2018 Twentieth International Middle East Power Systems Conference (MEPCON), Cairo University, Egypt
Short-term frequency stability regulation for power
system with large-scale wind energy penetration
using PID controller
Eslam M. Wazeer Rasha El-Azab
Electrical Power and Machines Electrical Power and Machines
department department
Faculty of Engineering, Faculty of Engineering,
Helwan University Helwan University
Cairo, Egypt Cairo, Egypt
eslam.wazeer@gmail.com r_m_elazab@yahoo.com
Abstract—Energy storage schemes play important role in
stabilizing grid frequency, specifically, with high wind power
penetration. In this paper, different controller types have been
used to adjust the flow of storage power through an
appropriate power converter. Step response is studied for PI,
PID, and non-linear PID controllers to define proper controller
for short-term frequency stability support. A conventional
generator emulator is proposed. PID controller shows
significant improvement in frequency behavior of studied
cases.
Keywords—Frequency stability, wind energy, power
converter control, PID controller, non-linear PID controller.
I. INTRODUCTION
Clean energy has a worldwide significant increment in
the last decade, such as wind and solar ones. This growing
trend is a response to the harmful environmental effects of
increasing carbon emissions resulted from the conventional
power plants [1], [2]. Wind power has good technical and
economic characteristics.
Consequently, wind-based power generation
technologies are being used more than any other renewable
sources [1]. For instance, Denmark gets 25% of the
electricity from the wind nowadays. Moreover, Danish wind
generation presence is required to be increased to 50% by
2020 [1]. As well, according to [3], the European electricity
demand from the wind energy is predicted to reach 23% of
total generated power by 2030.
On the other hand, the prospective increase in global
wind power affects badly power system frequency stability,
especially in the short-term stage. Wind plants are usually
connected to the grid via power electronics converters. These
converters isolate grid frequency behavior from wind plant
response.
So, wind turbines don’t provide an inertial response as
classical plants. Due to electronic devices decoupling
between whole grid frequency and rotating masses of the
wind turbines [2]. In addition, conventional frequency
primary control isn’t afforded in such cases [4], [5].
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978-1-5386-6654-8/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE
Mohamed Daowd A. M. Abdel Ghany
Electrical Power and Machines Electrical Power and Machines
department department
Faculty of Engineering, Faculty of Engineering,
Helwan University Helwan University
Cairo, Egypt Cairo, Egypt
m_a_daowd@yahoo.com ghanyghany@hotmail.com
Many researchers investigate high penetration of wind
power effects systems' frequency behavior. In [6], the
influence of the wind turbines on the power system’s
transient stability was studied. Also, [1] discussed the
resultant effect of adding several types of wind turbines on
the frequency stability during the short time frame.
Energy storages integration with the wind turbines is an
effective method to support the frequency stability. As
proposed in [7] and [8], a virtual inertia via energy storage
devices improves grid frequency in case of wind power high
sharing.
Selecting the proper controller has a main role in
stabilizing the power of the grid in such critical time frame.
Energy storage power must be controlled to emulate the
response of the conventional power plants according to
presented frequency fluctuations.
In [9], an appropriate control structure is suggested for
exchanging power between energy storage and the electrical
grid. A grid-feeding power converter control was proposed
using a PI controller.
While enhancement of short-term frequency requires a
fast response controller due to its limited time nature. PI
controller can’t provide such fast response that suits short-
term stability requirements. Therefore, this paper compares
between different grid-feeding power converter controllers.
In this work; an emulator of both conventional power
plant inertia and primary control is suggested to cover
properly any shortage in wind plant behavior during grid
disturbances. PI, PID and non-linear PID (NLPID)
controllers are tested for step response case.
Each controller is explored to define the main features of
their performances. Selecting the optimal gains of
previously mentioned controllers is performed by particle
swarm theory-based technique.
The residual content of this paper have been sectioned as
follows; Section II proposes the frequency stability of the
power system and the behavior of the grid frequency after
power mismatch disturbances. As well, section III shows
studied control system for a grid-feeding power converter in
addition to an emulation for inertia and governor of the frequency collapse out of grid-code limitations. Many
conventional power plants. Then, the proposed controllers undesired protection actions or even cascading outage can
simulation results discussion is provided in section IV. occur in such cases without proper control technique.
Finally, in section V, a conclusion is presented.

II. FREQUENCY STABILITY

A. General
According to [10], the stability of the electrical network
frequency can be described as, the system possibility of
maintaining a steady frequency after that system’s generation
and load imbalance disturbances.
The frequency restoration time frame, after a disturbance,
can be divided into short-term and long-term. Short-term
recovery for grid frequency is limited by several seconds
following the disturbance. While, long-term recovery
proceeds for another period of time which is relaxed up to
several minutes [10], [11].
Fig. 1: Frequency restoration hereafter the disturbance. [12]
B. The frequency recovery process
Significant power mismatch event usually occurs after a
sudden large load connection or substantial generation units III. CONTROL SYSTEM
outage. Traditional frequency recovery process can be A. Emulation of conventional power plant inertial response
separated into four stages according to time frame concerned, and governor
as follows:
For large-scale wind plant, two separate control loops are
x inertial response, proposed to emulate traditional plant frequency behavior in
the short-term time frame. First, inertial response emulation,
x primary frequency control, yellow block in Fig.2, is proposed to emulate the immediate
x secondary frequency control, and action of plant rotating mass inertia based on grid frequency.

x tertiary frequency control [6]. Governor emulation, blue block, is suggested to

minimize frequency dip to permissible limits of related grid
code, see Fig.2. Proposed control loops are applied on wind
plant grid feeding converter to estimate the needed storage
Fig. 1 clarifies the frequency behavior over the
power profile for supporting the short-term recovery.
mentioned stages, as well as, the time range for each stage
[12]. Each stage of recovery is controlled by different factors
in the traditional grid, where;
x The inertial response is the inverse-response to the
frequency deviations, which supported by the
conventional power plants through the energy
stored in the rotating mass of the grid-connected
generators [13].
x Primary control is performed by the governor to
change the real power output from the generator
responding to the variance between the instant and
the nominal values of the frequency, to achieve a
steady-state frequency [13].
x Then the automatic generation controller is
activated to eliminate the error between the steady-
state and the nominal value of frequency within the
secondary frequency control stage [13]. Fig. 2: Schematic diagram of inertia and governor emulation.

x Finally, for perfect economic operation, a tertiary

control is performed by changing the generators According to [15], the inertial response opposes the
working points or the loads participating in order to variation of frequency during the transients. Inertial
economically redistribute the demanded power on emulation ( ) can be represented mathematically, as
the generation units [14]. follows:
On the other hand, wind turbines suffer from the absence −2
of both inertial response and primary control, or governor = ∗ (1)
response, which influences the whole grid short-term
frequency stability. So, the wind plants behavior can lead to

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 Where, is the inertial time constant, that equivalent to = ∙ + ∙ (3)
the replaced conventional generation plant (a typical value
ranging from 2 to 10 seconds), is the replaced generator = ∙ − ∙ (4)
nominal power, and are the grid nominal and
instantaneous frequency in Hz, respectively.
Where is the active power component, and is the
The other control loop acts like the governor response for reactive one. , are the direct and quadrant voltage
frequency support. Governor response depends on the components. , are the direct and quadrant current
frequency deviation from the nominal value (Δ ) [16], and
performing as the governor droop control in order to balance
components.
the load change [15]. According to [15], the power required Nevertheless, applications within a narrow time frame,
( ) to emulate this response in conventional power plants is such as short-term frequency stability regulation, requires a
given by: controller with a fast response. Therefore, the PI controller
− used with the grid-feeding power converter will be replaced
=− ∗ ∗ (2) by two other PID controllers to provide adequate
performance for such analysis, as will be discussed in the
Where, is the replaced generator nominal power, following subsection.
is the proportional gain between the frequency deviation and C. Proposed controllers
power variation (a typical value in the range of 10 to 25
p.u.), and are the grid nominal and instantaneous 1. PID controller:
frequency in Hz, respectively. It has a simple and easily implementation structure.
This type is much frequently used in the control
systems [17]. The addition of PID controller to the
B. Control of three-phase grid-feeding power converter system is being performed for the advantage of
eliminating the steady-state error. It improves also
The power transference, between the energy storage and
the transient response of the controlled system [18].
its related energized grid, can be performed by using a grid-
feeding power converter integrated with a suitable controller The construction of the PID controller form can be
[9]. From the grid side; the combined system that consists of characterized by the following equation [17],
the energy storage with the converter can be considered as a
controllable current source. The control formation for that ( )= ∙ ( )+ ∙ ( ) ( )+
converter is given in Fig. 3.
∙ ( ) (5)

Where, , and are the proportional, integral

and derivative gains, respectively, ( ) is the
controller output and ( ) is the system error.
According to the previous equation, the transfer
function of the PID controller can be represented as
in equation (6) and simulated as shown in Fig. 4(a).

( ) = + + ∙ (6)

2. NLPID controller:
Fig. 3: The grid-feeding power converter control scheme. [9]
The behavior of the PID controller can be enhanced
by using a non-linear technique. In this technique, a
non-linear gain ( ) is added to the structure of the
The reference value of P* and Q*, shown in Fig. 3, are traditional PID controller as shown in equation (7).
specified by a high-level controller, such as the inertial The non-linear PID controller has the advantage of
response and governor emulation which are previously fast response because it provides a high initial gain
described. Ac power grid is represented as a fixed load [19].
impedance, as shown in the previous figure.
Meanwhile, the PI controller is traditionally used for the ( )= ∙ ∙ ( )+ ∙ ( ) ( )+
current control loop. Where the Park transformation is used
to convert the sinusoidal currents, three-phase current
components ( , , ), into DC values on a dq frame. DC ∙ ( ) (7)
currents (id, iq) are used to regulate the transmission of the
power according to the equations (3) and (4). [9]
Where, , , and are the proportional,
integral, derivative and nonlinear gains respectively,
( ) is the controller output and ( ) is the system

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 error [19]. The transfer function of the NLPID
controller given in (8) and represented by Fig. 4 (b).
( ) = ∙ + + ∙ (8)
Fig. 4: Block diagrams of the proposed controllers. (a) PID controller. (b)
NLPID controller.
IV. SIMULATION RESULTS
In this work; The MATLAB/SIMULINK is used to
model the grid-feeding power converter system. System step
response is studied by using different controllers, PI, PID,
and NLPID ones. Controllers’ responses are analyzed and
compared to determine the suitable controller for short-term
frequency stability support.
The parameters of each controller are selected by using
particle swarm optimization. Integral Absolute Error (IAE) is
selected as an optimization cost function, which follows the
equation given in (9).
= | ( )| ( ) (9)
The step response of the optimal PI controller, PID
controller, and NLPID controller is presented in Fig. 5.
Moreover, different numerical control factors are calculated
for the controllers’ responses and given in Table I.
Fig. 5 Step response of optimal PI controller, PID controller and NLPID
controller.
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As illustrated by Fig. 5 the traditionally used PI
controller, dashed line, has a slow response compared to the
proposed PID controller, solid line. Therefore, the PI
controller is not the most suitable controller for short-term
recovery applications. In addition, NLPID controller, dotted
line, cannot be used for such purpose. As it has a large
oscillatory response compared to the other controllers.
Table. I: The step response characteristics of the controllers.
controller PI PID NLPID
Rise time (msec.) 13.34 0.41 0.0441
Settling time 25.6 7.006 191.732
(msec.)
Over-shoot (%) 0.0013 0.1285 7.8702
The previous table shows the main characteristics of each
controller behavior. Table I clears that NLPID controller has
a very large settling time and very large over-shoot, blue
cells, compared to the other controller types. Consequently, it
is not recommended to be used as a grid-feeding power
converter controller for short-term frequency regulation.
Meanwhile, the PID controller has a fast response, gray
cells, compared to the PI controller, green cells, which is
traditionally used for the grid-feeding power converter.
Therefore, the PID controller is the most suitable one to
be used as a grid-feeding power converter controller for
short-term frequency regulation.
V. CONCLUSION
The power system network short-term frequency stability
is badly affected by large-scale wind energy penetration.
Where, unlike the conventional power plants, the inertial
response and the primary frequency support are not provided
by the wind turbines.
Therefore, energy storage schemes should be used with
wind turbines, through a suitable controller, to emulate
conventional power plants inertial response and primary
frequency control.
Storages support frequency by providing an additional
power at contingencies. The grid-feeding power converter
can be controlled to adjust power transference between the
energy storage system and the electrical grid.
Different controllers are proposed for the usage with the
grid-feeding power converter instead of the PI controller,
which is traditionally used, in order to provide a better
performance for the short-term frequency stability support.
The grid-feeding power converter has been simulated
using PI, PID, and NLPID controllers with optimal
parameters selected by the particle swarm optimization
technique. Step responses have been studied to compare the
controllers’ performances.
The simulation results proved that the PID controller has
much better response characteristics than the traditionally
used PI one. PI controller has a much slower response
compared to the PID one.
 Meanwhile, the NLPID controller caused an undesired [18] Z.-L. L. Gaing, “A Particle Swarm Optimization Approach for
oscillatory response. So, the PID controller is recommended Optimum Design of PID Controller in AVR System,” IEEE Trans.
Energy Convers., vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 384–391, 2004.
to be used as a grid-feeding power converter controller for
[19] M. A. Shamseldin, M. A. A. Ghany, and A. M. A. Ghany,
the applications that requires a fast response such as the
“Performance study of enhanced non-linear PID control applied on
short-term frequency stability enhancement. brushless DC motor,” Int. J. Power Electron. Drive Syst., vol. 9, no.
2, 2018.

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