Voltage Stability and Reactive Power Provision in a Decentralizing Energy System: A Techno-economic Analysis

Electricity grids require the ancillary services frequency control, grid operation, re-establishment of supply and voltage stability for a proper operation. Historically, conventional power plants in the transmission grid were the main source providing these services. An increasing share of decentralized renewable energy in the electricity mix causes decreasing dispatch times for conventional power plants and may consequently lead to a partial replacement of these technologies. Decentralized energy sources are technically capable of providing ancillary services. This work focuses on the provision of reactive power for voltage stability from decentralized sources. The aim is to answer the question of how voltage stability and reactive power management can be achieved in a future electricity system with increasing shares of decentralized renewable energy sources in an economical and efficient way. A methodology that takes reactive power and voltage stability in an electricity system into account is developed. It allows for the evaluation of the economic benefits of different reactive power supply options. A non-linear and a linearized techno-economic grid model are formulated for this purpose. The analysis reveals an increasing importance of reactive power from the distribution grid in future development scenarios, in particular if delays in grid extension are taken into account. The bottom-up assessment indicates a savings potential of up to 40 mio. EUR per year if reactive power sources in the distribution grid provide reactive power in a controlled manner. Although these savings constitute only a small portion of the total cost of the electricity system, reactive power from decentralized energy sources contributes to the change towards a system based on renewable energy sources. A comparison of different reactive power remuneration mechanisms shows that a variety of approaches exist that could replace the inflexible mechanisms of obligatory provision and penalized consumption of reactive power that are mostly in place nowadays