Internal mode control for power system load frequency regulation assessment and real time simulation

Electrical power systems must balance demand and generation almost instantly to maintain frequency. This task is performed at each power station with the load frequency controller. On wider areas, the energy management systems supervise generation control automatically to preserve stability and reliability. Due to the unpredictability of the demand, the control response must be as fast as possible to prevent larger deviations that could lead to cascading failures and outages. In order to understand the dynamic behavior and capabilities of the controllers, real time simulation offers a great advantage over its offline predecessors, not only for operational training but also for prototyping. This paper studies the effectiveness of the real time simulator in the analysis of a power system load frequency control.