Optimal Automatic Parameter Tuning for Innovative Grid Frequency Regulation Functions

This work focuses on two innovative ancillary services for power system frequency control, namely fast primary regulation and synthetic inertia supply. A method for automatic tuning of the controller parameters is proposed. These are here computed by solving a non-linear optimization problem with constraints both on the transient response of grid frequency and on the amount of power that can be exchanged by the control actions. Some penalty coefficients are also taken into account to favor the former or the latter regulation, in particular by considering possible different prices for the two services. Thus, the performance index to be minimized is related both to the employed energy and to its cost. It is obtained starting from a simple model of the regulators both in the continuous and in the discrete time domain. In the simulations, this latter formulation has allowed a considerable reduction of the computation time, so as to ease the analysis of a complete 2030 annual scenario for the Sardinian power system, in case of loss of a DC link pole that connects the island to the Italian mainland.