Power Plant Controller – ETi-PPC Solution to Ensure the Grid Stability by EnerMAN

The Indian Central Govt launched the National Solar Mission in January 2010, under which the total installed capacity target of 20 GW by 2022 and in 2015, it is further increased to 100GW. Later in August 2021, the govt increased the target to 300 GW for 2030 & now India aims at the target of installed renewable capacity of 500GW by 2030. Integrating a large amount of renewable energy such as wind or solar PV power adds several challenges as they depend on the availability of natural resources that fluctuate constantly, making them unpredictable. To promote renewable power integration, it is important that renewable power plants contribute positively to the grid stability, especially during system disturbances.

What is Grid Stability?

“There needs to be a balance in production and consumption within an electrical grid”. In other words, energy generation must be equal to energy consumption.

For the stability of the grid, there must be a balance between the demand and supply of electricity at all points of time. If the demand is more than the supply, the frequency and voltage would dip and vice versa. In extreme cases, it may lead to tripping of the entire grid unless load shedding is carried out. Normally The Indian grid has two peaks. A smaller peak in the morning between 9 to 11 am, when the offices and factories start functioning, and a higher peak in the evening between 7 to 9 pm when the domestic & commercial lighting demand kicks in. The demand reaches its lowest point some time in between 1AM-4AM in the night, depending upon industrial development and with variations in weather. For optimum, economical, and efficient operation of the grid, the Electrical energy generation should vary based on the peaks. 

How does Renewable Energy impact on grid stability?

The generation from renewable energy is highly dependent on the weather conditions and as it the asset owner, or maintenance team has no control. Variations and uncertainty in the generation, lead to instability on the grid. Vast mismatch in the generation and demand. To overcome this, govt regulatory bodies have defined grid codes to ensure stability and to benefit from renewable plant capabilities.

Maintaining Grid Codes:

Individual state electricity boards define their grid codes, and all the power producers must adhere and comply to the same. Huge penalty is levied on the power producers on non-adherence, and it can lead to isolation from the grid. 

Power Plant Controller [PPC] is mandatorily to be implemented to meet this requirement. While there’s no standardized capacity threshold, as its completely under state electric judiciary. But normally any solar power plant hits 10MWp+, the requirement for a plant controller becomes important. Some of the states in India insist even for 5MW+. 

What PPC does and what types of PPC in industry?

PPC is a combination of Software Logic and Hardware which continuously monitor the healthiness of grid and automatically acts in case of any abnormality. There two types of PPC:

1. PLC Hardware based PPC which controls the field devices based on the pre-programmed logic in it.
2. IoT Based PPC, which is latest Software logic based PPC which can monitor and control the field devices with pre-programmed logic as well as it supports manual inputs.

EnerMAN In-house developed Power Plant Controller [ETi-PPC] can be installed on a server or PC compared to expensive PLC hardware’s and complex logics. 

What all control EnerMAN ETi-PPC does?

1. Active Power Curtailment.
2. Reactive Power Control.
3. Power factor Control.
4. Reactive power control at night.
5. Automatic Voltage Regulation (AVR).

Does ETi-PPC ensure grid stability during Non-Generation Hours?

Yes. ETi-PPC’s intelligent Reactive power Control logic monitors the grid data 24×7 and during night, it controls the inverters and makes work as Capacitor Bank or Inductive Bank as on requirement.

EnerMAN ETi-PPC is a Software based IoT Power Plant Controller which can be installed on any Solar PV plant regardless of type of SCADA which has been already installed. 

It allows user to:

1. Change the Set Point.
2. Control the inverters at plant lever, block level and individually.
3. Schedule the control operation.
4. Analyze the trend and download the data.
5. User-Defined Performance Monitoring.
6. Monitor Data Locally and Remotely.

Hybrid PPC: EnerMAN’s PPC can be deployed not only to Solar Power Plants. It can be deployed to Hybrid Power plants like Solar-Wind, Solar-Storage Etc. For more information reach out to: sales@enerman.in