GridForLoads: a new EU project
for power grid flexibility gets underway

Another brand-new collaborative project, supported by the European Commission has just begun. Over the next 3.5 years, the GridForLoads consortium will be developing the grid forming load concept to enable loads to support the grid in the same way as synchronous machines would and provide new flexibility assets to grid operators. As part of this project, SuperGrid Institute will be responsible for developing one of the two demonstrators, using our HydroPHIL test platform.

The wide-scale deployment of PV and wind power has introduced the challenge of how to manage variable power-electronics interfaced renewables within our existing power systems, leading us to rethink how the whole power system is designed, operated and protected.

In traditional power systems, grid flexibility is usually provided from the generation side, by using traditional power plants capable of adjusting their output, reserves from renewables producing energy below their maximum capacity, or energy storage systems.

However, demand management can also be a key flexibility solution in which loads can support the grid in future power systems. The GridForLoads project focuses on the concept of grid forming loads to form and support the grid as synchronous machines would, thereby allowing renewable generators to operate at their maximum power point while maintaining grid stability.

The project’s objectives include defining the concept and features of grid forming loads, selecting appropriate loads, developing control algorithms, implementing them in relevant applications (electrical vehicle chargers, pump drives), and carrying out systems, techno-economic and environmental studies on the impact of this solution.

SuperGrid Institute will lead work package 3 which involves developing one of the two demonstrators for the project. The demonstrator will aim to apply the control concepts for grid forming loads to a specific load: a variable-speed pump.

The SuperGrid Institute team will set up their real-time power hardware-in-the-loop hydraulic test-rig HydroPHIL with a reduced-scale variable-speed pump drive operating in grid-forming mode to validate the concept. In collaboration with the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, the team will derive specific control schemes and tuning to allow the pump test-rig to operate in grid-forming mode. Advanced models of the hydraulic test-rig and of the power converters will be developed beforehand.

SuperGrid Institute will also lead one of the tasks in work package 4 centred on performing grid studies when grid forming loads are included. This task consists of analysing the transient stability of large power systems including grid forming loads.

Finally, the company is implicated in work package 1, analysing the potential of different loads as well as in tasks related to project management, exploitation and dissemination.

Kick off meeting in Barcelona on the 21^st & 22^nd of January, at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya.