2016 IEEE PES Asia-Pacific Power and Energy Conference - Xi'an - China
On the Influence of the Backlash Governor Settings
on the Frequency Response in Power Systems
Jiangnan Xi, Student Member, IEEE, Harold R. Chamorro, Student Member, IEEE,
Jonas Persson, Member, IEEE,Andreas Westberg, Member, IEEE,
Daniel Wall, Member, IEEE,and Mehrdad Ghandhari, Member, IEEE
Abstract-The automatic frequency containment reserve
(FCR-N) is in place to keep the electric frequency within the
interval 50.0 +/- 0.1 Hz during normal operation. This function
is mainly provided by a number of hydropower plants where the
turbine governor is set to control the discharge in proportion
to the measured frequency deviation. In later years it has been
shown that the disturbance damping is very low in an interval
around 1160 Hz and it is believed that proper tuning of the
turbine governors that provide FCR-N can help mitigating this
problem. New regulator settings have been suggested to improve
the performance of the FCR-N, yet keeping the system robust
and the wear on participating units at a minimum. It is now
desired to investigate the possible effects of new governor settings
on the overall power system frequency response. In a word,
the overall performance for new governor settings are tested
in a large scale power system model in this thesis paper. The
frequency response with the newly suggested governor settings
have been investigated when introducing a disturbance into the
system. Secondly, the effects of the new governor settings on
electro-mechanical oscillations are also investigated.
Index Terms-Hydropower, Frecuency Response, Backlash,
Oscillations Monitoring, PMU Data.
I. INTRODUCTION
HE interconnected synchronous Nordic power system
T
comprises of Sweden, Norway, Finland and Eastern part
of Denmark (Zealand). It includes a large amount of producers
and consumers in the Nordic electricity market. To maintain
the power system stability especially the frequency quality, the
electric power should be kept in balance between production
and consumption part. Moreover, with the development of
renewable energy, more and more flexible generation is in­
jected to the power grid, which might introduce fluctuations of
power transfer and alter the system dynamics. Thus, frequency
control is of great importance to keep the frequency within
nominal range and guarantee the safe operation of the Nordic
power system.
Jiangnan Xi is a Master student at KTH Royal Institute of Technology,
Stockholm, Sweden, e-mail: jiangnan@kth.se.
Harold R. Chamorro is a PhD student at KTH Royal Institute of Technology,
Stockholm, Sweden, e-mail: hr.chamo@ieee.org.hrcv@kth.se.
Jonas Persson is Head of Section Power Technology, Vattenfall R&D,
Stockholm, Sweden, e-mail: jonas.h.persson@vattenfall.com.
Andreas Westberg is with Svenska Kraftnat, Stockholm, Sweden, e-mail:
andreas. westberg@svk.se
Daniel Wall is with Vattenfall R&D, Stockholm, Sweden, e-mail:
daniel. wall@vattenfall.com
Mehrdad Ghandhari is Professor at KTH Royal Institute of Technology,
Stockholm, Sweden, e-mail: mehrdad@kth.se.
978-1-5090-5417-6/16/ $ 31.00 ©2016 IEEE
732
There are various types of generation sources in the Nordic
power system including hydropower, wind power, nuclear
power and thermal power. Sweden has more than 50% genera­
tion relying on hydropower and Norway has almost the entire
generation coming from hydropower.
The automatic Frequency Containment Reserve (FCR-N) is
the primary control which is in place to keep the electric
frequency within the interval 50.0 0.1 Hz during normal
operation. This function is mainly provided by a number
of hydropower plants where the turbine governor is set to
control the discharge in proportion to the measured frequency
deviation. The governor's performance becomes one of the
key factor in frequency control. One new type of hydro
turbine governor model has been developed, and tested [1] , to
consider more non-linearity as well as new governor settings
that may have positive effects on mitigating the frequency
variations in the power grid. Simulations have been performed
with the software Simpow [ ].
In the latest years, it has been observed that the Nordic
power system has a frequency oscillation with a period time
from 40 s to 90 s which have a negative impact on the
frequency quality.
Full scale frequency response tests have been performed
in a large hydropower station in the North of Sweden by
introducing sinusoidal power variation with amplitudes of up
to more than 70 MW. It has been obtained a resonance peak
in the frequency amplitude for period times around 60 s.
Moreover, it shows that small periodic power variation may
cause big frequency oscillations in the power grid .
In order to improve the quality of the grid frequency, some
research on developing a new hydro turbine governor model
and has performed some related tests and experiments. The
new governor model includes Proportional and Integration part
(PI Controller) and consider the hydropower plants dynamics
as well as backlashes in the servo and guide vane regulating
mechanism, both before and after the feedback to the con­
troller.
By testing the governor performance it has been discovered
some trade-off among the functionality aspects of the governor
[2]. For example, a trade-off has been detected between the
actuator work and frequency control performance as well as a
trade-off between the performance of frequency control in the
low-frequency range and the mid-frequency range. Besides, in
[3], a research on implementation of the Nordic power system
in an open source software (PSAT) [4] and test of a newly
developed hydro turbine governor has been done. In [3], it

has been emphasized the importance for small signal stability
to introduce an appropriate model of hydro turbine governors.
In [5], some related research has been done on detecting
the effects of governor settings for eigenvalues movements. In
[5], research was focused on three governor settings which
are; dashpot reset time, the temporary droop and the gate
servomotor system gain. The dashpot is applied in mechanical
hydraulic governor system to provide the transient droop
compensation. It demonstrated that it can be neglected for the
decrease in the damping ratio with increase in reset time and
gate servomotor system gain, comparing to suit for their value
selection [5].
This paper, analyses the effect of the backlash inclusion on
the governor settings and its impact on the frequency response
by PMU data measurements and computer time-domain sim­
ulations. The proposed approach method is presented with the
analysis being illustrated in the Nordic 32 test system.
The paper is structured as follows: In Section II the test
system and the motivation of this study is described. Section
III explains the backlash governor settings. Section IV presents
the Phasor Measurement Unit data analysis. Section V intro­
duces the simulation and results. Finally the conclusions are
given.
II. SYSTEM MODELLI N G
In the real Nordic power system, according to Figure 1, the
grid has been divided into ten areas. With the geographical
breakdown, it is here meant that every country in the Nordic
synchronous system is divided into at least one area, because
each country is responsible for the power balance within their
own country. The other factor that has been taken into account
is the transmission capacity between the different areas, both
within a country and between countries.
�"'i:':=�
�'i.b.::'''''
�...:.:
mw_
:. =�
n. -
mw....... •__
!lOW""""
�-�
_ n••
Figure 1. The Nordic power system divided in ten areas.
In order to test the governor's performance in a real power
system, the selected test system is Nordic 32 model proposed
by Cigre task force 38-02-08 [6]. This test system which
733
2
consists of 32 buses is a representation of the Swedish
transmission system as well as small parts of the Norwegian
and Finnish transmission systems. Most of the modelled plants
are hydropower plants but it also includes some nuclear power
plants and thermal power plants.
The Nordic 32 model has 400 kV, 220 kV and 130 kV
lines. The system consists of four major parts: a large hydro
production and some loads in the northern part, a heavy load
and substantial thermal generation located in the central part,
some thermal generation and some load in the south west
part, and a high load and generation in external part. They
represent northern part of Sweden, central and southern part of
Sweden, Danish Island Zealand and Finland part respectively.
It indicates a transmission of power in the Nordic Power grid.
Since hydropower plants have covered almost 90% power
generation in Norway and 50% in Sweden, it is important to
test the new governor performance including most of them. In
this way, the Norway part should be extended. A more detailed
Norwegian power grid has been connected to the model within
this work.
III. GOVERNOR MODEL
In hydropower stations, the original source of electrical
energy distributed in practice is the potential energy stored in
the water. In order to ensure a good performance of electrical
power and frequency in the real power grid, the turbine gov­
ernor for the hydropower plant has been developed to balance
the power generation and consumption so as to maintain the
grid frequency in a safe range. With the information from grid
frequency, the turbine governor control opens the gate opening
of the valve to limit the flow of water to control the output
power. The generator speed is the input signal to the governor
and the gate position is the output signal from the governor.
The Nordic power system has a lot of hydropower and
frequency control are predominately performed by hydropower
plants .
The controller part is usually described as a PI controller
which can be modified manually to get a better response. In
the governor part, servo is always modelled as a first order lag
filter called Gs(s) [2].
1 e-sTdel
Gs (S) = (1)
Tys+ 1
Water dynamic of hydropower plant is of great necessity to
consider when developing a governing system. The water in
the penstock is accelerated when the guide vane opening is
altered. The relation between guide vane opening and power
output is concluded as a transfer function Gt (s) [2].
(2)
The governor can be expressed as a first order low-pass
input signal filter with the transfer function as [2]:
Kps+ Ki
C(S) = (3)
(Tfs+ 1) (EpKp+ 1) S+ EpKi
In the previous research, this governor has been studied
when connected to a simplified system which is only described
by 1 =(Ms+ D), where M is the system inertia and D is 1.1,----,-----.---,--.,====;l

the frequency dependence of the load. In this thesis paper, a

1.05
system model much closer to the real Nordic power system is
developed to study the governor performance in a large scale
power system.
L--�--�-----'---�--'
0.95
o

A. Backlash Model
Figure 4. The test result of backlash function block.
The backlash is a non-linear part in the new governor
model. It is a conunon phenomenon which appears in most
mechanical and hydraulic systems. The dead band existing
model. In order to reduce the error during the simulation,
in the mechanism leads to a hysteresis phenomenon between
sinusoidal signals are injected in a governor of a generator in
the input and the output position. It can affect the system
the northern part of the model, which is situated in the North
performance [7] or introduce oscillations. The backlash mech­
of the Nordic power grid. The sinusoidal signals are injected
anism is illustrated as in Figure 2. The Body1 tries to transmit
as shown in Figure 5. Actually, as seen from the figure, the
the motion to Body2 via a dead zone of magnitude D. The
input is a pure sinusoidal signal in per unit. However, this
transmission will be correct when the two bodies are in
synthetical frequency to the governor can generate a sinusoidal
contact, in this case there positions are identical. Out of the
power injected to the system which reach the requirements of
contact, the transmission will be delayed by the presence of
the real test in the hydropower station.
the dead zone where the relation between the bodies positions
will describe an hysteresis cycle behaviour [7].
In a mathematical way, the backlash can be interpreted as
following: Sinusoidal
Power

{�out =
Xin, in.contact
(4)
Xout = 0 otherwise 1+'------1RI+------,

According to the mathematical explanation above, the back­

lash function can be developed in Simpow. Within Simpow the
dynamic simulation language DSL have been used to develop
a backlash function, see Figure 3. -VOLM

Figure 5. Old Governor model in Simpow with sinusoidal signals introduced

to the system

The governor model used in the Simpow has a simple

structure. Several parameters are defined as following. TR is
Figure 2. Backlash in Mechanism
the governor time constant. TF is the filter time constant. TG is
the servo time constant. Besides, gate limits and gate velocity
limits are termed as GMAX, GMIN and ±VELM [12]. The
XOIII
sinusoidal power oscillations which are introduced into the
system are regarded as per unit value to meet the requirement
of the governor settings. Moreover, the Phasor Measurement
Unit in the hydropower station located in the North of Sweden,
Xin
observes the power oscillations injected to the power system
as shown in Figure 6. The oscillation period times are 250
s, 150 s, 100 s, 60 s, 40 s, 25 s, and 15 s. But in Figure 6,
oscillation period times shows only for 100 s, 25 s and 15 s.
Based on the fast fourier analysis and bode plots in Matlab,
Figure 3. Mathematical representation the data coming from the Full Scale Frequency Response Test
is analysed. The test is executed both on day and night. The
Based on this algorithm, the backlash block can be devel­ result is shown in Figure 7.
oped. A sinusoidal test has been executed to verify whether it As can be seen from Figure 7, the points are representing the
works. The result is shown in Figure 4. gain for each of the oscillation period times from 15 s to 250
s. The upper one in blue are the gains at each of period times
IV. MODEL VALIDATION WITH PMU DATA
during day time. It is found that the resonance peak point are
A. Validation with Old Governor Model pointing at 60 s which is well-matched with the known data.
For the sake of validating the system model further, the Thus, the analysis tool for the system response is matches
hydropower station full scale test is reproduced in the Simpow with the data model. As mentioned above, the extended system

734
 4

are different and real power system has a higher level of

complexity, the system model in Simpow has a more sensitive
response than the real system when subjected to a disturbance.
Therefore it is of great necessity to involve a new governor
model into the test system to make the simulation model closer
to the real one.

B. Validation with a New Governor Model

Figure 6. Example of the measured power [MW] in the hydropower station
during the fullscale test.
model is supposed to be tested in an identical way. By the same
mean of calculation, the model system response is shown in
Figure 8 with comparison of the hydropower station day test.
0.7 r-T------,,�---....,
---+-- Oay Test
In order to validate the test system with a new governor
model, the same test is supposed to be performed again with
the same approach as in the hydropower station test. However,
it is also necessary to detect the effects of a new governor
model on the Full Scale test. It is important to observe if the
resonance peak point of the system is moved with the new
governor model applied and the controller settings rescaled.
Besides, the backlash is considered in the system with 0.05%
to get a much accurate model for the governor part. The

---+-- Night Test

sinusoidal signals has been injected as shown in Figure 9.
Sinusoidal signals have been applied with 250 s, 150 s, 100
0.5 .... ... ....... - .. s,60 sAO s, 25 s, and 15 s period time.
:i
.2- 0.4
::i
ci.
� 0.3 .... ..........

0.2 .... .....,..

0.1

10.2
Frequency (Hz)

Figure 7. The system response in real test in the hydropower station. The Figure 9. Signal Tests Injection
system resonance point are observed at 60 s.

Previous research has suggested three different governor

settings (C1, C2 and C3) which satisfies different goals on
1.4 ,------,-.,...,-,---,---.,--,--.,....,...,..,
performance and disturbance sensitivity [8]. It is of great
importance to detect if new settings can have a better response
to the system .
In Figures 10 and Figure 11, with the rescaled parameters of
governor model, the gain for each period point declines and
is closer to the real system behaviour, although the system
resonance point is still at 40 s. It can be concluded that the
0.4
new settings decrease the gain resonance peak, which means
0.2 that they are more efficient in suppressing disturbances. The
suppression of disturbances is important to the safe operation
10-2
Frt'qut'nc�' (Hz)
of the grid.

Figure 8. The comparison of the hydropower station test result between real
test and Simpow test.
As shown above, the blue curve in Figure 8 represents the
result from real test in the hydropower station holding a 60 s
resonance peak, while the green curve illustrates the identical
test performed in Simpow with a 40 s resonance peak during
day time. For the short time periods in the Simpow test, for
example 15 s to 60 s, it holds a higher value of the gain since
the Simpow has more sensitivity on the disturbance within this
period range. However, since the governor type and settings
V. FREQUENCY RE SPONSE COMPARI SON S
In this section, the new governor's performance is tested by
introducing a small disturbance into the power system. One of
the generators has been tripped on Bus 4063. The frequency
response with different settings and different system dynamic
included, such as frequency dependent load and backlash.
In this section, the frequency responses when a generator
is suddenly disconnected from the system are illustrated.
Different rescaled settings are tested and the result is shown
in Figure 12. The frequency dependent loads are not included.

735
 0 7 ,---------------------,- -, -----,---,----,---
-- ,---
- -,---,--,
-,--- In Figure 13, the system responses show better results for
--+-- R�al test in Messaure
...... Old governor mO&l in Simpow new settings from C1 to C3 compared to EpO setting. The total
06
frequency variation is decreased and oscillation is improved
as well due to the frequency dependent loads. The loads with
frequency dependence regulate themself with the frequency
� 0.4
..., varied after the disturbance. It makes the difference between
. " 0.3
total generation and total load in the test system smaller and
v
keeps the system balance better.
02 ... ...... . ,.

1.0005 i------,--------
-, -----.--r============il
0.1 -- New governor model with Ep
-- New governor model with C1
-- New governor model with C2
o L-----��--�����----�-
10-3 10-2 10-1 New governor model with C3
Frt'qUf'Dcy (Hz)

,; 0.9995

Figure 10. The comparison of system response when performing the same '"

disturbance in old governors and new governors. �

=

� 0.999
.;:

--+-- Real T cst ill Messaure 0.9985

Liruunodel in Simpow wilh EpO
--e-- with rescaled parameters
and frequency dq>endcnt loads

0.998 '--------",----
- ---'. -,-----"',-----
- --,,L ,-----
- -:-""------'"
0 100 150 200 250 300
0.5

Tillle(s)

Figure 13. The Comparison of frequency response with different new rescaled
. ; 0.3
<0 governor settings involved and with frequency dependent load after a generator
tripped.

1.001 ,-------,--.--,--,
10-2
Frf'qUf'Hcy (Hz)

Figure 11. The comparison of system response when performing the same
disturbance in new governors.
-;- 0.998 .
3:
;.,
� 0.997 .
It can be observed that the new settings have smaller =
.­

0-
overshot, less oscillation and faster recovery time than the � 0.996
nominal setting EpO.
0.995
Since the frequency dependent load indicates the real loads
behaviour according to the frequency variation of the power 0.994 -- Backlash 0.05%
-- Backlash 0.1 %
grid, it is practical to consider it into the test system. Backlash 0.5%
0.993 L------'-----
- -----L---------------'====::i::==::::J
-'
o 50 100 150 200 250 300
1.0005 ,------------;
-, ..------,-----,------.------.-------, Time(s)

Figure 14. The impact of Backlash for governor performance.

0.9995

0.999

t
"""
As is mentioned before, backlash exists in the turbine part as
0.9985
well as the governor parts. According to the previous research,
6- 0.998
the backlash is only considered in the turbine part with the
.!: 0.9975 value varied from ±O.025% to ±O.5%. As shown in Figure
0.997 -- New governor model wti h EpO
14, with the value of backlash increasing, the frequency has
-- New governor model wti h Cl worse response with bigger overshot with a higher backlash.
0.9965 -- New governor model with C2
N:::: ' :::mo:;:d'I ith C3 However, it can be observed that the system from ±O.1% to
--L��=-=- ":;,=, g=ov:::er:::no=
:::: ":::
::::::: ::::::=:::!.1
O.996L __---'.___---'-___

o 50 100 150 200 250 300 ±O.5% exists a big difference on the frequency nadir, while
Time(s)
from ±O.025% to ±O.1% varies not much. It can be proposed
Figure 12. The Comparison of frequency response with different new
there should be limits to control the backlash not affecting the
rescaled governor settings involved and without frequency dependent load system a lot, which can be regarded as the protection limits
after a generator trip. on the turbine part.

736
A. Effects on Inter-area Modes
The inter-area modes have been observed in the Nordic
power system in previous studies [9], [10]. When testing
the new governor model settings, the inter-area modes are
expected not to be affected. The comparison for new settings
and nominal settings which is used currently is shown in
Figure 15. The horizontal axis represents the frequency [Hz]
and vertical axis represents the damping of the modes [lis] in
the frequency domain.
There are five modes which have been observed in the simu­
lation as shown in Figure 15. Their corresponding frequencies
are 0.33 Hz, 0.57 Hz, 0.60 Hz, 0.78 Hz and 0.80 Hz. It can be
seen from the figure that the inter-area modes are not affected
with different controller settings. Therefore, the new governor
settings are able to maintain the inter-area modes and improve
the frequency stability of the 60 s-mode (0.0167 Hz).
t:r New Govemor £pO Setting
0.9 + New Govemor C I Setting
0.8 .:
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
-0.7 -0.6 -0.5 -0.4 -0.3 -0.2 -0.1
Figure 15. The impact of new governor settings on inter-area modes.
V I. CONCLU SIONS
The reduced Nordic power system model constructed in
Simpow is partially validated with the PMU data from Nordic
resonance tests in the real power system. It is performed by
applying the same full scale test into the Simpow model as in
the real test and the parameters of the controller are rescaled
according to the inertias of real system and the test system. In a
word, model validation with new governor model is partially
finished. The model behaves qualitatively as the real power
system when subjects to a sinusoidal disturbance.
Although it has a difference on the system resonance peak
points, it shows good results on scaling down the gains for
the injected oscillations when applying new governor settings
of the controller. It indicates that the new settings are able
to reduce the oscillation when the system is subjected to
disturbances. The highest gain can be moved by varying the
controller parameters as well as the droop of the controller
related to how much primary frequency control is involved.
Besides, the frequency responses of new governor settings
when a generator lost in the system, have better results than
nominal value. Therefore, parameter tuning of the governors
seems to be a useful tool to affect the frequency stability in
the range around 1/60 Hz.
737
For the electro-mechanical oscillation, parameters can be
changed within certain limits without inftuenciating the inter­
area modes. The existing backlash in the governor introduces
non-linear components into the system. It has more negative
impact on the frequency response when increasing the value
of it. When controlling the backlash within a limited range,
it will not affect the system response. However, it is good to
include it into the power system model when performing the
simulation so as to assimilate it to the real power system.
ACKNOWLEG MENT
Authors are thankful for the contribution from SvK, Fingrid,
Statnett, Vattenfall, and Gothia Power.
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