A Comparative Analysis of Grid Forming and Grid Following Control Methodologies for Power Inverters Under Fault Ride Through Events

Abstract

Due to operational characteristics of the renewable energy sources such as PV and wind based, they require to connect to the grid through inverters and they called as inverter-based resources (IBRs). Although, IBRs have some advantages mainly environmental, they also introduce some technical challenges including system inertia, current limiting, voltage, and frequency control. Grid following (GFL) and grid forming (GFM) are two important control methodologies of IBRs to overcome these challenges. In this paper, electromagnetic transient (EMT) simulations have been performed to compare the performance of both control methodology. The simulations present the effectivity of both control approach in fault ride through (FRT) events. It is observed that by effectively mimicking synchronous generators' (SGs) behavior, GFM offers a promising solution to enhance grid stability, especially at low inertia grids, and reliability amidst the growing integration of renewable energy resources.