Today’s LiveWire Spotlight evaluates the findings of a NERC/WECC joint study on last August’s LA-metro area photovoltaic (PV) resource outages which began when a large fire ran through a transmission corridor in the mountains northeast of the city. Several lines faulted, causing frequency and voltage spikes that inappropriately tripped the PV’s inverters.
The rapid integration of photovoltaic resources has introduced a series of new challenges for electric system owners and operators. If allowed to persist, these issues will be harder to resolve as the grid’s dependence on solar generation grows.