Hydrogen Electrolyser Participation in Automatic Generation Control using Model Predictive Control

Traditionally, proportional-integral (PI) control has ensured the successful application of automatic generation control (AGC). Two design features of AGC-PI are the following: (1) it is merely a reactive system which does not take full advantage of existing knowledge about the system and (2) the control signal sent to all units is divided proportionally to their participation in the AGC. These two features ensure simplicity and, thus, reliability for the regular functioning of the power system. However, when the power system is recovering from a loss of generation, such features can become shortcomings. This paper proposes a model predictive control (MPC) to improve performance of AGC in such a scenario. The contrast with the traditional approach is as follows: instead of using merely two system measures which are also the control objectives (frequency and interconnection flow), the proposed controller relies on an internal model that takes advantage of further known variables of the power system, especifically the ramping capabilities of participating units. While still respecting the participation factors, it is shown that the proposed model allows to exhaust earlier the availability of faster units, such as some demand response, as the one to be provided by hydrogen electrolysers, and thus reestablishes the frequency and interconnection flows in a faster way than typical AGC-PI.