Load frequency control for a distributed grid system involving wind and hydro power generation

In this era of energy crisis, renewable energy is the most promising solution to man's ever increasing energy needs. But the power production by these resources cannot be controlled unlike in thermal plants. As a result, standalone operation of renewable energy is not reliable. Hence grid-connection of these along with conventional plants is preferred due to the improved performance in response to dynamic load. It is observed that fluctuations in frequency caused due to load variations are high with increase in penetration of renewable resources. In this paper, load frequency control (LFC) for a power system involving wind, hydro and thermal plants is proposed in order to suppress frequency deviations owing to load and generating power fluctuations caused by penetration of renewable resources. A system involving four thermal plants, a wind farm and a hydro plant is modeled using MATLAB R2010a.