Power Electronics in Future Electrical Power Grids
Jing Zhang
Dept. of Systems Engineering
University of Arkansas at Little Rock
Little Rock, Arkansas, USA
jxzhang1@ualr.edu
Abstract—Power electronics may substantially improve the
controllability and stability of electrical power grids. The high
costs for system installation and maintenance as well as the
relatively poor reliability of power electronics equipment
compared to the traditional equipment make it difficult to be
used widely in existing power grids. However, this situation may
change if some new proposed designs of electrical power grids
become realistic. This paper gives a discussion about power
electronics in the future power grids.
Keywords—power electronics, power grids, smart grids, digital
grids
I. INTRODUCTION
In order to support the high penetration of intermittent
renewable energy and other new technologies such as energy
storages, substantial changes are necessary for existing electric
power grids in the world. These changes will result in the new
evolution in both theory and important equipment for future
electric power grids.
Current electric power grids in many countries have a quite
long history. Most grids have existed more than 60 years. The
fundamentals of system design and operation were developed
100 years ago. They mainly consist of three-phase synchronous
generators, transformers, transmission lines and AC loads. Grid
synchronization, load-frequency control, and voltage-reactive
power compensation are fundamental control strategies. Such
electric power grids are very sensitive to parameters at all
buses: the voltage and phase angle at each bus must be
carefully controlled within a very small range so that the
systems operate stably. Compared to the power control with
power electronic systems, the control of power flows in electric
power grids are slow and not effective. Expectable energy
resources based on fossil fuels, nuclear energy are necessary to
keep the balance between power generation and consumption
all the time. Although extensive interconnections of power
grids have made the power grid more reliable, it also increases
the risk of large area blackout.
Power electronics has been proved to be an important
technology to improve power grid performance substantially.
Power electronic equipment has been used in the power
systems. On the grid level, there are HVDC (High-Voltage DC
transmission line), HVDC back-to-back (BTB) coupling
between two power grids, and FACTS (Flexible AC
Transmission Equipment). On consumer side, energy saving
lighting is supported with power electronic circuits. More and
more small and major residential appliances such as air-
conditioners tend to use power electronics to make them more
efficient and controllable. However, all these applications of
power electronics equipment have not changed the
fundamentals of the existing power grids. Some applications
even bring negative effects on the existing power systems with
more high-frequency current harmonics and low-power factor
loads.
This paper will give a discussion about power electronics in
the future electric power grids, from electric power generation
to power consumption. Firstly we will review the electric
power grids from traditional to new proposed concepts for
future electric power grids in recent years. Then we will
discuss the applications of power electronics in the future
electric power grids and challenges to the design and
development of power electronics for grid-level applications.
II. ELECTRIC POWER GRIDS: FROM TRADITIONAL TO
DIGITAL GRIDS
A. Electric Power Grid
Electric power grid is the biggest systems developed by
humans in the world. First electric power system in the history
was a DC power system developed by Thomas A. Edison in
1882 in New York City [1]. The first revolutionary change in
electric power system began from 1885 to 1893 [1], during
which three-phase AC electric power systems replaced the DC
electrical power systems. The availability of transformers was
the key for the wide applications of AC power systems. Since
then, the changes of electric power systems were mainly in the
voltage level and interconnections, which has made the power
system become bigger, stronger and more reliable. During this
time, power systems consisted of mainly passive components,
such as transmission lines, transformers, capacitor banks, shunt
reactance. Even loads were mainly passive components, such
as incandescent light bulbs.
B. Flexible AC Transmission Systems
Flexible AC Transmission Systems (FACTS) is a
technology based on high-reliable power electronics that
provides the corrections of transmission lines in order to fully
utilize existing transmission lines and minimizing the gap
between the stability restriction and thermal restriction [1]. In
IEEE definition, FACTS is "a power electronic based system
and other static equipment that provide control of one or more
AC transmission system parameters to enhance controllability
and increase power transfer capability [2]". Early installations
 Data Network
Data Terminal End
(DTE)
IP Communication
Inverter Control
& Protection
AC Leg Type A
With PLC
PLC
Terminal End
Figure 1: Principle of a digital grid router
of FACTS equipment in 1990s was mainly used to replace the
traditional equipment for the grid compensation. Typical
FACTS are: STATCOM (Static synchronous compensator),
SVC (Static VAR compensator), or TSR (thyristor-switched
reactors) and TSC(thyristor-switched capacitors). Such FACTS
equipment replaced the electromechanical switches with high-
speed power electronic switches, mainly thyristors. FACTS
improve the performance of transmission lines in the same way
as traditional compensation equipment, but much faster and
more flexible. Recent years new FACTS were developed
which may control the power flow directly [3].
C. Smart Grids
Smart Grids are widely developed during recent years. It
will deploy advanced monitoring, communications, computing,
and information technologies to support electric power grid
applications such as wide area monitoring and control,
integrating of bulk or distributed renewable generation,
distribution automation, and demand response [4]. With the
proposal of smart grids, electric power industries will take fully
use of advanced communication, computing and information
system to improve the operation of existing power grids. The
focus of smart grids is the applications of communication and
information in electric power grids. The role of power
electronics was not specified in the smart grids.
DGR Control and
Trading Recording
Protection
Control
DC Bus Inverter Control
& Protection
AC Leg Type A
With PLC
PLC
Terminal End
Inverter Control
& Protection
AC Leg Type A
With PLC
AC Leg Type B
With PLC
D. Digital Grid
Digital Grid can be a solution for the future power grid
because it may solve all the existing problems with power
transmission and distribution. Digital Grid was proposed by
Prof. Rikiya Abe, University of Tokyo. Inspired by internet
communication, digital grids will transform a synchronized
large power grid into interconnected cells [5]. Different from
smart grids, the proposed digital grids will change the
fundamentals of the current grids in the following aspects: 1)
divide existing large interconnected power grids into many
interconnected cells; 2) cells are connected asynchronously via
digital grid routers (DGR); 3) electrical power is coupled with
information and sent in discrete power packets from one DGR
to another over existing transmission and distribution lines. For
the proposed digital grids, current existing electric power grids
will be used. It only requires adding equipment such as DGRs.
Although the proposal of digital grids is quite aggressive, it
shows the wishes to digitalize electric power grids so that they
run in a similar way to internet communication. It will integrate
advanced technologies such as power electronics, energy
storage, power-line communication, and network management
into the future electric power grids. It suggested that the digital
grids can be gradually built on the base of the existing electric
power grids by adding equipment such as power electronic and
energy storage. It will be a process to digitalize the existing
electric power grids. Figure 1 shows the proposed principle of
a digital router [5], which is an AC-DC-AC converter with
multi-output legs. The power flowing will be controlled by the
power converter without synchronization of AC power systems
connected by the DGR.
Besides digital grids, there are some other proposed designs
for the future power grids. One proposed design [6] was
published in early 1997, which should be the early version of
the digital grids.
III. POWER ELECTRONICS IN ELECTRIC POWER GRIDS
Generally, power electronics is referred to the application
of semiconductor power switches for the control and
conversion of electric power. Early applications of power
electronics in electric power grids was high voltage DC
(HVDC) power transmission which began in 1950s.
Applications of power electronics can be found on grid
level and on load level. HVDC and FACTS are the application
on grid level. There are much more applications of power
electronics on load level. Electric DC and AC drives and
switching power supplies are two important applications.
In the future digital grids, power electronics based DGRs
will be the key components. In other words, power electronics
will provide key technology for the future digital grids. Wide
grid-level applications of power electronics equipment in the
future digital grads are expectable. On the load level, a
residential home will be equipped with electrical power
management system, which may provide a DC subsystem. This
subsystem for a future residential home is necessary because
all loads such as LED lighting, air-conditioners, and washing
machines should be more efficient when supplied with a DC
power supply. A residential DC subsystem is also convenient
for distributed solar power generation and electrical energy
storages as well as plug-in hybrid electrical vehicles. In black-
out due to heavy snow and severe storms, a plug-in hybrid
electrical vehicle may supply electrical power through the
residential DC subsystem, which will avoid the installation of
whole-house generators just for once or twice blackouts per
year.
Like transformer in the history, power electronics will bring
substantial changes in electric power grids. However there are
many challenges for the wide applications of power electronics
equipment in electric power grids. Although HVDC techniques
were available since 1950s, they were still designed only for
special situations. It was also reported that FACTS equipment
had not achieved significant market penetration in electric
power grids [3]. The reasons can be both technical and
economic. Compared to traditional equipment in electric power
grids, the issues on relative short life time, high installation
costs, and additional technical services negatively affect the
practical applications. Other important factors such as
applications of other new technologies and changing energy
market environment will encourage the wide practical
applications of power electronics.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
Power electronics will be the key technology to change the
fundamentals of electric power grids so that they can support
renewable power generation, the applications of energy
storages and other new technologies, and the new electric
energy trading markets.
REFERENCES
[1] J. Duncan Glover and Mulukutla S. Sarma, “Power System Analyis and
Design”, 3rd edition, Brooks/Cole, 2002.
[2] “Proposed terms and definitions for flexible AC transmission
system(FACTS),” IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, Volume 12,
Issue 4, October 1997, pp. 1848–1853.
[3] Debrup Das and Deepak Divan, “Power Flow Control in Networks
Using Controllable Network Transformers,” in Proc. IEEE Energy
Conv. Congr. Expo., 2009, pp. 2224-2231.
[4] IntelliGrid – Program 161, EPRI 2012 Research Portfolio, Available:
http://intelligrid.epri.com [Online].
[5] Rikiya Abe, Hisao Taoka and David McQuilkin, “Digital Grid:
Communicative Electrical Grids of the Future,” IEEE Transaction on
Smart Grid, vol. 2, No. 2, June 2011. pp. 399 – 410.
[6] Hiroumi Saitou, Satoshi Miyamori, Toru Shimada and Jun’ichi Toyoda,
“An Autonomous Decentralized Control Mechanism for Power Flow in
an Open Electric Energy Network,” Electrical Engineering in Japan,
Vol. 121, No. 4, 1997, pp. 28-37