ENTSO-E on stability challenges in Europe’s energy system

Europe’s TSOs make recommendations for stability management in the region’s increasingly renewable powered energy system.

Stability and security of supply is expected to face growing challenges as the share of weather dependent renewable generation increases and the role of synchronous generators is reduced.

However, conventional system development and system operation methods will no longer be sufficient to ensure the system stability in this context, according to Europe’s TSOs, who say they have a central role to play but require a range of other actions including cooperation with all stakeholders as well as significant RD&I and acceleration of new technology uptake.

In a new position paper from ENTSO-E the TSOs point to the increasingly concerning and diverse stability phenomena that have emerged with the phase out of rotating machines and reduction of inertia. There has been an increase in second timeframe phenomena such as rotor angle and voltage and frequency stability, while in addition there has been an increase in new sub-second phenomena including converter driven and resonance stability.

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As new technologies have been developed to manage the growing and new stability phenomena, it is crucial for them to be fully deployable on a large scale in order to counterbalance the fast-growing, destabilising factors.

In addition an amendment to the connection network codes will be crucial to ensure that equipment connected to the grid (on the generation or demand side) provide the capabilities required for a power system with high penetration of renewables, power electronics and DC connection.

The TSOs say they are already in the process of identifying the growing scope of stability phenomena and they offer several key recommendations for actions from planning in the short term to implementation in the longer term.

The assessment and control of grid stability require consistent and pan-European methods, especially for system-wide stability challenges and certain new stability phenomena.

New technical capabilities and system services are making it necessary to define new resilience requirements, e.g. for system splits, wide-meshed offshore grids, sector coupling, etc. Therefore, it is important to develop markets and regulations to ensure sufficient capabilities are available at best cost.

Significant research, demonstration and innovation efforts and stakeholder collaborations also are required to accelerate the uptake of new technologies for stability management. Supporting their realisation through EU financing mechansisms such as Horizon Europe is essential.