IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, Vol. 13, No.

4, November 1998 1401

Automatic Generation Control in a Deregulated Power System

Bjorn H. Bakken and Ove S. Grande
Power Transmission Systems
Norwegian Electric Power Research Institute EFI
7034 Trondheim, Norway

ABSTRACT to follow the HVDC ramping. Reducing the intervals for

Loud-frequency control (LFC) is used for many years as part
of the Automatic Generation Control (AGC) in power sys-
tems around the world. In the synchronous Nordic power
system, however, this function (termed secondqy control)
has so far been handled with manual control acticins.
Increased operational sl.rain due to new HVDC conncctions
in the next decade will make it increasingly difficult to main-
tain the current manual control system. In this paper a model
of the interconnected power systcms of Norway and Sweden
is used to show how introduction of AGC might aid the eys-
tem operator in handling the increased strain. Howevcr, the
classical LFC based on the Area Control Error is difficult to
implement in a deregulated environment. An alternative
concept is thus introduced where selected units are autoniat-
ically following load changes on thc HVDC connections.
This rump following controller (RFC) supported by manual
control seems to be a promising option.
Key Words: AGC, Load-frequency control, Secondary con-
trol, Deregulated systern
1. INTRODUCTION
Today there is one high voltage DC connection ( H V I X )
between Norway and Jutland (Denmark) with a total capac-
ity of 1000 MW, while three additional HVDC connections
between Norway and Germany (2) and Holland ( I ) will! be
put into operation early in the next decade. These conriec-
tions will give a total transmission capacity between the
hydro power system of Norway and the thermal dominated
system of Continental Europe of approximately 3000 MW.
Both existing and new HVDC exchange agreements are
based mainly on the pumped storuge principle, whcre Nor-
wegian hydro power is exported during peak load hours,
while surplus thermal energy can be imported during off-
peak periods.
generation scheduling from 1 hour to 30 minutes will proba-
bly not be sufficient to handle this critical period. It might
thus be necessary to indroduce some kind of AGC functions.
This paper prcsents a possible solution to this problem by
introducing a special rump following controller (RFC)
which ensures that selected generators will automatically
follow load changes on the HVDC connections [l]. The
main L'ocus ofthis paper is frequency and real power control;
voltage and reactive power control is not treated, nor are the
economic aspccts of the RFC evaluated at this stage.
Following this introduction, the second section of this paper
gives a description of the model used for the simulations in
this work and briefly outlines the current system of manual
control The third section demonstrates that also the classical
ACE based LFC scheme is a possible solution, while the
main iesults regarding the new ramp following control
scheme are given in section 4.
2. PRESENT SYSTEM WITH MANUAL CONTROL
2.1 Simulation model
To obtain a simulation model that is both simple enough to
give a good illustration ot the basic principles of automatic
secondary control in Norway, but at the same time also
detailed enough to make it possible to compare the model
conclusions with the real power system, a simulation model
consisting of elcvcn 300 kV buses and four 400 kV buses
with generator and/or load, was created. This model repre-
sents 7 gcographical areas in South- and Middle Norway,
while the four 400 kV buses represent a parallel ring con-
nection through the Swedish grid. The model atructure is
shown in Figure 1

The new HVDC connections will increase the operational

strain on the Norwegian power system considerably. During
winter time it is expected that the morning transition period
from possible full import from the European Continent at
night to full export at daytime in the hours when also the
gradient of the corresponding domestic load is steepest, will
involve up to 40% of the Norwegian production capacity. In
this period unacceptab:,y large frequency and voltage devia-
tions will occur if the generation system should not be able

PE-I 83-PWR6-6-11-1007 A paper recommended and approved by FIB. I Structwre of 7+4 ccreu n d c l uf Nanvcgiurr urrd
the IEEE Power System Operations Committee of the IEEE Power Swedish power systems
Engineering Society for publication in the IEEE Transactions on Power
Systems. Manuscript submitted July 9, 1997; made available for Each physical inter-area tieline is identified and modelled in
printing November 7, 1997. an aggregate way such that between any two areas only one
tieline at 300 kV and one at 400 kV (if existlng) are repre-
\ented Lines trom 132 kV and down are omitted. Two 400
0885-8950/98/$10.00 0 1997 IEEE
1402
kV tielines between Norway and Sweden are included in the
model. The values of generation and load in each area are
adjusted based on generation and consumption statistics to
get a reasonably good correspondence with the inter-area
load flows of two different load situations: Winter peak load
and summer low load.
Based on frequency measurements from actual generation
outages, dynamic parameters of the generators are then
adjusted to give a response similar to the complete Nordel
grid to casually chosen faults at both heavy load and low
load (830 M W and 590 MW nuclear power units in Sweden,
respectively); first the stationary droop of the turbine con-
trollers to approximate the stationary situation. then the gen-
erator inertias and the controller transient droops and time
constants to approximate the transient response. All parame-
ters are kept within 'normal' ranges of variation.
2.2 Ramping domestic and HVDC load
The primary objective of this analysis is to study the sys-
tem's ability to follow a gradually increasing load over a
fairly long time compared to traditional transient stability
studies. The simulations are made for a time period of 15
minutes? in which the domestic load is increased with a con-
stant ramp while scheduled generation is kept constant. 80
MW/min (0.44%/min) in the peak load model and 50 MW/
min (0.77%/min) in the low load model are chosen as "high"
values for the Norwegian power system. The Swedish load
is ramped with the same percentage.
In addition to the constant domestic load ramp; the 4 HVDC
connections to Denmark (DK), Germany (D) and Holland
(NL) are introduced with different ramps. The Norwegian
Power Grid Company (Statnett) will probably request a
maximum continuous ramp rate; 20 MW/min/connection is
chosen as a possible limit, but also much steeper ramps are
tested. The HVDC connections are modelled as extra AC
loads in areas N3 and N3-2 in southern Norway. The con-
verters themselves are not modelled in these simulations, as
they due to the high controllability can be decoupled from
the slow dynamics studied here.
Due to the long simulation period with large variations in
unit output, a 1 . order non-linear hydraulic turbine model is
used [ 2 ] .All simulations are made with the SIMPOW pro-
grain system [ 3 ] .
2.3 Illustration of current manual control
If the system was left alone without any secondary control
actions, the unit droop characteristics: would c a w s nearly
linear changes in unit generation following the load ramp
(primary control), with corresponding nearly linear reduc-
tion of system frequency. This rather trivial result is shown
as illustration in Figure 2 with the 80 MW/min domestic
load ramp as excitation. Without any eorrcctive actions the
system frequency would in this case violate the Nordel
requiremcnt to stay within +/-0.1 Hz during normal opera-
tion within 10 minutes.
The dotted line shows an illustration of the current manual
secondary control of the Norwegian system. Normal devia-
tions between scheduled generation and actual load are han-
dled onl>-by the instantaneous primar! control baszd on unit
droop characteristi2s. acci.ptin=. a fluctuation of s>.stemfre-
quency of +/-0.1 Hz. H o n e i a . xhen thz S J s t s m Operator
notices an increasing deviation, he calls upon capacity
offered at the Regulating Power Market. This capacity will
then be manually activated after a certain time dela!, i S
mins. is chosen as illustration), and in gradual steps if moi-e
than one unit i s required to regulate. For further information
on this manual secondary control system. the reader is
referred to references [4, 51.
The starting point (T=O) in these simulations can be any
instant during the hour when there is a momentarily balance
between a constant (scheduled) generation and a continuall!
changing load. Note that in order to get a stable start of the
simulation. the load ramp starts after a 10 sec. delay. This is
done in all simulations shown in the following sections.
I
' 00' I 50 05
i\ I4995
C 996 49 80
5 -23 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900
Time (5)
Fig. 2 S ~ t e i ifi-eqrienc~
i response to domestic load ramp of
80 M\thiiii at peak load without and with manual
secoiiiiili~coritrol actions KV= 50 Hz)
3. CENTRAL LOAD-FREQUENCY CONTROLLER
A simple \yay to handle the increased operational strain on
the system caused by the new HVDC agreements is to intro-
duce general load-frequency control in the Nordel system.
Presuming there is sufficient generation capacity available,
the LFC would handle all deviations in the system, includ-
ing normal load changes. HVDC ramping and faults. This
requires simple. standard control equipment which has been
used success full^ for many years in other systems [6, 71.
The Area Coritrol Er-ror (ACE) for each area is defined as
.4CE ( t ) = APx ( t ) + K,. A f ( t ) ,
(1)
where (T ) - net area interchange deviation (MW)
Kr - frequency bias setting (MWIHz)
Af( t ) - system frequency deviation (Hz)
Load-frequency control (LFC), or closed-loop secondary
control, is obtained by integrating the ACE and returning an
additional power demand signal AP, to selected generating
units:
A P ~ ( T =) ACE(^) - i / ~ ~ ~ ( t ) t l t ( 2 )
T
where p - proportional gain (0.1 - 0.5)
T - integration time constant (50 - 200 sec.)

Note that the integrator time constant is chosen rather high
to ensure a smooth unit operation and to prevent the LFC
from interfering with the normal unit primary conltrol
response [81.
For simplicity, only centralized national LFC is imple-
mented in the model for the Norwegian and the Swedish
systems, measuring thc global frequency and the power flow
on the two internationa, tie lines, but more complicated hier-
archical or decentralized systems are also possible [7].‘The
two national controllers have basic structures as shown in
the s-domain in Fig. 3. The national generation demand sig-
nals are distributed to selected units in the systems.
f *-fo
I Time (s)
PXO
Fig. 3 Classical loadfrequency controller 161
The integrator time constant T is set to 120 sec. with 13=O
(integrator). Values of f3 within the range 0.1-0.5 are also
tested without changing the results significantly. The sunn of
all participating factors C, in the signal distributor is 1.O.
By introducing this controller scheme, the HVDC connec-
tions will be treated as internal loads in the Norwegian sys-
tem. The system is now able to withstand both the domestic
load ramp from Figure 2 and an additional steep ramping of
the HVDC connectioris without violating the allowed fre-
quency range. As an illustration, Figure 4 shows the
response when the HVDC connection to Denmark is ramlped
from initially 200 MW load to full load of 1000 MW in I O
minutes (starting after 100 seconds in the simulation). ‘This
doubles the load change rate in the Norwegian system from
80 MW/min to 160 MWlmin.
Note that as opposed to a step excitation, the I-controllers
are unable to catch up with the ramp. The size of the fre-
quency deviation is dependent on the total system frequency
bias. The frequency bi,w of the Norwegian and Swedish sys-
tems are nearly equal in the model. The ACE are given i n pu
of aggregated MVA base of controlled units.
4. RAMP FOLLOWI.NG CONTROLLER
4.1 Introduction
Fully automatic load-frequency control as illustrated above
is technically a rather simple way to handle the secondary
control in the Nordel system. The fsct that the control func-
tions are generally aimed at keeping system frequency and
power interchanges at their nominal values cnsures that all
deviations in the systt:m are taken care of, no matter where
the deviation occurs and what might be thc cause. The only
condition is that there are sufficient reserves and transmis-
sion capacity available.
1403
1001
1 0 0
-.0 ~ -
1
0 999
0 998
0997 -
-0 020
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900
Fig. 4 System response ut peak load with central LFC to
loud rumps of 80 MW/min domestic i- 800 MW/10
min HVDC
However, the general LFC system is not very well suited to
a deregulated energy market like Norway and Sweden, a fact
which is recognized also by other authors [9]. In typical ver-
tically integrated systems the power producer is also the
owner and operator of the grid, but in Norway the grid com-
pany Statnett is responsible for the system operation, and
thus the secondary control, while the generating units are
owned by several other companies (Gencos). The System
Operator would have to buy all reserve capacity from the
Gencos on a commercial basis, and in the case of automatic
LFC for rather long periods of time and for large and fre-
quent unit load changes. (This is similar to the ‘Charged
LFC’ in reference 191.) Thus, the price needed to get suffi-
cient amounts of reserve capacity might be high. On the
other hand, it would be very difficult to place any kind of
responsibility for system deviations at a given time, thus the
financing of LFC would most probably have to be made
with a general fee.
As the main cause of the future increased operational strain
on the Norwegian power system is the 4 HVDC connec-
tions, an alternative secondary control system can be intro-
duced in which special power stations are selected to follow
the HVDC load automatically, while the “rest” of the system
deviations are handled manually via the existing Regulating
Power Market as today. In this case there is a clear connec-
tion between the responsibility for the “disturbance” - the
contractual partner(s) of the HVDC connections - and the
provision of sufficient reserve power. Thus, the contractual
partner would have to supply the reserve from own genera-
tion capacity or by purchase, not the System Operator. This
system is similar to the concept of ‘bilateral LFC’ in ref. [9].
4.2 Controller layout
An HVDC ramp following controller (RFC) is now intro-
duced as shown in Figure 5. (No controllers are needed on
1404
the Swedish side.) The different HVDC ramps (e.g. daily
plans of operation) are added to a total MW demand signal
A P,, to the controller. This signal is compared to changes
in the generator electric power output:
AP&) = PGJt) -PGlo
where PGi(t) is actual and PGio is initial generator output.
respectively. The additional output demand signal AP, can
be distributed to any number of units with a signal distribu-
tor similar to Figure 3, although only one unit is used in the
following simulations (C, = 1 .O).
/ Unit droop compensabon
HVDC ramps 1,2,
m FrequencJ- Bias' in the 'Transformed AGC' scheme sug-
l ,
* PG
Fig.5 HVDC rump following controller (RFC) with droop
cornpensation
One important problem now arises. As shown in Figure 6.
the additional output demand signal A P , to the turbine gov-
ernor is added to the normal stationary droop signal of the
governor. The turbine governor input aPnUo,. thus consists of
two elements:
where 6 - unit stationary droop
a,,,,w, ( t ) - rated and actual speed
I
0
Fig. 6 Modi3ed hydro turbine governor
The unit will respond to any frequency deviations in the grid
through its primary control even though APDc is zero. and
when the RFC is integrating A P , from the generator also
normal generator primary control response will be affected.
In Qct, the RFC will prevent the unit f-rom participating in
primary control.
Thus, the ramp following controller have to be modified
with a unit droop compensation module as shown in Fig. 5 .
This module reduces the generator feedback A P, with a
signal which is an estimate of the frequency-dependcnt part
of the total unit response to create a Rump Control Error sig-
nal (RCE). The parameter RC is a linear correction factor for
losses and non-linearities between governor input and gerz-
erutor output:
R C E ( t ) = AP,,(t) -APC;(t) + -RC
. ( o J , , - w ( ~ ) () 5 )
6
Let:
A P, i t ) = RC A PqOy (t)
= R C .p P i i ( t ) + $
1' (~,~-o(t))
(3)
Figure 7 demonstrates the importance of the droop compen-
sation module. Given the flexibility of modern microproces-
sor based controller technology, the compensation module
can be designed with any level of complexity. The simple
layout implemented here is meant only as an illustration of
~
important aspects, not as the final solution.
Note the structural similarity between the ramp folloir ing
controller and the general controller of Figure 3. A similar
droop compensation technique can also be found as 'Unit
gested in refcrsnce [ I O ] .
p.
4.3 Controller tuning
...
,
t.---*'
a
~
cn ,~~~*
-,
As the purpose of the ramp following controller is to handle
L...
the HVDC ramps automatically, while the normal domestic
load changes will be handled by the current Regulating
PoLver Market. the controller used in these simulations must
be tuned such that the system frequency follows the uncon-
trolled response of Figure 2 as closely as possible no matter
ho\{. the HVDC connections are operated. The operation of
the connections is thus 'hidden' for the System Operator.
In Figure 7 the s ~ s t e mfrequency with HVDC ramping is
compared to the basic response of Figure 2. To emphasize
the difference in controller response, the rather steep ramp
of 100% in 10 minutes is used for all four connections, giv-
ing a total HVDC ramp rate of 230 MW/min (in addition to
the domestic load ramp). The stability of the system is
ensured b!. inspecting the eigenvalues in each case.
The slon I-contr-oller used successfully in Figure 4 is now
insufficient. It reacts too slowly and causes large frequency
de\-iations \t hile the HVDC connections are ramping. Intro-
, 1111/, . . ducinz a faster PI-controller with T=30 s, p=2, improves the
result as shm5.n in Fizure 7a, but the system frequency has a
different slope than the reference. Neither decreasing the
time constant T nor increasing the controller gain [3
improves the result significantly. A too high gain might also
cause instability.
However. when the unit droop compensation module as
shown in Fipure 5 is introduced in the controller, the system
frequency with the HVDC ramp follows the reference quite
good. as can be seen in Figure 7b. This clearly demonstrates
the importance ofthe droop compensation. The small differ-
ence in slope still apparent towards the end of the curve is
caused by increased transmission losses and an imperfect
ramp correction factor RC. In these simulations the ramp
correction factor RC is simply calculated as the relation
between turbine governor output Y(t) and turbine mechani-
cal power PM(t), giving a linear approximation of the tur-
bine model for each time step. Thus, the correction factor of
eqs. ( 5 ) - ( 7 )is actually a time varying parameter RC(t).
 1405
a) PI-ccntroller (T = 30 s, b = 2)
In this system the controller transfer function is
1001 7-

-..._ . .
while the process transfer function can be written as a func-
tion of general polynomials with one or more zero poles

0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900

l i m e (s) where i2 1
no#O
b) Pi-controller ( r = 30 s, b = 2) with droop comp.
do = ... = di-l = 0
'.OO' 7
1
1000
000 L-- I The existence of one or more zero poles is due to both the
lack of a constant frequency reference in the model and
0 999 ~

because the generator damping coefficients are omitted for

simplicity.
0 998 ~

0 997 ~ The control deviation is

I I - - I 7

0 996
A e ( s ) = AP,,(s) -AP,,(s)
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900
Time (s)
-
A p,, ($1 -
-
A pD,
(10)
Fig. 7 System frequency respon.se (pu) to a total HVDC 1+ H R ( s ) . H p ( s ) 1 + A (s)
ramp oj 2300 MlV in 10 minutes with and without
droop compensa'ion 1 + spT n (s)
where A (s) = ~ ~

ST SI . d (s)
Figure 8 shows a comparison of the HVDC load ramp and
the output of the controlled generator for the simulation of If this system is excitated with a ramp function CIS2 the fol-
Figure 7b. The difference in slope is due to the subordinated lowing result can be found:
unit primary control response.

Load (pu)
,"

'"I
08 /-----
si+ 2Td (s)
s " ' T d ( s ) + s p T n ( s )+ n ( s )
= 0 (11)

Thus, the chosen control structure is able to follow the

HVDC ramp without deviations, ensuring in the ideal case
that no extra frequency deviations are induced. The control
simulation shown in figure 10 where a unit follows a 'gen-
tle' HVDC ramp of 3x20 MW/min at the same busbar (no
transmission losses) confirms this.
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 $100
mrne (s)
Fig. 8 Comparison of HVDC load ramp and output of thc
controlled generator (PI: T=30 s, p=2 with droop
compensation

4.4 Ramp following ability

It is possible to show the ability o f the RFC to follow the
HVDC ramp with rather simple calculations. Assuming that
the complete control loop through RFC, governor, turbine
and generator is linearized, it can be simplified to the s-
domain functions shown in figure 9.
0 996
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900
Tlme ( 5 )

Fig. 10 System frequency response to a 3x20 MW/min

HVDC ramp (PI: T = 10 s, p = 2 with droop com-
Fig.9 Linearized ramp following control loop pensation)
1406
In reality, there will always be some transmission losses and
process non-linearities between the controlled units and the
HVDC terminals, and it will be very difficult to design a
ramp following controller that is able to compensate com-
pletely for this. The HVDC ramping will most probably
have some influence on the system frequency no matter
which controller is used.
5. CONCLUSIONS
When at least 3 new HVDC connections from Norway to
Continental Europe are put into operation early in the next
decade it will be increasingly difficult to handle total system
load changes only with the current Regulating Power Mar-
ket. In this paper the use of two alternative AGC schemes
have been demonstrated in a simplified model of the Norae-
giadswedish power system.
One alternative is the general load-frequency control
scheme. The LFC handles all system deviations; faults. nor-
mal load changes and HVDC ramping. It will automatically
adjust to any manual control actions taken, and can thus be
implemented both as a total substitution of. or as a supple-
ment to, the current Regulating Power Market. However.
general LFC based on the Area Control Error might be diffi-
cult to implement in a deregulated environment. It would
also require that all interconnected systems introduce LFC
together (Sweden, Finland and Zeeland) to ensure a unique
ACE signal for the controllers [7].
Another solution is then to introduce rci1111)f o l l o ~ i i i ~coiitrol
g Ph, D. Thesis, ETH Zurich. 1983 (in German)
(RFC) where some units are selected to automatically follow
the load changes of the HVDC connections. It is shown that
such a control scheme can be implemented with a rather
simple control structure, but it should nonetheless not be
chosen without careful consideration.
If one of the selected units should fail; the rest of the control-
led units might not be able to compensate for the missing
capacity. A combination with the existing Regulating Power
Market would thus be necessary. The problem of overload
on transmission lines must also be examined with more
detailed grid models. The selection of units for AGC func-
tions have to be made from careful studies of unit and local
grid characteristics, which is beyond the scope of this work.
Both LFC and RFC seem to fulfil the necessary system
requirements. Note that the RFC scheme is feasible due to
the dominating size of the HVDC connections. A more sen-
era1 secondary control system on a national scale based on
RFC contracts between consumption and generation similar
to the ‘bilateral LFC’ of ref. [9] would probably be econom-
ically unfavourable. Without any superior controller to com-
bine local deviations which might balance each other, the
result would be an increase of unnecessary unit governor
movements.
The next stage in our investigations will be studies of RFC
combined with a feedback of system frequency also to the
HVDC connection to reduce the load ramp in case of low or
decreasing frequency.
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BIOGRAPHY
BjBrn H. Bakken received his M S c . from the Norwegian
Institute of Technology (NTH) in 1989 and Ph.D. from the
Nor\\-egian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)
in 1997. He worked as a scientific assistant at NTH 1988-
1990. then as a senior engineer at a municipal power com-
pany 1990-1992. He is currently working at the Power
Transmission Systems dcpt. at the Norwegian Electric
Power Research Institute (EFI).
Email: Bjorn.Bakken @ efisinrefno
Ove S. Grande received his M.Sc. from NTH in 1976. He
worked at the Norwegian Power Pool 1977-80 and 1981-92,
then as section manager at the Norwegian Power Grid Com-
pany (Statnett) 1993-94. He was in 1980 and is currently
working at the Power Transmission Systems dept. at EFI as
project manager.
Email: 0ve.Grande @e$.sinrefno