Improving the Cross-Border Activation of the Regulating Reserve to Enhance the Provision of Load-Frequency Control

This paper presents the Cross-Border activation of the Regulating Reserve (CBRR) between participating Control Areas (CAs), which is being developed to reduce the costs of balancing energy. The main objective of the CBRR is to activate the regulating reserve in participating CAs, to release the regulating reserve and to reduce the balancing energy as part of the safe operation of the power system. However, the classic CBRR includes a frequency term and, therefore, inherently affects the frequency response of the participating CAs, which is not discussed in the literature. In this paper, the impact of the classic CBRR on frequency quality and the provision of Load-Frequency Control (LFC) is thoroughly evaluated with dynamic simulations of a three-CA test system and an eigenvalue analysis of a two-CA system. It is clearly demonstrated that the classic CBRR reduces the damping of the entire power system. Therefore, a modified implementation of the classic CBRR is presented, and a modified CBRR is proposed, which has no impact on the system's eigendynamics. Furthermore, the results of the dynamic simulations confirm that the frequency quality can be improved by the classic CBRR, although there are also cases where it can deteriorate. However, the modified CBRR improves the frequency quality in all cases. The modified CBRR also improves the indicators for the provision of LFC compared to the classic CBRR. Moreover, the modified CBRR reduces the unintended exchange of energy and the demand power, thus increasing the financial effects of the CBRR's activation.