Stability Considerations for a Synchronous Interconnection of the North American Eastern and Western Electric Grids

Abstract

This paper presents some of the stability considerations for an ac interconnection of the North American Eastern and Western electric grids. Except for a brief time around 1970, the North American Eastern and Western grids have operated asynchronously, with only small power transfers possible through a few back-to-back HVDC ties. This paper provides results from a study showing that an ac interconnection may be possible with only modest changes to the existing transmission grid. The paper’s main focus is on the dynamic aspects of such an interconnection. The paper also shows how newer visualization techniques can be leveraged to show the results of larger-scale, long duration dynamic simulations. Results are given for a 110,000-bus model of the actual North American electric grid and an 82,000-bus synthetic grid.