A Python Based Automatic Impedance Scan Tool for

PSCAD Models
Xiaoyu Wang1, Shun Hsien (Fred) Huang1, John Schmall1 , Jonathan Rose1 and Jian Sun2
1
Transmission Planning Department, The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), Taylor, TX 78744, USA
2
Department of ECSE, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY 12180, NY
1
{Xiaoyu.Wang, Shun-Hsien.Huang, John.Schmall, Jonathan.Rose}@ercot.com; [email protected]

Abstract—The growth of inverter-based resources (IBRs) in system is wind generation but the solar resources are
power systems leads to stability challenges on system operations developing rapidly in the next couple of years.
that were not of major concerns in the past, such as control
interactions among IBRs and between IBRs and other
components within the transmission network. Control
2022 IEEE Power & Energy Society General Meeting (PESGM) | 978-1-6654-0823-3/22/$31.00 ©2022 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/PESGM48719.2022.9917214

instability for the IBRs operating under weak grid conditions

and sub-synchronous control interaction (SSCI) for IBRs
connected near series compensated transmission lines are
common phenomena considered by system operators.
Electromagnetic transient (EMT) study incorporating high
bandwidth EMT models are required to assess weak grid
control interactions and SSCI issues because positive-sequence
electromechanical dynamic models are generally considered
inadequate for these types of studies. However, EMT studies are
more time-consuming and demand more computational
resources. In practice, an SSCI screening process is adopted by
system operators during the interconnection process to shortlist
the potential vulnerable IBRs for further assessment using
detailed EMT simulations. A frequency domain analytical
approach is emerging within industry research communities in
recent years to evaluate the stability of an IBR dominated
system. The impedance characteristic profiles of the IBRs are
necessary to use a frequency domain study approach. A python-
based impedance scan tool applicable to the PSCAD models has Fig. 1. Yearly-addition and cumulative IBR capacity in ERCOT system [1].
been developed at ERCOT to automatically conduct the
frequency scan process. Considering the frequency-coupling Due to the growth of IBRs and potential displacement of
effect, the developed toolset, namely ZSC, scans the IBR’s on-line synchronous generators in the renewable rich areas
impedance based on individual frequency perturbation signals like West Texas, the system can become weak and impose
and the tool has been incorporated into the PsCad Auto Run challenges for reliable operations of IBRs. Currently, IBRs
(PCAR) platform developed at ERCOT. This paper presents the connecting to the ERCOT grid are considered as Grid
schematic of the ZSC tool and some implementation notes on Following IBRs which require a sufficient level of the system
selected PSCAD models. strength, generally in terms of short circuit ratio (SCR), for
stable operation [2-4]. And detailed EMT studies have been
Index Terms—Control Interaction; Electromagnetic (EMT)
conducted to evaluate the evolving stability conditions in
study; Inverter-based Resources (IBRs); PSCAD; Python; Sub-
some high penetration level of IBR regions, such as Panhandle
synchronous Control Interaction (SSCI); System strength.
and South Texas [5-7]. The large scale EMT studies can be
time-consuming and computational-resource-demanding. The
I. INTRODUCTION emerging frequency domain analytical approaches proposed in
Significant amount of inverter-based resources (IBRs), recent years can be potentially adopted to evaluate the control
including wind, solar and battery energy storage system stability issues in the IBR dominated system [8-14], as a
(BESS), are installed and planned to connect to ERCOT grid. complementary tool to the large scale EMT simulations.
As of September 2021, around 76 GW of IBRs are expected to On the other hand, the IBRs can be located remotely to the
connect to ERCOT by 2025, as shown in Fig. 1 [1], from load centers such that the long-distance transmission paths can
which one can observe that the majority of IBRs in ERCOT be equipped with series compensation (SC) devices to

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improve the transfer capability, which the potential SSCI sufficient for the SSCI screening studies used to assess the
vulnerability must be addressed [15-17]. A screening process necessity of further detailed EMT studies. However, this
can be adopted by the system operators during the method mixes the perturbation signals at different frequencies
interconnection process to identify the potential SSCI issue and the frequency coupling phenomenon can’t be
and necessity to conduct the detailed EMT studies, such that appropriately captured, which is a critical component to
appropriate mitigation schemes can be implemented by the conduct the accurate frequency domain analytical analysis
resource developers or transmission service providers prior to [10-13]. Therefore, running the impedance scan tests with
the IBR interconnection [18]. injection of perturbation signal once at each individual
frequency is necessary to accurately capture the impedance
In both the frequency domain analytical analysis and the characteristics at both the perturbation (fp) and coupled
SSCI screening process, the accurate impedance characteristic frequencies (2f1-fp), where f1 is the fundamental system
profiles of the IBR equipment are imperial. Various frequency, 60Hz in North America, as will be described in this
impedance scan methods have been proposed in the literatures paper.
[13, 19-21]. The hardware measurement method mentioned in
[13] is generally limited to the vendors and may not be The Automation Library with PSCAD provides an
available to the system operators. The multiple perturbation Application Programming Interface (API) to facilitate the
signal injections method can’t properly capture the frequency PSCAD simulation processes and is leveraged in this ZSC tool
coupling phenomena within the IBR control systems and is development to overcome the otherwise tedious manual
not accurate to facilitate the frequency domain analytical processes running the individual frequency injection tests.
analyses [10-13]. This especially holds true when the super-synchronous
resonance phenomena are investigated where the scanned
To fill these gaps, a python-based impedance scan tool has frequency can be as high as up to a few kilo-Hz. In such case,
been developed at ERCOT to obtain proper IBRs’ impedance the benefit brought by adopting the proposed ZSC module can
profiles from the EMT based PSCAD models that generally be even more prominent, because the whole set of scans can
are provided as black-boxed models by the resource owners. be automatically run through by each frequency with no
The developed tool will allow the planner to obtain proper further manual intervene once initiated.
IBR’s impedance profile through the submitted PSCAD
models, including the impact of frequency coupling. The III. ZSC SCHAMETIC IMPLEMENTED IN PCAR
toolset was developed based on and has been incorporated into
the existing PCAR platform as its ZSC module [22]. Similar with other modules in PCAR, the ZSC module,
namely ZSC Facility, is provided in the template file
This paper is arranged as follows: the developed ZSC ZSC_Temp.pscx, as shown in Fig. 2(a). This module can be
module is introduced in Section II. The ZSC schematic copy/paste transferred to the tested model, represented by the
implemented in PCAR tool is elaborated in Section III. Some Tested Facility module, which represents the detailed PSCAD
practical notes in using ZSC are presented in Section IV and model received from the resource owners or IBR equipment
concluding remarks are provided in Section V. manufacturers. The overall layout of the ZSC test case setup is
depicted in Fig. 2(b).
II. THE ZSC MODULE ON PCAR PLATFORM
The traditional approach of manually creating, modifying,
and running a PSCAD case can be tedious, time consuming
and error prone. To overcome such challenges, a python based
PCAR tool was developed at ERCOT by leveraging the
PSCAD Automation Libraries to automatically manage the
PSCAD simulation processes [23]. The platform was (a)
introduced in [24] and has been used at ERCOT to facilitate
large scale PSCAD studies and PSCAD model reviews,
including voltage step changes, voltage ride-through (VRT),
phase angle jump and system strength tests as described in the
recently approved requirements for ERCOT PSCAD model (b)
validation and verification [25-26]. Fig. 2. (a) The ZSC module in PSCAD, and (b) The overall layout of the ZSC
test case setup.
The currently implemented impedance scan methods, such
as multiple frequency perturbation method [20], generally Fig. 3 shows the detailed circuit and measurement
injects multiple frequency perturbation signals all at once and components within the ZSC module. For illustration purpose,
the recorded simulation data will then be analyzed by using the components are labeled from 1-7 groups as indicated in the
the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) block in PSCAD to extract green circles in Fig. 3. The functions of these components are
the voltage and current phasor information at various elaborated below.
frequencies. The impedance of the scanned IBR at these Group 1: This is the main electrical circuit within the ZSC
frequencies are further derived based on the phasor quantities. module, in which the voltage-based series injection topology
The advantage of this method is time saving since the is adopted to apply the perturbation signals. On the left-hand
impedance results for the injected multiple frequency signals side, the fundamental signal is represented by an ideal 3-phase
can be obtained from one simulation. This method may be voltage source, whose internal impedance is set to zero. In this

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way, the impact of the coupling frequency current induced by will, 1) extract the phasor information at the interested
the tested IBR on the system side network can be minimized frequencies, including fundamental frequency (f1),
such that the accuracy of the measured IBR impedance perturbation frequency (fp) and coupling frequency (2f1-fp) for
characteristic is improved [10-13]. The 3-phase perturbation fp ≤ 120Hz, and 2) allocate the phasor information into a pre-
signals are represented by the tandem DC voltage sources, formatted Excel spreadsheet for further derivation of the
Ea,b,c with small resistances of 1mΩ. The instantaneous 3- impedance information in an appropriate format depending on
phase voltage and current quantities, Va,b,c and Ia,b,c are the study purposes, either for SSCI or for frequency domain
measured at the POI. analytical analysis.
Group 2: These three real constants, v1Mag, v1Frq and IV. SOME PRACTICAL ISSUES ADDRESSED IN ZSC'S
v1Ang, specify the magnitude (Line-to-line RMS value),
AUTOMATIC IMPEDANCE SCAN PROCESS
frequency and phase angle of the fundamental signals.
With the ZSC module briefly introduced in Section III,
Group 3: The three real constants, hamMag, hamFrq and some practical issues addressed in the ZSC module are
hamAng, specify the magnitude (Line-to-neutral peak value), presented in this section, by demonstration of its utilization on
frequency and phase angle of the perturbation signals. Then a Type-3 wind turbine PSCAD model provided by the
the sub-module ‘SigHarm Inj Cmpt’ calculates the 3-phase manufacturer.
sinusoid voltage quantities, Ea,b,c fed into the electrical circuit.
Groups 4 and 5: Two FFT components, namely Vfft and A. Selecting the Magnitude of Perturbation Signals
Ifft, are included to obtain the voltage and current The general rule to specify the perturbation signal is to not
measurements at POI and calculate their magnitude and phase disturb the performance of the fundamental signal. To this
angle information at all harmonic orders, labeled as VaM, VaP, end, it’s generally to specify a small magnitude for the
IaM and IaP of the four time series arrays. It’s noted that the perturbation signals. For demonstration purpose, the
FFT components in the ZSC tool is, 1) adopted from the magnitude was specified to be 0.1kV for the 30Hz
Intermediate library of PSCAD v4.6.3, which can calculate the perturbation signal, or 0.04% of the fundamental signal at
frequency signal up to 511th order harmonic rather 255th order 345kV.
for the FFT component in the Master library; and 2) minorly
customized by authors to better leveraging the PSCAD The obtained current spectrum with respect to the injected
Automation Library, e.g. adding the FFT identifications Vfft perturbation signal magnitude is shown in Fig. 4 (a). From this
and Ifft to differentiate the two FFT blocks. These two points chart it can be observed that 1) the current magnitude of the
better facilitate the automation process management of the perturbation signal Ip is only 0.6A, which is relatively
large quantity of the PSCAD cases in PCAR, when the marginal comparing to the fundamental current of 732A in
interested frequency to be scanned locates in the super- this case study, or 0.08%; and 2) with the magnitude of the
synchronous range, as high as up to 10kHz in this paper. perturbation signal being selected too small, the coupling
frequency current at 90Hz, Ic may not be properly identified
Groups 6 and 7: These two components are used to record such that the accuracy of the further calculated impedance
the voltage and current FFT results from Groups 4 and 5 information at interested frequencies might be degraded.
respectively at the specific time instant, e.g. t = 7s as shown in
Fig. 3. Note that selection of the time instant is dependent on With the above concern raised, the perturbation signal
the tested PSCAD models and should be specified to a value magnitude was increased to 1.5kV and 6kV respectively. The
when the simulation approaches to a steady state. obtained current spectrums are present in Figs. 4 (b) and (c)
respectively. Observations on these two charts reveal that with
increasing of the perturbation signal magnitude Ip, the induced
current at the coupling frequency 90Hz, Ic becomes prominent
in the spectrum.
For the 6kV case, the perturbation current magnitude
Ip=45A, which is 6% of the fundamental current, not
disturbing its performance. The Ic magnitude is increased to a
reasonable level of 4A or 9% of Ip. In this way the calculated
impedance information, especially at the coupling frequency,
can be more reliable by avoiding the potential numerical issue
in derivation of the impedance information. Therefore, the
6kV perturbation signal magnitude for this model was
selected.

B. Further Investigation on the Magnitude of Perturbation

Fig. 3. Circuit and measurement components within the ZSC module. Signals at Low Frequency Range
The recorded voltage and current FFT results at the For test purpose, the impedance scan from 1 to 140Hz was
specified time instant are then saved to two text files on the tested to investigate the appropriateness of the selected
local drive, say Vfft.txt and Ifft.txt, from which the PCAR perturbation signal magnitude of 6kV. The perturbation
current spectrum with respect to the fundamental current at

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scanned frequencies is shown in Fig. 5. It is found that there is current and leads to an unstable condition for the wind turbine
a spike around frequency of 3Hz, at which the perturbation trip offline, such that the fundamental current is insignificant
current is as high as 235% of the fundamental current. But this at the recorded time instant.
is not the case for other frequencies when the perturbation
current is generally below 12% of the fundamental current To accommodate this inaccuracy issue, the perturbation
magnitude, as depicted in the zoomed in plot in Fig. 5. voltage magnitude was reduced to 1kV in the low frequency
range below 10Hz. Re-run the testing cases from 1-10Hz and
the obtained perturbation current spectrum is presented in Fig.
6. Comparing to the results in Fig. 5, it can be found that there
is no huge spike at 3Hz and the perturbation current is within a
reasonable range, less than 12% of the fundamental current for
all the scanned frequencies. This reveals that perturbation
voltage is suitably specified such that 1) the induced
perturbation and coupling currents are large enough to assure a
reasonable signal-to-noise ratio, and 2) the perturbation signal
is small enough to retain the system’s linearity.
It’s noted that such perturbation signal magnitude
adjustment based on different testing frequency has been
programmed in the PCAR tool and can be automatically
implemented without user’s manual intervene.
(a)

Fig. 5. Perturbation current spectrum with respect to the fundamental current

for perturbation voltage magnitudes of 6kV.
(b)

Fig. 6. Perturbation current spectrum with respect to the fundamental current

(c) for perturbation voltage magnitudes of 1kV (1Hz ≤ fp ≤10Hz) and 6kV (fp >
10Hz).
Fig. 4. Coupling current spectrum with respect to the perturbation current for
different perturbation voltage magnitudes: (a) 0.1kV, (b) 1.5kV, and (c) 6kV.
C. Automatic Impedance Scan in the Sub- and Super-
By further checking the simulation results, it’s found that
synchronous Frequency Range
under low frequency range, when the Type 3 turbine exhibits a
very low impedance due to its linear impedance characteristic, With the perturbation signal properly specified as
the perturbation voltage creates a very high current at that described in the last two sub-sections, the ZSC module was
frequency, e.g. 3Hz, which distorts the fundamental frequency run in the PCAR platform following the general
implementation process as described in the manual [22]. For

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