On the influence of the backlash governor settings on the frequency response in power systems

The automatic frequency containment reserve (FCR-N) is in place to keep the electric frequency within the interval 50.0 +/- 0.1 Hz during normal operation. This function is mainly provided by a number of hydropower plants where the turbine governor is set to control the discharge in proportion to the measured frequency deviation. In later years it has been shown that the disturbance damping is very low in an interval around 1/60 Hz and it is believed that proper tuning of the turbine governors that provide FCR-N can help mitigating this problem. New regulator settings have been suggested to improve the performance of the FCR-N, yet keeping the system robust and the wear on participating units at a minimum. It is now desired to investigate the possible effects of new governor settings on the overall power system frequency response. In a word, the overall performance for new governor settings are tested in a large scale power system model in this thesis paper. The frequency response with the newly suggested governor settings have been investigated when introducing a disturbance into the system. Secondly, the effects of the new governor settings on electro-mechanical oscillations are also investigated.