Asynchronous interconnection of the proposed East Africa Power Pool (EAPP)

Abstract

East Africa Power Pool (EAPP) is a proposed regional interconnection for centralizing energy resources and facilitating power wheeling between the Eastern Africa geographical areas. Synchronous tie lines have been used in the established interconnections so far. However, asynchronous interconnection is preferred since there high Renewable Energy (RE) penetration in the EAPP. HVDC technology, particularly multi terminal DC (MTDC) is a good example of such links as it provides loose coupling between the interconnected power systems. This has several economic, environmental and security-stability merits as compared to the traditional HVAC tie lines. The Kenya-Ethiopia HVDC Bipolar is supposed to provide a loose coupling between the two countries. The same technology can be reproduced in the EAPP so as to achieve a dynamic regional interconnection. Thus, a 10-Area system with 18 MTDC tie lines is considered where each area represents a Transmission System Operator (TSO) for each country. In this paper, a multi area multi objective economic dispatch (MAMODED) with RE and Emissions is formulated where MTDC constraints have been included for the first time in the EAPP. Review of EAPP and MAMODED with RE, merits of MTDC interconnection, RE penetration in EAPP, and MTDC tie line power flows are also presented.