Project Details
ORNL investigated the proper placement, management and optimization of reactive power (or VAR) resources in the Eastern Interconnection (EI) under the new paradigm of a high penetration of renewable sources and future transmission infrastructure. This addresses the challenges and provides feasible solutions in power system long-term VAR planning and operational VAR dispatch. The project team explored steady-state planning models and dynamic operation models for optimally managing VAR devices and related voltage issues under the paradigm of renewables and transmission constraints. Innovative methods were proposed and validated based on test systems such as the IEEE 118-bus system, the CURENT NPCC 140-bus testbed system, and the Eastern Interconnection (EI) model provided by a utility partner, Dominion Virginia Power (DVP). Benchmark studies on the new methods compared to representative existing methods have verified the effectiveness of the new methods.
In addition, the project team developed a software package, called the MOVARTI tool, to demonstrate the project team’s capability in VAR management and optimization. Further, this MOVARTI tool has been used as a prototype by the utility partner DVP to carry out a feasibility study of real-time VAR management in the DVP system with interconnection with their real-time PI platform.
