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The utilisation of renewable sources brings many benefits to electric power systems, but also some challenges such as the impact that renewable power plants employing power electronics have on the grid, which is gaining importance as the penetration of this type of generating stations increases, driven by the construction of large wind or solar photovoltaic (PV) power plants. This study analyses the impact of large-scale PV power plants on a transmission grid for different penetration levels. The analysis considers power plants formed by a number of power converters employing synchronous power controllers (SPCs), that allow them to have a harmonious interaction with the grid, and compares their performance with that of conventional power converter controllers, assuming in both cases that the power plants participate in frequency and voltage regulation. The study addresses both the small-signal stability of the system and its response to large disturbances that alter the active power balance and frequency stability. The results of the analysis show that PV power plants using SPCs are able to limit frequency deviations, improve the oscillation damping, and reduce the stress of other generating units, thus having a beneficial impact on the power system., Peer Reviewed, Postprint (author's final draft)

Modular Multilevel Converters (MMC) technology is today one of the preferred technology in HVDC and large STATCOM applications due to modularity, fault tolerance and high efficiency, but the voltage balancing becomes very challenging, especially during negative sequence current injection as required for load unbalance compensation. This paper proposes an improved balancing strategy for the delta configuration to overcome this situation based on the injection of a third harmonic zero sequence current. Simulation results have proved the effectiveness of the proposal even where different switching losses and capacitor tolerance are taken in consideration., Peer Reviewed, Postprint (published version)