Distributed generation based on renewable energy providing frequency response ancillary services

Distributed Generation (DG) based on renewable energy resources has become extremely attractive due to their significant ability to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and decrease the dependency on fossil fuels. However, in modern power systems these DGs should participate with the main conventional power plants and other system's equipments in the power system security and reliability by providing the essential ancillary services. Renewable energy resources such as wind and solar could provide power system ancillary services by using controlled battery storages. In an attempt to answer these issues, this paper studies the feasibility of DGs based on wind and solar energies to provide ancillary services to medium-scale micro-grid, namely frequency response ancillary service. A generic model of IEEE distributed generation system with 13 buses will be used as a test network in this investigation, with the total generation from conventional power plants representing 50% of total generated power and the remaining 50% is renewable power. The test system will be simulated by using the commercial DIgSILENT Power Factory to assess technical feasibility of the contribution of DGs to frequency response, and results obtained will be discussed.