NGC EXPERIENCE WITH FREQUENCY CONTROL IN ENGLAND AND WALES - PROVISION OF FWQUENCY RESPONSE BY GENERATORS

I. A. Erinmez, Senior Member

D.0. Bickers, Member

G . F. Wood

W.W. Hung

The National Grid Company Plc National Grid House, Kirby Corner Road, Coventry CV4 SJY

Abstract: In the restructuring of the privatised electricity supply industry in England and Wales, the management of the quality of supply was allocated to National Grid Company plc (NGC) in its Transmission licence through a mechanism called Ancillary Services. NGC was bound by an economic purchase obligation to procure and despatch technical services for controlling voltage, frequency and transmission constraints which also included reserve and grid recovery services or Black Start. The structure and strategy behind a portfolio of contracts enables NGC as the Grid Operator to despatch and utilise these services to facilitate reliable and economic system operation within prescribed supply quality standards.
This paper addresses some of the key measures taken to identify the system requirements for frequency control services and technicallcontractual mechanisms put in place for establishing the capability of generating plant to provide these services. The paper also discusses the frequency control strategy in England and Wales, the role of the Grid Code and monitoring systems in facilitating service delivery, as well as frequency control measures under abnormal operating conditions.

match their respective demands, plus levels of reserve and frequency response capability to cover generation losses or changes of demand from forecast levels. The frequency service must be automatic and can be divided into two categories of control, continuous and occasional, as shown in Figure 1.

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fI.- -- -- -- -- -c

Continuous Sewke - t o stsndani deviatbn O.07Hz

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49.5

49.2

t-----Figure 1 : Frequency Service Quality Control

Keywords: Frequency control, ancillary services, frequency control services.

I. INTRODUCTION
The quality of system frequency control on the British Grid System is managed by the NGC as the Grid Operator through instructions to individual generating units for energy commitment, frequency response and reserves, and through a partnership role with Scottish Power and Scottish Hydro Electric. Under British Grid Systems Agreement each Grid Operator partner continuously dispatches sufficient generating plant to produce energy to

The frequency service for continuous control is provided by generation plant while the occasional control service is provided by both generation plant and load reduction from customers by low frequency relays. This paper will concentrate on frequency control services provided by generating units. 1 . GRID CODE [l] 1 Under its Transmission Licence, NGC must establish, implement, comply and ensure compliance with a Grid Code which covers all material technical aspects relating to connections, operation and use of the Transmission System.The Grid Code specifies the functional requirements with which all generating units must comply, including, for example, governor and excitation system characteristics, reactive power capability, short circuit ratio and protection details [2,3].

0-7803-4403-0/98/$10.00 0 1998 IEEE

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For frequency control each generating unit must meet the

following minimum requirements: fast acting propo&onal speed governor to provide 1. continuous, automatic and stable response across its entire operating range 11. speed governor capable of being set to a droop of ... 3 - 5 % speed governor deadband no greater than minimum 111. 0.03 Hz (i.e., X0.015Hz) iv. load control capability with target frequency setting of 50a. 1 Hz either continuously or in 0.05 Hz steps V. capability to control frequency to below 52 Hz in island operation vi. if operating at full load, capability to maintain power output if frequency falls to 49.5 Hz, thereafter a reduction in power output no more than pro-rata with frequency down to 47 Hz. Elements i-iv form the basis of the System Ancillary Service discussed in the rest of the paper which generators are obliged to offer. Since Gas Turbines are air breathing engines in which cycle air flow is a function of the square of turbine operating speed, then when operating in temperature control mode, at full load, they are unable to meet element vi unless, for example, modifications are made to the control system to exploit the over-firing capability and/or the plant output is appropriately rated [4]. NGC in discussion with generating companies and plant manufacturers explores all options to identify the best way forward for meeting this important criterion which underpins basic frequency control policy. The Grid Code also states that under exceptional circumstances the system frequency could rise to 52Hz or fall to 47Hz. The design of plant and apparatus connected to the system must enable continuous operation in the 47.552Hz range and at least 20 seconds operation for each time frequency is in the range 47.5 to 47Hz. If the frequency is above 52Hz or below 47Hz independent protective action is permitted to protect generation in the event of danger to safety of plant and/or personnel. In response to a high frquency above 50.4Hz all plant whether operating in frequency or limited frequency sensitive mode, are required to reduce active output power at a minimum rate of 2% per O.1Hz. If the frequency remains below 47.5Hz then generators are required to make all reasonable efforts to avoid tripping.

system and to procure the ancillary services to meet this requirement. In order to meet this frequency control requiremlent, the following operational policy is implemented: system frequency under normal conditions will be maintained within operational limits of X0.2 Hz about the nominal 50Hz, for sudden losses of generation or demand up to 300 MW, the maximum frequency change will be limited to XO.;!Hz, for sudden losses of generation or demand greater than 300 ;h4W and less than or equal to lo00 MW, the maxiinum frequency change will be limited to XOSHz, for sudden losses of generation greater than lo00 MW and less than or equal to 1320 MW, the frequency change will be limited to -0.8 Hz with frequency restored to 49.5 Hz within 1 minute; and sufficient primary, secondary and high frequency response is despatched to achieve these targets. The management of response therefore ensures that for the largest credible generation loss risk (less than or equal to 1320MPJ) the frequency will remain above 49.0 Hz. Losses beyond this level will be treated as emergency conditions and automatic low frequency shedding arrangements commence at 48.8 Hz.

IV. STRATEGY FOR IMPROVING FREQUENCY

RESPONSE SERVICES

NGC has worked closely with the generating companies and plant manufacturers to identify and improve the frequency response: capabilities of their plant to provide a quality assured !Frequencyresponse services.
A strategy was identified to achieve the following objectives: benchmarking of frequency response services dynamic frequency response testing establishing the contract format priacing of frequency response services on-line monitoring and assessment of plant response definition of plant minimum frequency response requirements to meet long term system requirements.

V. BENCHMARKING OF FREQUENCY RESPONSE SERVICES

In order to benchmark frequency response services the response characteristic of each generating unit needs to be clearly defined against set levels of frequency change. The typicat plant response characteristics are shown in Figure 2.

1 1 FREQUENCY CONTROL REQUIREMENTS 1.

The Electricity Supply Regulations [5] require the system frequency to be maintained at 50 Hz X 1% save in exceptional circumstances. The Transmission Licence places the responsibility on NGC to plan and operate the 591

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Frequency Deviation
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carried out at various critical loading points across the whole loading range. A set of typical plant response profiles is shown in Figure 4 where GRC is the plant registered capacity and MSG is the minimum stable generation.

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90s

Figure 2 :Frequency Response Characteristics Following a loss of generation, the initial short-term, automatic power output increase to the negative frequency change is termed Primary Response. This response is essential to minimise the initial frequency dip shown in Figure 2. In the NGC system frequency containment is normally achieved within 7 to 15 seconds of the initial disturbance depending on system demand level, system inertia and size of generation loss. It is important that the primary response from synchronised generation is released increasingly with time, through automatic governor action, in the period 0 -10 seconds after the incident and sustained for a further 20 seconds. The automatic positive power response in the subsequent frequency stabilisation phase beyond 30 seconds to 30 minutes after the incident is termed Secondary Response. If there is a sudden loss of system load causing the frequency to rise above its target level, the automatic reduction in power output is termed High Frequency Response. Again it is important that generation output is reduced increasingly with time with the 10 second timescale being a characteristic time factor. The various primary, secondary and high frequency responses to respective frequency stimuli are shown in Figure 3 and more detailed information can be found in references 6 and 7.

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Figure 3 : Plant Responses to Various Frequency Stimuli

The frequency response tests involve injection of simulated frequency changes to the governor and the load controller a typical example of which is shown in Figure 5 .

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S = Secondary

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VI. DYNAMIC FREQUENCY RESPONSE TESTING

Dynamic frequency response tests are carried out on all types of generating unit to ensure compliance with the Grid Code and also to establish the plant frequency response capability for commercial payment purposes. In newly constructed power stations these tests are phased in to the commissioning process and typically occur towards the end of the commissioning tests. In addition to the ramp injections shown in Figure 3, step injections of both small and large magnitude are carried out together with deadband tests to check the stability and robustness of the generator control systems. Since the response characteristic of a plant varies depending on its loading level, tests have been
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Figure 4 : Typical Genset Frequency Response Profile

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response contracts should be cost reflective and include a reasonable profit. The costs of the frequency control services are additional costs based on additional inefficiency losses and maintenancelageing effects incurred when providing the service. The plant de-load efficiency losses i s . effects of start-up, no-load and fuel costs, were agreed to be compensated through the electricity pool payments as these elements reflect the half- hourly energy prices. A typica!l inefficiency cost on conventional steam plant, due to heat-rate changes resulting from throttling steam pressure across governor valves and additional auxiliaries, is shown by Figure 6. These efficiency losses were confirmed by discussions with plant efficiency engineers and in reference 8. The principle behind the frequency response contracts is h response payment arrangement as to achieve a M shown by the elements of the profiles in Figure 7. Indicative prices of primary and secondary response are both I.SO/MWh and high frequency response is 00.35NWh. The optimum load point (OLP) in Figure 7 is defined as the loading point where the response to de-load ratio for the plant is a maximum and ILl, IL2 etc represent specific intermediate load points characterising the response payment profile. It is important to note that typically when generators are deloaded against the unconstrained schedule in the Electricity Pool they receive lost opportunity payments and Ancillary Services contractual payments as illustrated in Figure 8.

Fuel Valve

Figure 5 : Genset Control Configurations Different injection methods have been adopted to suit the plant configurations and the accessibility of the injection points. The results of the tests are accurately recorded and time tagged for subsequent analysis. A more detailed description of the test methods is provided in references 6 and 7. It is important to note that in addition to meeting the Grid Code requirements, all centrally dispatched generating plant is required to have the facility to set the levels of generator output power and target frequency to the instructions issued by the Grid Operator and for the provision of Ancillary Services [ 11. These are generally known as Target MW and Target Frequency settings as indicated in Figure 5. Under normal circumstances, centrally dispatched generating units are instructed to set their Target Frequency to 50 Hz. However, in order to maintain electric clock time error within prescribed limits generating units are expected to be capable of changing the target frequency as indicated in Section 2.

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VII. ESTABLISHING THE CONTRACT FORMAT

The contract format is essentially a series of matrices relating the primary, secondary and high frequency MW response of the generating plant to given frequency variations at particular plant loading levels. Establishment of sufficient points in the matrices enables reasonably accurate representation of any non-linearities in plant response behaviour and enables calculation of plant response by linear interpolation at intermediate loading points [6,7]. The contract format is actually defined as a function of plant de-loading so that response delivery is independent of the actual on-the-day plant output availability.
VIII. PRICING FREQUENCY RESPONSE

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15

Degree of Throttling (A)

20

Figure 6 : Efficiency Losses due to Steam Throttling 1

SERVICES
At the privatisation of the supply industry in 1990 it was agreed that the price of System Ancillary Service frequency

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Typical Payment

X. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS FOR FREQUENCY RESPONSE

The amount of frequency responsive generation required to provide dynamic response to the system at any time depends on the size of the maximum generation loss risk to be covered, the characteristics of the demand, the frequency quality standards, the level of low frequency demand tripping and the speed of response of the contributing generators. The requirement levels for primary and secondary responses shown in Figure 9 were derived using dynamic simulation models verified by plant test results referred to in Section 6 above.

Payment Levels fmr

MSG

IL1

OLP

112

95% GRC

GRC

Unit Loading ___C

Figure 7 :Generator Response Payment Profile

Primary Response Service 1320MW Risk

Occasional Delivery

Response (MW)
500

1,000

0 1 10

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20

50.00

49.90

49.80

49.70

49.60

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30 40 Svstem Demand

50

60

Frequency

Hz

Figure 8: Typical Components of Frequency Service Payments

Secondary Response Service 1320MW Risk

1,000

I .MONITORING OF FREQUENCY RESPONSE X

PERFORMANCE
The current annual cost of providing frequency control services in England and Wales is currently in the order of E100m. Expenditure of this order clearly requires monitoring of service delivery. With support from the Pool and the cooperation from the generating companies, NGC therefore developed a frequency service monitor for location at generating stations to continuously record the electrical output ( M W ) of each generating set and compare with the expected contract deliveries on a second-bysecond basis. At the outset it was realised that the response monitoring functions would be developed in stages. The monitor has therefore been developed and commissioned at major power stations.

Response (MW)
500

Continuous
I
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20

30

40

50

60

S F t e m DemandGW

Figure 9 : Frequency Response Requirements

XI. IDENTIFICATION OF LOAD FACTOR REQUIREMENTS

The selection of generation to provide frequency response services depends on the capability of the plant, the energy bid prices and ancillary service costs. The predominance of selected generators for this service is normally associated with the plant that has an energy bid price close to the system marginal price because of the high de-load costs that may be incurred through pool payments. Therefore a typical load duration curve of the England and Wales system can be used to show the approximate utilisation of any plant to provide the frequency service as shown in Figure 10.

NGC is currently working closely with the generating companies to further develop the scheme. Any shortfall of response will be reported periodically both to the Grid Operator and Generator. In the longer term it is intended that contractual shortfalls will feed-back directly into the central economic dispatch for overall system security management including overall energy and service optimisation economic dispatch advice.

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Figure 11 Plant Minimum Frequency Response Requirement Profile

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Percent hours per year

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Figure 10 : Load Duration Curve The vertically shaded area of the curve shows the energy generated on plant that would be selected to provide frequency response.

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XII. DEFINITION OF PLANT MINIMUM RESPONSE REQUIREMENTS

System Frequency Response Requirements Working Group was established by the Grid Code Review Panel to consider system and plant response requirements for frequency control in order to provide clearer guidance to generators in specifying their plant and possible modes of operation of plant. The Working Group would also examine the requirements in terms of NGCs longer term compliance its Transmission Licence obligations. The Working Group examined system dynamic requirements under various normal and system emergency conditions. The average response capability of current plant on the system obtained from NGCs frequency injection tests, performance monitoring, Ancillary Service contracts and discussions from manufacturers was noted to be:

efforts have been expended to improve frequency control which in turn has led to significant improvements which have: Benefited Generators - through the benchmarking, testing and monitoring process, Generators have gained documented information of their plant response characteristics. This enabled plant control parameters to be optimised and hence improved frequency response capabilities to be achieved. Benefited NGC through continued improvement of the neliability of frequency service delivery. This together with on-line monitoring has improved the Grid Operators confidence leading to lower overall service costs through optimal dispatch. Benefited the Consumer - because the services have been opened to other providers (such as demand managers), competition has increased, efficiency has improved, overall costs have reduced and there has been a better frequency control performance whilst larger generation loss risks, i.e., an increase from 10010 to 1320 M W have become a reality on the system.

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Primary Coal
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15%

Secondary
13%

High
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Oil
CCGT

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of the plant registered capacity. The Working Group reported to the Grid Code Review Panel in January 1998 identifying the minimum plant response requirements profile shown in Figure 11 for application to future plant. These additions to the Grid Code and whether they should be made mandatory requirements are currently the subject of an industry consultation exercise.
XIII. CONCLUSIONS

XIV. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authiors wish to express their thanks to The National Grid Coimpany plc for granting permission to publish this

The Grid Code framework has provided a baseline from which frequency control services are obtained. Significant

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paper, The support from the Generators and CCGT plant manufacturers are appreciated.
XV. REFERENCES
The Grid Code, Revision 25, The National Grid Company, August 1998 D. 0. Bickers,Technical Performance Requirements of CCGT Plants, IEE Colloquium on Combined Cycle and Cogeneration Systems, March 1995 Dr I. A. Erinmez, et al, NGC Experience of Audit of Excitation System Performance, IEE Colloquium on Generator Excitation Systems and Stability, February 1996 W.LRowen,Dynamic Response Characteristics of Heavy Duty Gas Turbines and Combined Cycle Systems in Frequency Regulating Duty, IEE Colloquium on Frequency Control Capability o f Generating Plant, February 1995 The Electricity Supply Regulations 1998 (No 1057) and Amendment I990 (No 390). HMSO W. W.Hung, N W A S B System Frequency Control Response/Reserve Requirements, Presentation to National Power & PowerGen at GEC Alsthom Engineering Systems Ltd, Whetstone, Leicester, March 1993 W.W.Hung, Frequency Control Response/Reserve Requirements of EmbedddGrid Connected ThermaV CCGT Plants, Paper presented at the IBC Technical Conference, May 1994 H.Kuerten, Provision and Activation of Active Power Second-range reserve in Thermal Power Plants; effectiveness and economic aspects, CEPSI, Jakarta, November 1986. G. F.Wood,Measurement in the Electrical Power Industry, Presented to the Institute of Physics, Teddington, November 1993

Electrical Power Engineering. He started his service with the System Operation Division of the CEGB in 1987. After various posts in the operations environment, including a spell working on shift in the Control Centre, Derek joined the Technical Audit Unit from the Settlements Division of NGC in 1992. He is now responsible for Grid Code Connection Compliance which involves the witnessing of tests to ensure satisfactory performance of the new generating plant connecting to the NGC system. He is also involved in CIGRE activities. George Wood (CEng MIEE) was bom in 1941 and studied electrical engineering at Southbank Polytechnic, London, and graduated to IEE diploma standard. Between 1964 and 1970 he held many posts in the CEGB related to operations and planning. From 1970-72, he became a United Nations agency expert in Load Programming based in Cairo, Egypt, and was responsible for developing engineering training schemes and providing technical advice connected with the Electrical Power Training Institute for the Egyptian Electricity Company. During 1973-74 he undertook postgraduate studies at Imperial College, London. From 1974-77 he worked as a Senior Systems Operations Engineer for the Copperbelt Power Company, Zambia, responsible for the real-time operations and management of a control centre. He rejoined the CEGB in 1977, as an engineer based at the National Control Centre in London, involved with the centralised real-time operations for the England & Wales Electricity Grid. Since 1989 he has held a post with the National Grid Company (NGC) as Head of Ancillary Services Technical and Economic Section responsible for the technical and economic assessment of frequency, reserve, reactive and black start services. Since 1997 he became a Senior Consultant in the Transmission Services area. He is a Chartered Engineer and a member of the IEE. William Wingcheung Hung (BSc(Hon) MBA PhD CEng MIEE) was bom in 1949 and obtained his BSc, PhD and MBA from Newcastle, Loughborough and Warwick Universities in 1975, 1983 and 1995 respectively. He started his career with Hong Kong Electric Power Company Ltd in 1967 on power station operation and control. In 1975, he joined GEC Gas Turbines Ltd as an Engineer in the commissioning of gas turbine generating plant. He was awarded a GEC Fellowship in 1977 to develop a detailed dynamic gas turbine computer models for optimisation of the gas turbine excitation and governor control settings. In 1982, he joined M e n and McLellan Consulting Engineers and worked in the design and development of transmission systems. In 1985, he joined ERA Technology Ltd worked in a wide range of power system projects. He joined Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) System Technical Branch in 1989 and was responsible for development and application of computer models for system incident investigations. In 1991, he joined National Grid Company (NGC) Ancillary Services Business as a Senior Technical Analyst. He has worked closely with main Generators and plant manufacturers to improve the quality and reliability of He is frequency response services provided by Generators. currently working in the NGC Generator Connection Compliance Group engaged in compliance Group engaged in compliance testing of plant.

XVI. BIOGRAPHIES
Arslan Erinmez (CEng Bsc Msc PhD FIEE SMIEE) was born in 1945 and obtained his BSc and MSc degrees from Middle East Technical University in Turkey in Electrical Power Engineering. He obtained his PhD in 1970 from UMIST, Manchester, UK in Direct Digital Control of HVDC Transmission. He worked on long distance transmission design projects with consulting engineers and joined CEGB System Technical Branch in 1974. He worked as senior engineer in generation dynamic behaviour, hvdc, reactive compensation, voltage control and became Head of Generation Dynamics Group in 1978. In 1986 he became System Operational Planning Manager and continued in this post until 1991 within the privatised National Grid Company (NGC). In 1991 he became Technical Audit Manager, responsible for auditing compliance with connection conditions and quality of supply requirements in the Grid Code. Since 1997 he worked as a Senior Consultant to NGC, System Strategy and Design. Over the years he chaired IEE and CIGRE Working Groups on voltage control, reactive compensation, Static Var Compensators and STATCOM. He is the editor of two CIGRE books on Static Var Compensators (1996) and STATCOM (1998). Derek Bickers (BSc MSc AMIEE MIEEE) was bom in 1964 and graduated from Strathclyde University, Glasgow with a First Class Honours in Electrical and Electronic Engineering and an MSC in

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