Deployment of a full‐size converter utilised hydropower plant to enhance inter‐area oscillation damping

Due to the increasing share of inverter‐based renewable energy sources and the increased retrofitting of conventional hydropower plants with power electronics, novel possibilities arise for providing damping power in case of occurring inter‐area oscillations in power systems. This paper presents a complete model of a variable‐speed hydropower plant (VSHP) in a single‐machine infinite bus system. The demonstrated analytical model is applied for small‐signal stability analysis that contains all relevant converter dynamics and is verified by an additional non‐linear time‐domain simulation. The damping controller approach located in the full‐size converter (FSC) consists of the classical power system stabilizer with additional phase compensation, to which an appropriate wide‐area input signal is fed via a phasor measurement unit device. Subsequently, the FSC‐VSHP with additional damping algorithm is examined with respect to the significantly higher damping performance with regard to inter‐area modes in a three‐machine model. This paper deals with the stability behavior of a full‐size converter (FSC) utilised hydropower plant. Specifically, it examines how the damping capability of a hydropower plant with a FSC can be enhanced in case of occurring inter‐area oscillations in the power system.