IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - November/December 2019 - 87

The interest and sharing of knowledge
in these many forums are at an all-time high
and monumentally important.
participation of universities makes it possible to build a solid
analytical base, helping to justify the content and increase
the credibility of the standards. In contrast to industry stakeholders, universities do not have direct commercial interests
in the standards, and therefore they often play the role of
independent moderators, acting as members and conveners
of WGs. Their participation in the development of standards
is also very useful to the universities, which can use the
industry collaboration and the standards to improve the education process and direct research to better benefit technology development.

Harmonization and Collaboration
in Standardization
When developing system-level integration standards or grid
codes, the goals of ensuring low-cost, reliable service consistent
with a sustainable future (Figure 5) must be balanced to serve
the needs of grid operators, customers, and society. Requirements should be no more specific than they need to be to avoid
overdesigned equipment and reduced efficiency, but they should
be specific enough to maintain adequate system reliability.
Market design and system requirements should promote performance so that any provider using any technology can support the
grid on an even, cost-sensitive playing field.
Grid codes may be developed at the national level or at the
grid company level. They may be developed over time based
on experience gained locally or by leveraging experience from
other areas of the world. The early grid codes for wind were flexible and allowed for initial adoption of the technology based on
lower penetration levels. As reliability issues became apparent,
the grid codes were tightened. This approach has led to widespread adoption of wind generation, but has also created a difficult time for manufacturers to adopt a wide range of specific
requirements. The IEC has suggested that the time is right to
develop an international framework document to assist in writing more consistent grid codes.

trate the market, since costs of capability and compliance are
closely linked. If the technology is too expensive for investors, it won't be installed or deployed no matter how beneficial it may be. A key factor in determining how this plays
out is the coordination between generation and transmission
infrastructure as we reorient grids to new forms of generation
(including rapidly emerging battery energy storage plants as
illustrated in Figure 6) and tune up controllers to react with
lightning speed.
Many groups, task forces, and drafting teams are discussing similar challenges and risks in parallel, well beyond what
was mentioned in this article. The interest and sharing of
knowledge in these many forums are at an all-time high and
monumentally important. However, the level of dialog opens
the risk of diversion, and there is a much greater need to focus
on harmonization of requirements. Requirements developed
by such organizations as the IEEE and IEC influence grid
codes and regulatory requirements, and vice versa. Poorly
harmonized or conflicting requirements waste development
costs and result in the inefficient deployment of equipment,
which again feeds back to the technology mix and reliability
discussion. The development of standards needs subjectmatter experts to participate and collaborate to get it right.
There are many possible paths to resolving stability and reliability challenges posed by new technology. As these paths
are explored, further groundbreaking capabilities may
open up (refer to the first article in this issue, by Lew et al.,
on grid forming!), but only if the requirements are supported
with solid investments and incentives. Technology development is an iterative journey of new requirements testing
limits and supporting policies. Grid planners and operators,
manufacturers, generation owners, regulating bodies, public

Tight
Loose
* More Expensive Equipment * Compromised System
* Reduced Efficiency
Reliability

Moving Forward
In the end, interconnection requirements, grid codes, and
standards have a great deal of influence over how power systems are built, operate, and perform. As technology develops, these requirements may help ensure the best available
performance of certain functions, such as frequency response
or ride through of disturbances. However, if overprescribed
or immune to costs of implementation, they can also inhibit
the very functions they are trying to enable. Standards also
have an effect on how quickly generation technologies penenovember/december 2019

Functional Specifications

figure 5. The development of interconnection requirements requires balancing functionality and cost.
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IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - November/December 2019

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