Finite-Time Estimation of Time-Varying Frequency Signals in Low-Inertia Power Systems

The ongoing and unprecedented transformation of power systems leads to a reduction in the number of conventional power plants, which are the classical actuators of the grid. In addition, this development results in a decreasing system inertia, which is expected to yield faster frequency dynamics. Therefore power-electronics-interfaced units have to take over system control tasks and, in particular, frequency control. For this purpose, accurate and fast estimation algorithms for time-varying frequency signals are needed. Motivated by this fact, we propose a time-varying parameter estimator and a tuning criterion, which for sufficiently small initial estimation errors allows to reconstruct the time-varying frequency signal of a symmetric three-phase waveform in finite time. The proposed estimator is derived by using a time-varying version of the super twisting algorithm and its performance is illustrated via numerical examples.