Equilibrium-Independent Stability Analysis for Distribution Systems With Lossy Transmission Lines

Power distribution systems are becoming much more active with increased penetration of distributed energy resources. Because of the intermittent nature of these resources, the stability of distribution systems under large disturbances and time-varying conditions is becoming a key issue in practical operations. Because the transmission lines in distribution systems are lossy, standard approaches in power system stability analysis do not readily apply. In this letter, the stability of lossy distribution systems is certified by breaking the network into subsystems. By looking at the equilibrium-independent passivity of each subsystem, the stability of the whole network is implied by the diagonal stability of the interconnection matrix. This analysis scales to large networked systems with time-varying equilibria. The proposed method gracefully extrapolates between lossless and lossy systems, and provides a simple yet effective approach to optimize control efforts with guaranteed stability regions. Case studies verify that the proposed method is much less conservative than existing approaches.