Automatic generation control of an interconnected hydrothermal

power system considering superconducting magnetic energy storage

Rajesh Joseph Abraham, D. Das
*
, Amit Patra
Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur 721 302, India
Received 3 February 2006; received in revised form 18 November 2006; accepted 8 January 2007
Abstract
This paper presents the analysis of automatic generation control (AGC) of an interconnected hydrothermal power system in the pres-
ence of generation rate constraints (GRCs). The improvement of AGC with the addition of a small capacity superconducting magnetic
energy storage (SMES) unit in either, as well as in both the areas are studied. Time domain simulations are used to study the performance
of the power system and control logic. The optimal values of the integral gain settings are obtained using integral squared error (ISE)
technique by minimising a quadratic performance index. Suitable method for controlling the SMES unit is described. Analysis reveals
that SMES unit tted in either of the areas is as eective as SMES units tted in both the areas and improves the dynamic performances
to a considerable extent following a load disturbance in either of the areas.
2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: AGC; Hydrothermal; Power system; SMES
1. Introduction
Electric power systems operating in an interconnected
grid are normally composed of control areas or regions
and interconnected through tie-lines. Each control area
is obliged to manage in parallel, the important tasks of
covering the customers load requirements as well as main-
taining the interchanged power and the system frequency
at their respective scheduled values so that the power sys-
tem remains at its nominal state characterised by nominal
system frequency, voltage prole and load ow congura-
tion. To maintain the power system in its nominal state,
at each instant, the generated power should exactly match
the demanded power plus the associated system losses.
But in a practical power system, the load is changing con-
tinuously. Further, the ability of the generation to track
the changing load is limited due to physical/technical con-
siderations. Thus, the exact power generationconsump-
tion equilibrium and hence, the nominal state of the
power system cannot be satised in practice. Thus, auto-
matic generation control (AGC) of an interconnected
power system is concerned with two main objectives:
instantaneously matching the generation to the system
load and adjusting the system frequency and tie-line load-
ings at their scheduled values as close as possible so that,
the quality of the power delivered is maintained at the
requisite level.
Literature survey shows that, most of the works con-
cerned with AGC of interconnected power systems pertain
to tie-line bias control strategy [110]. Supplementary con-
trollers are designed to regulate the area control errors to
zero eectively. Even in the case of small load disturbances
and with the optimised gain for the supplementary control-
lers, the power frequency and the tie-line power deviations
persist for a long duration. In these situations, the governor
system may no longer be able to absorb the frequency uc-
tuations due to its slow response [1]. Thus, to compensate
for the sudden load changes, an active power source with
fast response such as an superconducting magnetic energy
0142-0615/$ - see front matter 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ijepes.2007.01.004
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 3222 79507; fax: +91 3222 55303.
E-mail address: ddas@ee.iitkgp.ernet.in (D. Das).
www.elsevier.com/locate/ijepes
Electrical Power and Energy Systems 29 (2007) 571579
storage (SMES) unit is expected to be the most eective
countermeasure.
The reported works [1113] further shows that, SMES
is located in each area of the two-area system for AGC.
With the use of SMES in both the areas, frequency devi-
ations in each area are eectively suppressed. However, it
may not be economically feasible to use SMES in every
area of a multi-area interconnected power system. There-
fore, it is advantageous if an SMES located in an area is
available for the control of frequency of other intercon-
nected areas.
Further, literature survey shows that, no work has been
carried out for the AGC of interconnected hydrothermal
power system considering an SMES unit. An intercon-
nected hydrothermal system involves widely dierent char-
acteristics for the hydro and thermal subsystems.
Moreover, the eects of dierent Generation Rate Con-
straints (fairly slow response for the thermal plant and
quite fast response for the hydro plant) on the selection
of optimum controller settings for the thermal and hydro
areas and on the system dynamic performance considering
an SMES unit are yet to be established.
In view of the above, the main objective of the present
work is to determine the optimum values of integral gain
settings in the control areas in the presence of GRCs con-
sidering an SMES unit in either thermal or hydro area as
well as both the areas. Eect of SMES on the dynamic per-
formances is also studied following a step load disturbance
in either of the areas.
2. System investigated
The AGC system investigated is composed of an inter-
connection of two areas. Area 1 comprises a non reheat
thermal system and area 2 comprises a hydro system. Typ-
ical generation rate constraints of 10%/min for thermal
area and 4.5%/s (270%/min) for raising generation and
6%/s (360%/min) for lowering generation in the hydro area
are considered as in the IEEE Committee Report on power
plant response [14]. The detailed transfer function models
of speed governors and turbines are discussed and devel-
oped in the IEEE Committee Report on Dynamic Models
for Steam and Hydro Turbines in Power System Studies
[15]. The small perturbation transfer function block dia-
gram model of the two-area hydrothermal system is shown
in Fig. 1 with SMES unit in area 1. However, the eect of
SMES is examined by tting it to both as well as, either of
the areas. A step load perturbation of 1% of the nominal
loading is considered in either of the areas. Nominal
parameters of the system are given in the Appendix.
3. State space representation
The two-area interconnected hydrothermal power sys-
tem linearised around an operating reference point can be
described by the standard state space equation as
_
X AX BU CP 1
where X, U and P are the state, control and disturbance
vectors respectively and A, B and C are real constant matri-
ces of appropriate dimensions which in turn depend on the
system parameters and the operating point. For the system
under consideration,
X Df
1
; Df
2
; DP
tie12
; DP
g1
; DP
g2
; DP
r1
; DP
t1
; DP
t2

T
2
U u
1
; u
2

T
3
P DP
d1
; DP
d2

T
: 4
The state variables chosen are as shown in the power sys-
tem model of Fig. 1.
4. Conguration of the SMES in the power system
The schematic diagram in Fig. 2 shows the thyristor
controlled SMES unit conguration. In the SMES unit,
a dc magnetic coil is connected to the ac grid through a
Power Conversion System (PCS) which includes an inver-
ter/rectier. The superconducting coil is contained in a
helium vessel. Heat generated is removed by means of a
low-temperature refrigerator. Helium is used as the work-
ing uid in the refrigerator as it is the only substance that
can exist as either a liquid or a gas at the operating tem-
perature which is near absolute zero. The current in the
superconducting coil will be tens of thousands or hun-
dreds of thousands of amperes. No ac power system nor-
mally operates at these current levels and hence a
Nomenclature
T
P1
, T
P2
power system time constants
K
P1
, K
P2
power system gains
T
T
turbine time constant
T
G
governor time constant of thermal area
T
W
water time constant
T
R
, T
1
, T
2
time constants of the hydro governor
R
1
, R
2
governor speed regulation parameter of thermal
and hydro areas, respectively
P
R1
, P
R2
rated area capacities (a
12
= P
R1
/P
R2
)
T
12
synchronising coecient
B
1
, B
2
frequency bias constant of thermal and hydro
areas, respectively
K
I1
, K
I2
integral gains of thermal and hydro areas,
respectively
572 R.J. Abraham et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 29 (2007) 571579
transformer is mounted on each side of the converter unit
to convert the high voltage and low current of the ac sys-
tem to the low voltage and high current required by the
coil. The energy exchange between the superconducting
coil and the electric power system is controlled by a line
commutated converter. To reduce the harmonics pro-
duced on the ac bus and in the output voltage to the coil,
a 12-pulse converter is preferred.
The superconducting coil can be charged to a set value
from the grid during normal operation of the power sys-
tem. Once the superconducting coil gets charged, it con-
ducts current with virtually no losses [1113,16] as the
P1
P1
sT 1
K
+ T
sT 1
1
+
G
sT 1
1
+ s
K
I1
B
1
1
R
1
+
+
+
s
T 2
12
+
+
P2
sT 1
P2
K
+
2
R
sT 1
sT 1
+
+
1
sT 1
1
+ s
K
I2
B
2
2
R
1
a
12
a
12
W
W
0.5sT 1
sT 1
+
+
+
+ +
d2
P
1
f
2
f
tie12
P
g1
P
g2
P
t1
t2
P
r1
P
Area Hydro
SMES
d1
P
1
Error
Area Thermal
+
+
Fig. 1. The two area hydrothermal block diagram model with the SMES unit in thermal area.
E
d
L
I
d
To 3 - phase
AC system
bus
step down
transformer
/ Y Y
12-pulse
bridge
converter
Super
conducting
Magnetic Coil
D
R
Bypass
SCRs
DC breaker
Dump
Resistor
Fig. 2. SMES circuit diagram.
R.J. Abraham et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 29 (2007) 571579 573
coil is maintained at extremely low temperatures. When
there is a sudden rise in the load demand, the stored
energy is almost released through the PCS to the power
system as alternating current. As the governor and other
control mechanisms start working to set the power sys-
tem to the new equilibrium condition, the coil current
changes back to its initial value. Similar action occurs
during sudden release of loads. In this case, the coil
immediately gets charged towards its full value, thus
absorbing some portion of the excess energy in the sys-
tem and as the system returns to its steady state, the
excess energy absorbed is released and the coil current
attains its normal value.
The control of the converter ring angle a provides the
dc voltage appearing across the inductor to be continu-
ously varying within a certain range of positive and nega-
tive values. The inductor is initially charged to its rated
current I
d0
by applying a small positive voltage. Once the
current reaches its rated value, it is maintained constant
by reducing the voltage across the inductor to zero since
the coil is superconducting.
Neglecting the transformer and the converter losses, the
dc voltage is given by [17]
E
d
2V
d0
cos a 2I
d
R
C
; 5
where E
d
is the dc voltage applied to the inductor in kV, a
is the ring angle in degrees, I
d
is the current owing
through the inductor in kA, R
C
is the equivalent commu-
tating resistance in kX and V
d0
is the maximum circuit
bridge voltage in kV. Charging and discharging of the
SMES unit is controlled through the change of commuta-
tion angle a. If a is less than 90, converter acts in the con-
verter mode (charging mode) and if a is greater than 90,
the converter acts in the inverter mode (discharging
mode).
5. Control of SMES unit
When power is to be pumped back into the grid in the
case of a fall in frequency due to sudden loading in the
area, the control voltage E
d
is to be negative since the cur-
rent through the inductor and the thyristors cannot change
its direction. The incremental change in the voltage applied
to the inductor is expressed as
DE
d

K
SMES
1 sT
DC

DError
1
6
where, DE
d
is the incremental change in converter voltage;
T
DC
is the converter time delay; K
SMES
is the gain of the
control loop and DError is the input signal to the SMES
control logic. The inductor current deviation is given by
DI
d

DE
d
sL
7
In this work, area control error (ACE) of area 1 is con-
sidered as the input signal to the SMES control logic (i.e.,
DError
1
= ACE
1
). The area control error of the two areas
are dened as
ACE
i
B
i
Df
i
DP
tieij
; i; j 1; 2; 8
where Df
i
is the change in frequency of area i and DP
ij
is the
change in tie-line power ow out of area ij. Thus, from
Eqs. (6) and (8),
DE
d

K
SMES
1 sT
DC
B
1
Df
1
DP
tie12
9
Note that DError
1
= ACE
1
= (B
1
D f
1
+ DP
tie12
). How-
ever, it is reported in [1113] that, the inductor current in
the SMES unit will return to its nominal value very slowly
only if Eq. (9) is used. But, the inductor current must be
restored to its nominal value quickly after a system distur-
bance so that it can respond to the next load perturbation
immediately. Hence, the inductor current deviation can be
sensed and used as a negative feedback signal in the SMES
control loop so that the current restoration to its nominal
value can be enhanced. The block diagram representation
of SMES incorporating the negative inductor current devi-
ation feedback is shown in Fig. 3. Thus the dynamic equa-
tions for the inductor voltage deviation and current
deviation of the SMES unit area
DE
d

1
1 sT
DC
K
SMES
B
1
Df
1
DP
tie12
K
id
DI
d
10
SMES
K
DC
sT 1
1
+
sL
1
K
id
I
d0
d
I
d
E
+ +
+
sm
P
1
Error
d d0
I I +
d
E
Fig. 3. SMES block diagram with negative inductor current deviation feedback.
574 R.J. Abraham et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 29 (2007) 571579
6. Optimisation of the integral gain settings (K
I1
and K
I2
)
The optimum integral gain settings of the integral con-
trollers are obtained using integral squared error (ISE)
technique. A characteristic of the ISE criterion is that, it
weighs large errors heavily and small errors lightly. A qua-
dratic performance index
J
Z
t
0
Df
2
1
Df
2
2
DP
2
tie12
dt 11
Table 1
Optimal integral gain settings for thermal and hydro areas
Area Without SMES unit With SMES unit in thermal area With SMES unit in hydro area With SMES unit in both areas
Thermal K
I1
= K
I1opt
= 0.198 K
I1
= K
I1opt
= 0.531 K
I1
= K
I1opt
= 0.252 K
I1
= K
I1opt
= 0.383
Hydro K
I2
= K
I2opt
= 0.047 K
I2
= K
I2opt
= 0. 469 K
I2
= K
I2opt
= 1.049 K
I2
= K
I2opt
= 1.397
0 50 100 150
-0.06
-0.04
-0.02
0
0.02
0.04
SMES Unit in Both Areas
SMES Unit in Hydro Area
No SMES Unit
SMES Unit in Thermal Area
0 50 100 150
-0.06
-0.04
-0.02
0
0.02
0.04
SMES Unit in Both Areas
SMES Unit in Hydro Area
No SMES Unit
SMES Unit in Thermal Area
0 50 100 150
-8
-6
-4
-2
0
2
4
x 10
-3
SMES Unit in Both Areas
SMES Unit in Hydro Area
No SMES Unit
SMES Unit in Thermal Area
Time(s)
f
1

(
H
z
)

f
2

(
H
z
)

Time(s)
P
t
i
e
1
2

(
p
u

M
W
)
Time(s)
Fig. 4. Dynamic responses for Df
1
, Df
2
and DP
tie12
with 1% step load disturbance in the thermal area.
R.J. Abraham et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 29 (2007) 571579 575
is minimised for 1% step load disturbance in either of the
areas for obtaining the optimum values of integral gain set-
tings without the SMES unit. Since the two areas consist of
dierent types of units, the optimum gain settings are ob-
tained on an individual basis by considering the other area
uncontrolled following the approaches of [18,19]. For
determining the optimum integral gain settings with the
SMES unit, the same procedure is repeated with ACE
1
as
the control signal to the SMES unit in area 1 (i.e., DEr-
ror
1
= ACE
1
). Table 1 shows the optimal integral gain set-
tings of area 1 and area 2 respectively from which, it may
be noted that the optimum values or the integral gain set-
tings with SMES unit are much higher than those without
the SMES unit.
7. Dynamic responses and discussions
Simulation studies are performed to investigate the per-
formance of the two-area hydrothermal system without
and with SMES unit in area 1 considering GRC. A step
load disturbance of 1% of the nominal loading is consid-
ered in either of the areas.
Fig. 4 gives the dynamic responses for the thermal and
hydro area frequency deviations and inter-area tie-power
oscillations with 1% step load disturbance in the thermal
area without SMES as well as, with an SMES unit in ther-
mal, hydro and both the areas. It can be observed that, the
transient behaviour of area frequencies and tie-power have
improved signicantly in terms of peak deviations and set-
tling time in the presence of the SMES unit.
Fig. 5 shows the generation responses for both the
thermal and hydro areas (i.e., DP
g1
and DP
g2
) without
and with SMES unit in area 1 for 1% step load distur-
bance in area 1. It may be noted that, as the step load dis-
turbance has occurred in the thermal area, the thermal
unit should adjust its output at the earliest, so as to take
up the local load perturbation in its area as per its obliga-
tion as reected in Fig. 5a. Further, as per the approved
practices of interconnected operations, area 2 need not
contribute to the local load uctuation in area 1 and
hence should settle down to steady state value of zero
as early as possible and this is reected in Fig. 5b. It
may be noted that the initial negative deection of the
transient response of the output of the hydro unit is
attributed to water hammer eect.
Hence, from Figs. 4 and 5, it is seen that SMES in both
the areas and SMES in either of the areas improves the
dynamic performances signicantly. However, from the
0 50 100 150
0
0.002
0.004
0.006
0.008
0.01
0.012
0.014
SMES Unit in Both Areas
SMES Unit in Hydro Area
No SMES Unit
SMES Unit in Thermal Area
0 50 100 150
-6
-4
-2
0
2
4
6
8
10
x 10
-3
SMES Unit in Both Areas
SMES Unit in Hydro Area
No SMES Unit
SMES Unit in Thermal Area
Time(s)
P
g
1

(
p
.
u
.

M
W
)

P
g
2

(
p
.
u
.

M
W
)

Time(s)
Fig. 5. Generation responses for the thermal and hydro units (DP
g1
and DP
g2
) with 1% step load disturbance in the thermal area.
576 R.J. Abraham et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 29 (2007) 571579
point of view of economy, SMES in either of the areas may
be preferred.
Similar ndings were also observed with a step load per-
turbation of 1% in the hydro area as shown in Figs. 6 and
7.
8. Conclusions
A comprehensive mathematical model for the AGC of
a two area interconnected hydrothermal power system t-
ted with SMES unit in either thermal or hydro area as
well as both the areas has been presented in this paper.
The generation rate constraints for the thermal and
hydro systems have been considered in the analysis.
The system frequency and tie-line power oscillations
due to small load disturbances were found to persist
for a longer duration even with optimal gain settings of
integral controllers. It has been shown that these oscilla-
tions can be eectively damped out with the use of a
small capacity SMES unit in either of the areas following
a step load disturbance. It has also been observed that
the use of ACE for the control of SMES unit substan-
tially reduces the peak deviations of frequencies and
tie-power responses.
0 50 100 150
-0.07
-0.06
-0.05
-0.04
-0.03
-0.02
-0.01
0
0.01
0.02
0.03
SMES Unit in Both Areas
SMES Unit in Hydro Area
No SMES Unit
SMES Unit in Thermal Area
0 50 100 150
-0.07
-0.06
-0.05
-0.04
-0.03
-0.02
-0.01
0
0.01
0.02
0.03
SMES Unit in Both Areas
SMES Unit in Hydro Area
No SMES Unit
SMES Unit in Thermal Area
0 50 100 150
-4
-2
0
2
4
6
8
10
x 10
-3
SMES Unit in Both Areas
SMES Unit in Hydro Area
No SMES Unit
SMES Unit in Thermal Area
Time(s)
f
1

(
H
z
)

Time(s)
Time(s)
f
2

(
H
z
)

P
t
i
e
1
2

(
p
u

M
W
)
Fig. 6. Dynamic responses for Df
1
, Df
2
and DP
tie12
with 1% step load disturbance in the hydro area.
R.J. Abraham et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 29 (2007) 571579 577
Acknowledgements
Rajesh Joseph Abraham duly acknowledges the Grant
and support from the All India Council for Technical Edu-
cation (A.I.C.T.E.), New Delhi, India in the form of Na-
tional Doctoral Fellowship (NDF 2003) awarded to him,
with which this work was carried out.
Appendix
(A) System Data
K
P1
= K
P2
= 120 Hz/p.u. MW
T
P1
= T
P2
= 20 s
R
1
= R
2
= 2.4 Hz/p.u. MW
B
1
= B
2
= 0.4249
T
G
= 0.08 s
T
T
= 0.3 s
T
12
= 0.0866
T
1
= 41.6 s
T
2
= 0.513 s
T
R
= 5 s
T
W
= 1 s
D
1
= D
2
= 8.333 10
3
p.u. MW/Hz
P
R1
= P
R2
= 1200 MW
(B) SMES Data
L = 2.65 H
T
DC
= 0.03 s
K
SMES
= 100 kV/unit MW
K
id
= 0.2 kV/kA
I
d0
= 4.5 kA
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