A Control Architecture for Fast Frequency Regulation with Increasing Penetration of Inverter Based Resources
Addresses grid stability challenges for power system operators as renewable energy penetration increases.
This paper tackles frequency regulation in power systems with high renewable penetration by proposing a two-layer control architecture combining optimized droop/VSM primary control with MPC secondary control. Validation using Saudi Arabian grid data shows effective frequency regulation under realistic conditions.
This paper addresses frequency regulation under operational constraints in interconnected power systems with high penetration of inverter-based renewable generation. A two-layer control architecture is proposed that combines optimized droop and Virtual Synchronous Machine (VSM) primary control with a Model Predictive Control (MPC) secondary layer operating at realistic control-room update rates. Unlike recent proposed approaches, the proposed framework integrates MPC within existing grid control structures, enabling constraint-aware coordination. A reduced-order frequency response model is systematically derived from a high-fidelity grid model using Hankel singular values, and a reduced-order Kalman-Bucy observer enables state and disturbance estimation using only measurable outputs. Validation using representative data from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia demonstrates effective frequency regulation under realistic operating conditions.