, the capacity of
a grid-tied inverter is larger than that of the installed PV arrays
and wind turbines, so it can accommodate stochastic and inter-
mittent features of solar irradiation and wind speed. A grid-tied
inverter does not always operate at its nominal capacity point,
and its surplus capacity is available in most of its operation time.
Therefore, grid-tied inverters have additional capacity that can
be utilized to enhance the power quality, and no extra power
quality conditioner may be needed in an inverter-dominated mi-
crogrid. Because the apparent capacity of an MFGTI for power
quality compensation is limited, optimal utilization of such a
limited capacity becomes a critical aspect of this study. To solve
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the problem, Zeng et al. [39] propose a comprehensive power
quality evaluation algorithm to achieve the optimal control by
an analytic hierarchy process theory.
The proposed optimal compensation strategy of MFGTIs is
based on a comprehensive power quality index model. The
harmonic and reactive current are considered to have same
weight for traditional power quality conditioners, while the pro-
posed MFGTI’s objective-oriented optimal compensation strat-
egy considers the harmonic and reactive current components in
the microgrid with different contributing weights. The proposed
method is proved to be effective through a case study: 1) before
compensation, the THD of the utility voltage is 4.05%, and the
THD of the grid-tied current at PCC is 12.97%; 2) after DG1
starts power quality compensation, the THD of the utility volt-
age is 3.88%, and the THD of the grid-tied current at PCC is
6.11% [39].
It is well recognized that renewable energy sources will pro-
duce harmonics; however, field and lab measurement data are
currently needed in order to study characteristics and obtain typ-
ical harmonic spectrums generated from wind and solar power
generation. Some field measurements are presented in [33] and
[34], but they are not enough to form a clear picture of harmonic
characteristics. Future research shall be focused on collecting
more harmonic data through lab experiments and field measure-
ments for renewable energy sources.
V. ELECTRICAL ENERGY STORAGE
Electrical energy storage can be utilized in power grid for the
following purpose: 1) reduce electricity costs by storing elec-
tricity obtained at off-peak hours when its price is lower, and
using it at peak hours instead of using the electricity bought
at higher prices; 2) support customers when power grid fail-
ures occur to improve the reliability of the power supply; and
3) maintain and improve power quality [42].
Fig. 15 shows energy storage applications for renewable en-
ergy integration [42]. The different types of electrical energy
storage can be classified according to the energy form, as shown
in Fig. 16 [42].
A basic service requirement for power utilities is to sup-
ply power to customers with the voltage and frequency within
tolerance. On the other hand, the renewable energy output is
undependable because of changing weather conditions. The
fluctuation in the renewable generation output makes system
frequency control difficult, and electric energy storage can pro-
vide frequency control functions to achieve effective frequency
control [42].
Although the voltage is generally controlled by transformer
tap changers and reactive power with phase modifiers in power
grid, electric energy storage can also help with voltage adjust-
ment. The energy storage located at the end of a heavily loaded
line can help us to improve voltage drops by discharging elec-
tricity and reduce voltage rises by charging electricity [42].
For a small isolated power network, such as an island, electric
energy storage enables utility to supply stable power to con-
sumers, where diesel generators and renewable energy sources
are usually used together [42]–[44]. Electrical energy storage
 LIANG: EMERGING POWER QUALITY CHALLENGES DUE TO INTEGRATION OF RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES
Fig. 15. Electric energy storage applications for renewable energy (RE) inte-
gration [42].
Fig. 16. Classification of electric energy storage according to energy forms
[42].
can be combined with advanced control systems to achieve the
improved stability, reliability, and power quality for renewable
energy integration [29], [30], [45], [46].
VI. CONCLUSION
In this paper, an extensive literature review is conducted for
emerging power quality challenges due to integration of renew-
able energy sources to power grid. The major quality issues
(voltage and frequency fluctuations, harmonics) are reviewed,
existing state-of-art technologies related to them are summa-
rized. The electric energy storage and its role in power quality
due to renewable energy source integration are also covered in
this review.
The future research directions are recommended as follows.
1) It appears the VSM method is a very promising future
research direction for voltage and frequency control. It
can be utilized by itself or combined with other functions,
such as reactive power compensation.
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865
2) The virtual impedance method is an important method for
harmonic compensation based on the converter control.
This method also shows significant future potential to
improve the system stability.
3) More efforts should be put in obtaining field measure-
ments on harmonic spectrums for wind and PV power
plants, and residential PV systems in order to investigate
their harmonic characteristics.
4) The innovative control schemes for inverters should be
developed to cope with the grid-side disturbances for im-
proving renewable energy sources ride-through capability.
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Xiaodong Liang (M’06–SM’09) was born in
Lingyuan, China. She received the B.Eng. and
M.Eng. degrees in electrical engineering from
Shenyang Polytechnic University, Shenyang, China,
in 1992 and 1995, respectively, the M.Sc. degree
in electrical engineering from the University of
Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada, in 2004, and
the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the
University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada, in
2013.
From 1995 to 1999, she was a Lecturer with North-
eastern University, Shenyang. In October 2001, she joined Schlumberger, Ed-
monton, and in 2009, she was promoted to a Principal Power Systems Engineer
with this large oil service company. After serving Schlumberger for 12 years, in
August 2013, she joined Washington State University, Vancouver, WA, USA,
where from August 2013 to May 2015, she was an Assistant Professor. In July
2015, she joined the Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, NL,
Canada, where she is currently an Assistant Professor. Her research interests
include power system dynamics, power quality, and electric machines.
Dr. Liang is a Registered Professional Engineer in the provinces of Alberta
and Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.