NERC Issues Level 3 Alert for Solar Inverters

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The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) has issued a “level 3” alert to utilities regarding solar inverters.  In a nutshell, these inverters are associated with ongoing issues that are hindering the ability to integrate clean energy resources into the grid, negatively impacting reliability.

NERC’s Warnings About Solar Inverters

The crux of the issue is that solar inverter settings are often inaccessible, which prevents the ability to modify how solar and wind sources respond to disturbances in the grid.  This inaccessibility often stems from the settings being locked behind unknown manufacturer-issued login credentials (and, making matters worse is that some of these manufacturers are now out of business).

When utilities cannot access these settings, solar inverters could overreact to a disturbance (such as a substation going dark, infrastructure damage from a wildfire, or a largescale grid failure) by shutting down.  As such, the NERC alert makes the following recommendations:

• Update generator interconnection and planning activities to include technical details and performance criteria for inverter assets.
• Ensure documentation accurately reflects the specific models and details of all installed, or to-be installed, equipment.
• Review currently operating inverter assets for performance and accuracy.
• Make sure any design-evaluation models submitted for use in generator interconnection and planning processes are accurate and contain detailed representations of their inverter-based resource.

The bottom line is that if your company is using solar inverters, there is a fair amount of work to do in order to comply with NERC’s guidance.  And it’s important to avoid procrastinating on this, because unstable wind and solar integrations can have a negative impact on reliability and the overall stability of the grid.

One last thought here is that this highlights the importance of keeping informed.  Optimal emergency preparedness does not happen in a bubble.  It’s critical to incorporate relevant external information into the decision-making process, whether we’re talking about solar inverters or something else entirely!