Talking about Subcycle overvoltage is delving into an exciting and constantly evolving topic. Since its inception, Subcycle overvoltage has aroused the interest of experts and fans, who have investigated its multiple aspects and dimensions. In this article, we will explore various aspects of Subcycle overvoltage, from its impact on society to its possible future applications. Through a detailed analysis, we aim to offer a comprehensive vision of Subcycle overvoltage, addressing both its past and its present and projecting its potential development.
The subcycle overvoltage condition describes the electrical generation fault mode that is associated with the inverter-based resources (IBR, like solar photovoltaics and wind turbines) and can cause a massive and instantaneous loss of electricity generation. When the overvoltage condition is detected, the IBR devices self-protect by disconnecting from the grid and can only come back online once the voltage returns to the design limits. [1] In the meantime, a cascading failure can be triggered due to lack of generation capacity that remains online.[citation needed]
The typical fault scenario is two-stage:[1]
The problem was accidentally exacerbated by a requirement to have a shunt capacitor across the connection terminals of an IBR. This feature was expected to provide the reactive power support to the grid (the typical inverter is designed for a unity power factor), yet after a short remote line fault it increased the overvoltage at the generator connection and contributed to the problem (the later designs followed the IEEE 1547-2018 standard and did not use the shunt capacitors in the MC mode). As a result, solar and wind farms with older inverter modules had exhibited multiple farm-wide disconnections that were almost-instantaneous (quarter of the AC cycle). [1] For example, in 2017 the Canyon Fire 2 incident took out 900 MW of solar capacity.[2]