SBIR Phase I: A hybrid phasor/waveform simulation tool for the accurate and efficient simulation of large electric power systems with high shares of inverter-based resources

Award ID: 2321329

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will be to develop refined approaches to power system dynamic stability assessments, enabling the efficient, mass integration of renewable energy into systems worldwide. Decarbonization goals and economic opportunity necessitate the increase of inverter-based resources, such as solar, wind, and battery energy storage. A dynamic stability assessment is required before the interconnection of every renewable, inverter-based resource on all power systems. Current simulation approaches do not capture the critical details of inverter operation or are too computationally complex and expensive to be effective with real-world systems. This results in the enormous potential for unique simulation capabilities that streamline this process. There is a global market opportunity for more effective and efficient planning solutions that enable power system operators to meet this need. In the United States, alone, the licensing opportunity for a solution is hundreds of millions of dollars. The proposed hybrid approach combines computational flexibility with accuracy. This solution will leverage the maturity of these approaches and eliminate their weaknesses. The final solution will yield an invaluable, novel simulation tool for power system operators and planners navigating the challenges of the energy transition. The intellectual merit of this project results from the development of mathematical methods that will comprise the foundation of this hybrid power system dynamics simulation tool. Existing tools have clear weaknesses. For example, reduced-order, phasor domain simulation approaches do not capture the critical aspects of inverter operation. Detailed waveform domain approaches are sufficient to capture relevant dynamics but are too computationally expensive to be effective with real-world systems. These domains are mature, but separately they do not meet the changing need. Hybridizing them in a single platform is a solution, but it requires research in the following three foundational pillars of the proposed tool: 1) autonomous boundary determination identifying the spatial (across the network) and temporal (across the simulation length) boundary that partitions the two simulation domains; 2) intra-simulation model order adjustment applying dynamical model granularity for all simulations, but singularly perturbing the differential systems to create algebraic relations and reduce computational burden when substantial detail is not required; and 3) seamless simulation mode switching identifying criteria necessary for switching between domains. With the successful completion of this SBIR Phase I project, the viability of the hybrid approach will be confirmed, and a roadmap for implementation will be realized. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Program Director: Mara E. Schindelholz