Optimization of Compliance Testing for Grid-supporting Inverter Functionalities

Inverter based resources (IBRs) are capable of providing grid services to ensure system stability. Manufacturers of such IBRs are required to certify their products according to the testing procedures of each individual country to meet the grid connection requirements of the target markets. When various countries are targeted; time, effort and financial resources spent on the validation procedures increase with the number of targeted countries and need to be optimized. Hence, the importance of best practices for reducing testing effort becomes key. In this contribution the methodology and exemplary results for performing this optimization will be presented. In this study, an approach is implemented for reducing the analysis and testing effort for battery energy storage systems (BESSs) covering various country specific regulations. Grid connection requirements and testing procedures for countries in Europe and outside Europe are analyzed to develop a holistic understanding of the common ranges for functionalities such as active power regulation based on frequency, active power regulation based on voltage and reactive power provision. Critical points are identified where certain country grid codes required exceptional criteria. The development of a harmonized testing procedure is an important further step in the reduction of measurement effort. Such a procedure will consider all grid connection requirements which need to be complied with according to the testing standards of all targeted countries. Following, the developed harmonized testing procedures for the generalized compliance assessment are automated and tested in the laboratory environment with a BESS. Furthermore, possibilities for automation of such harmonized testing procedures are also discussed in order to improve the scalability of the laboratory testing using the harmonized grid testing procedures.