Flexible modern power system: Real-time power balancing through load and wind power

Increasing large-scale integration of renewables in conventional power system has led to an increase in reserve power requirement owing to the forecasting error. Innovative operating strategies are required for maintaining balance between load and generation in real time, while keeping the reserve power requirement at its minimum.

This research work proposes a control strategy for active power balance control without compromising power system security, emphasizing the integration of wind power and flexible load in automatic generation control. Simulations were performed in DIgSILENT for forecasting the modern Danish power system with bulk wind power integration.

A high wind day of year 2020 was selected for analysis when wind power plants were contributing 76.7% of the total electricity production. Conventional power plants and power exchange with interconnected power systems utilize an hour-ahead power regulation schedule, while real-time series are used for wind power plants and load demand.

Analysis showed that flexible load units along with wind power plants can actively help in reducing real-time power imbalances introduced due to large-scale integration of wind power, thus increasing power system reliability without enhancing the reserve power requirement from conventional power plants.