Automatic Generation Control (AGC)

First Pilot Project at NTPC Dadri

03-August 2017
 Outline
• Commission’s orders on spinning reserves
• Frequency profile of different systems and India
• Primary Control
• Secondary control through Automatic Generation
Control (AGC)
– Details of pilot project by POSOCO and NTPC
– Further steps
• Commercial mechanism for plants under AGC
• Further directions required from Hon’ble
Commission
2
 Commission’s orders
• Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (Ancillary Services
Operations) Regulations, 2015
– 13th August 2015
– http://cercind.gov.in/2015/regulation/Noti13.pdf
– Implemented from: 12th April 2016
• Report of the Committee on Spinning Reserves
– 17th September 2015
– http://www.cercind.gov.in/2015/orders/Annexure-
%20SpinningReseves.pdf
• Roadmap to operationalise Reserves in the country
– 13th October 2015
– http://cercind.gov.in/2015/orders/SO_11.pdf
3
 Roadmap to operationalise Reserves in the country
- Salient points
• Philosophy recommended to be adopted
– Operation at constant frequency target of 50.0 Hz
– with constant area interchange
• For AGC, power plants and Load Dispatch Centres (LDCs)
– necessary software and communication infrastructure
– Automated control signals from LDC to the generator
• AGC to be operationalized wef 1st April 2017

POSOCO awarded a pilot AGC project on 18th Jan 2017

4
Primary and Secondary Reserves
• Secondary Reserves (centralized approach)
– North : 800 MW
– East : 660 MW
– West : 800 MW
– South : 1000 MW
– North East : 363 MW
– Total : 3623 MW
• Primary Reserves (distributed )
– 4000 MW considering Ultra Mega Power Plant out
5
Tertiary Reserves (decentralized)

• All India level : 5218 MW

– NR : 1658 MW
– WR : 1353 MW
– SR : 1343 MW
– ER : 857 MW
– NER : 65 MW
• Reserves to be maintained at intra state level

6
 Year: 2016
Source: Derived from http://fnetpublic.utk.edu/ 7
Frequency profile of Continental Europe

Narrow range of 49.96-50.04 Hz!!

Deterministic frequency deviations – root causes and proposals for potential solutions
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A joint EURELECTRIC – ENTSO-E response paper

8
Typical frequency profile for Eastern Interconnection, US

For 11th April 2012

Based on 2 second frequency data available from PJM website

9
Sample Daily Frequency Profile of India

Generally remains within 49.90-50.05 Hz for 70-75% of the time

10
Frequency Profile
Frequency Profile

12
Frequency Variation Index (FVI) over the years

13
Frequency Profile

14
Frequency Profile

Maximum Frequency

15
Frequency Profile
Average Frequency ~ 50 Hz.

16
Frequency Profile

Minimum Frequency

17
Frequency Profile

FVI consistently hovering around 0.03 to 0.05

18
Frequency as per global standards in India
• Load and RE forecasting
– Decentralized at State level
• Unit commitment and Scheduling
– Decentralized
– Move from 15-minutes to 5-minute scheduling (SAMAST)
• Load following resources
– Decentralized
• Fast/slow tertiary response
– Centralized through Ancillary Services at ISTS level
• Secondary response
– Automatic Generation Control (AGC) at regional level
• Primary control
– Decentralized
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Hz Kudankulam 1000 MW tripping event
Jan-15 Feb-17
50.08
50.07 Hz

50.03 Early frequency recovery in Feb 2017 PMU

plot due to improved Primary Response in
comparison to Jan 2015 for a similar
event(1000 MW Generating Unit Tripping )
49.98

49.93
49.88 Hz

49.91 Hz
49.88

49.85 Hz
49.83
1 501 1001 1501 2001 2501 3001 3501 4001
• Frequency Response Characteristics (FRC) has increased from
6000 MW/Hz in early 2015 to over 9000 MW/Hz in Mar 2017

• Quarterly reports submitted to CERC for 39 events since Jan 2015

Commission’s orders have facilitated primary response

order dated 13th Feb 2017 in petition 65/MP/2014

Target FRC of 15000 MW/Hz suggested along with testing

21
CERC Terms and Conditions of Tariff
Regulations, 2014
“ the rate of return of a new project shall be reduced by 1% for such period as
may be decided by the Commission, if the generating station or transmission
system is found to be declared under commercial operation without
commissioning of any of the Restricted Governor Mode Operation (RGMO)/
Free Governor Mode Operation (FGMO), data telemetry, communication
system up to load dispatch centre or protection system:

as and when any of the above requirements are found lacking in a generating
station based on the report submitted by the respective RLDC, RoE shall be
reduced by 1% for the period for which the deficiency continues “

22
 Secondary control through
Automatic Generation Control (AGC)

23
 Automatic Generation Control
fundamentals

• AGC regulates the power output of electric generators

within a prescribed control area in response to change in
system frequency, tie line loading, or the relation of these
to each other.
• The AGC program provides closed-loop control that assigns
the automatically controlled generation in such a way that
the control area load is satisfied while the desired
frequency and interchange schedules are maintained.
• The AGC program recognizes both economic and regulation
limits and protects against rate- of- change Violations
 AGC input Data

• Scheduled interchange
• Tie line telemetry (MW)
• Actual unit generation (MW)
• Frequency (Actual & Desired)
• Economic Dispatch program (ED) data
 AGC control Modes
The following AGC control modes are provided
to allow AGC to be operated under various
system operational conditions
– Tie Line Bias Control (TLBC)
– Constant Frequency Control (CFC)
– Constant Net Inter-change Control (CNI)
– Tie Line Bias Control Plus Time error correction.
– The control mode is selected by the dispatcher via buttons located
on the operator panel of each console.
 Automatic Generation Control Interfaces

• Net Scheduled Interchange

External
• Unit Economic Basepoints
• Unit Economic Participation Factors Interchange Interfac
Scheduling e
Economic • External ACE
• External Unit Data
Dispatch

Automatic Generation
•Island Data
•Estimated Unit & Line MW
Control

State
Estimato • Unit Connection Status • ACE Calculation
• Setpoint/ • Unit Control Status • Unit Control Mode
r Pulse • Unit Output • Unit Basepoint
Control • Unit Limits • Unit Ramp Schedules
Commands
• Unit Ramp Rates

• System frequency
• System Time Error
• Tie Line Flows

19
 Secondary Control through AGC
• Pilot at NTPC Dadri Stg-II (2 x 490 MW)
– Dadri Stage II power plant is located near Delhi.
– Easy to visit and monitor the field level implementation process.
– High variable cost of the order of 325 paise/kWh
– Economical to keep Spinning Reserves as little opportunity cost
• Subsequent pilots could be explored in each region
– Simhadri-II in Southern Region
– NP Kunta Solar
– Wind project
• Detailed procedure would be submitted by POSOCO
28
 Project progress
• A team from POSOCO, POWERGRID and M/s Siemens
– visited NTPC Dadri on 6th May 2016
– to explore the ground level requirements with NTPC
• Execution of AGC pilot project as per technical
specifications through limited tender
– Invited bids on 21st October 2016 from the four SCADA vendors
• M/s ALSTOM
• M/s OSI
• M/s Siemens
• M/s ABB
• Bids opened on 30th Nov 2016
• Letter of Award (LOA) issued to M/s Siemens on 18th Jan’17
and accepted by Siemens on 25th Jan ’17
• CERC Petition filed by POSOCO for payment mechanism on
3rd April 2017
– Hearing by CERC scheduled on 18th July 2017 29
Technical Specifications

30
Area Control Error (ACE) formula
• ACE = A * (Ia - Is) + 10 * Bf * (50 - Fa)
A = 0 or 1; 0 -> for adopting ‘only Frequency control
mode’ and 1 -> for adopting ‘Tie Line Bias mode’ (user
entry)
Ia = Actual net interchange (negative value for import)
Is= Scheduled net interchange (negative value for
import)
Bf = Frequency Bias Coefficient in MW/0.1 Hz
(positive value, user entry)
Fa = Actual System Frequency

31
 ACE and AGC set point
• Spikes in ACE data are present for different
reasons.
– By design, AGC cannot handle large changes in ACE
– Pilot AGC shall clamp ACE exceeding +/- 800 MW to +/-
800 MW

• Method for Scaling of ACE

– Scale using a factor of 15 (800/15 = approx 50 MW, the
maximum Spinning Reserve.

32
Draft Rules for the CLU Algorithm at NTPC
• Receive Unit Status, Present Schedule and DeltaP signal and
number of mills.

• If Present Schedule is close to 230, 330 or 430 MW, start

another extra mill to create Spinning Reserve.

• Delta P signal be clamped to +/- 50 MW if the value is

outside +/- 50 MW.

• The biasing between units should be user enterable. Start

with 0.5, for equal contribution.

• Difference between two consecutive ICCP refresh values of

Delta P shall be clamped to a limit of 1 MW to start with.
(i.e., Max(Delta Delta P) = 1 MW)
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 Proposal for commercial settlement for AGC
services offered by NTPC Dadri Stage-II
1. Factoring AGC signals while evaluating Deviations.
2. Compensate for the Extra Energy spent/saved
3. Incentivize for the ‘secondary regulation’ services

• CERC Order needed to facilitate all of the above

34
 1. Factoring AGC signals while evaluating deviations

• Energy produced due to AGC signals should not be

considered as deviation from the schedule
• Aggregated AGC incremental MW signals over 15
minutes / 5 minutes would be logged in MWh at NLDC.
• AGC MWh logs forwarded to NRPC secretariat on weekly
basis.
• Deviation in MWh for every time block would be worked
out as
– MWh deviation = (Actual MWh)-(Scheduled MWh)- (AGC MWh)
which would be settled as per the existing DSM Regulations

35
 2. Compensate for the Extra Energy spent/saved
• The AGC energy account will be available every week
• For AGC MWh generated during a block,
– payment @ variable charges to Dadri from the NR DSM pool
• For AGC MWh reduced during a time block
– Dadri pays @variable charges to the NR DSM pool

36
 3. Incentivize for the ‘secondary regulation’ services
• For AGC MWh in each time block (+ve or –ve)
– 50 paise/kWh mark up payable to NTPC Dadri from NR DSM pool

• Mark up of 50 paise/kWh similar to Ancillary Services (AS)

framework of CERC.

• Periodic checks regarding compliance of plant to AGC

signals

37
 Inputs needed for Accounting
(Main and Standby)
• MW Delta P signals every 10 seconds at NTPC Dadri
(Main)
 Delta P = PAGCsetpoint – Pschedule
 Integrated into MWh values for 15 minutes and 5 minutes

• MW Delta P signals sent every 10s from NLDC

(Standby)
– Integrated into MWh values for 15 minutes and 5 minutes

38
 Regulation accuracy of the solar plant demonstration
exceeded accuracy of conventional resources
Regulation Up Accuracy
100%

90%

80%

70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%
Steam Pump Hydro Combined Limited Gas Solar PV Solar PV Solar PV
Turbine Turbine Cycle Energy Turbine (Middle of (Sunset) (Sunrise)
Storage the Day)

Source: CAISO Blue bars taken from the ISO’s informational submittal to FERC on the performance of resources
providing regulation services between January 1, 2015 and March 31, 2016
Page 39
CERC approval is needed on the following
• Go ahead for the pilot project for NTPC Dadri Stage-II (2 x 490 MW) to
receive AGC signals from NLDC and regulate to the extent of 50 MW
up/down to start with and with provision to go up later.

• Deviation Settlement Mechanism (DSM) for Dadri Stage-II under AGC

– Factoring AGC signals while working out deviations from the schedule

• Incentivize NTPC Dadri stg-II for the AGC services

– 50 paise/kWh mark up similar to Ancillary Services framework

• Facilitate NRLDC to earmark 50 MW up/down reserves at NTPC Dadri

Stage-II on days when full generation is requisitioned or schedule is at
technical minimum

• Take up other pilot projects including wind and solar

40
Automatic Generation Control (AGC)
Pilot Project

Implementation Philosophy
 Region considered as an Area for secondary control
ACE = (Ia - Is) + 10 * Bf * (Fa - 50)
NORTHERN
REGION
NORTH-
EASTERN
REGION

Eastern  Ia = Actual net interchange, negative for NR

WESTERN EASTERN
REGION meaning import by NR
REGION
REGION
 Is= Scheduled net interchange, negative for NR
meaning import by NR
 Bf = Frequency Bias Coefficient in MW/0.1 Hz,
positive value
 Fa = Actual System Frequency
SOUTHERN
REGION  ACE positive means NR is surplus and NR
internal generation has to back down
 ACE negative means NR is deficit and NR
internal generation has to increase
• Tie line bias mode and Frequency bias only mode
42
both possible
 Scaling the ACE value
• NTPC Dadri stg-II alone cannot compensate the whole
Northern Region ACE
• Interchange scaled using a factor of 15, changeable
– Nearly 15 stations available for AGC in NR
• 50 MW will be the maximum Spinning Reserve utilization
• Beyond 50 MW NR Scaled ACE
– Entire 50 MW spinning Reserve will be utilized from NTPC
Dadri stg-II
• Utilization restricted to 50 MW
– Regulation limits in the Spectrum 7 software
Technical Specifications

New
 Data Flow in AGC Project

AGC console at
NTPC
AGC Local/Remote
AGC On/OFF Unit Load Set Point Factor
AGC Set point Actual Generation
Scaled ACE Circuit Breaker Status
Back-up
NLDC AGC System at AGC RTU
ICCP IEC 104 Protocol
SCADA NLDC at NTPC
NR-IR Schedule AGC Set point
NR-IR Actual
Frequency AGC Local/Remote
Unit Load Set Point DeltaP
Actual Generation
Circuit Breaker Status

NTPC DCS
 Control block diagram at NLDC
Unit Load Set
Point schedule
total from unit
5 &6

PI controller and
ACE Plant Set Point
Limiters

• Integration time constant = 80s

• Small signal Proportional time constant = 0.5s
• Large signal Proportional time constant = 0.5s
• Regulation Limits = +/- 50 MW
• Plant limit = 980 MW
• Ramp rate = 10 MW/min for Plant
 Communication block diagram

Setpoint

ICCP of NLDC
SCADA SCADA &
AGC Database
Database in the
in the IMM IFS before sending
IMM
towards NTPC RTU

IMM : Information Model Management

IFS: Independent Front End Server
ICCP : Inter Control Centre Protocol
RTU: Remote Terminal Unit
Sample dashboard
 AGC set point from NLDC AGC P Schedule (Back up)
using ACE, ULSP, tuned NLDC
parameters, limits etc. PAGC Setpoint (Back up)

A1 PAGC Setpoint total (main)

PC with provision to
enter AGC unit biasing
manually, if needed
AGC RTU at Plant with
algorithm to produce
final unit wise set points
A2

Unit DCS
Inputs from the two unit DCS:
ULSP of the generator for the
present time block and B1, B2 Unit 2
breaker status Unit 1
P Schedule (main)
Max Load Set
point
NTPC
Unit Capability
Min Load Set
point

Turbine Control Boiler Control

NTPC side Block diagram 49

 Rules fed in NTPC RTU
• AGC correction (Delta P) calculated in RTU as
Delta P = Set point sent by NLDC – ULSP of plant

• Check Delta P limits

– If Delta P > 50 MW, Delta P = 50 MW
– If Delta P < -50 MW, Delta P = -50 MW

• If one link goes down, switch to another

• Multiply the Delta P by the factor entered by NTPC

operator
– Divide the Delta P amongst the two units

• Send the AGC correction (Delta P)

– To individual NTPC unit DCS
– Hardwired
 Output limit checks
• 50 MW utilization of Spinning Reserve
• Plant Ramp rate (~ 10 MW/min) honoured while giving DeltaP
signals
• Difference between two successive values of Delta P
– Max(Delta (Delta P)) = 1MW
– After tuning of controllers
– Taken care of by the Ramp application at NLDC
• Unit Capabilities checked at Plant end
– Maximum MW limit
– Mill availability and Spinning Reserve in real time as declared on
paper
• If (Unit Capability – 50 – ULSP) < 0, then start an extra mill,
indication at NTPC.
NTPC DCS snapshot
Sample performance plots
0000hrs of 10th June 2017 to 0000hrs of 12th June 2017
 Load following performance
• Plant ramp rate is comparable to the Scaled ACE ramp rate
during normal situations
– Average standard deviation of 5 minute NR ACE for
September and October is around 150 MW.
– Average standard deviation of 10s NR ACE for September
and October is around 10 MW.

• With more number of units under AGC load following will

improve in future
Account data from NTPC and NLDC
• Exercise done for sanity checking of accounting data
• Data for 15 minutes average
– Collected from both NLDC and NTPC Dadri stg-II
• Data was from 00 hrs of 10th June to 00 hrs of 12th June 2017
• Delta P data was plotted for comparison
• 10th -12th June’17 were predominantly ‘Regulation Down’ days
• Block wise AGC MWh computed
Comparison graph
 Payment for Energy & Incentive
• Variable cost of Dadri Stg-II available
• Block wise data
– For both Up and Down regulation
• Payment for energy
– For AGC MWh generated during a block
• Payment @ variable charges plus markup 50ps to Dadri from
the NR DSM pool
– For AGC MWh reduced during a time block
• Dadri pays @ variable charges to the NR DSM pool
• Incentive of 50ps earned by Dadri during down regulation
 DSM after AGC
• Deviation in MWh for every time block
• MWh deviation = (Actual MWh) - (Scheduled MWh) - (AGC MWh)
• AGC MWh can be positive or negative
– Block wise data available
• Actual MWh and Scheduled MWh will be always positive
• Would be settled as per the existing DSM Regulations
AGC Pilot Project at NTPC Dadri Stg-II

Report of the Mock Test conducted

on 29th June 2017
Pioneering Experience
 List of Acronyms used and meaning
• ULSP : Unit Load Set Point of NTPC Dadri Stg-II (Gross Set Point
including auxiliary power consumption)
• NR Scaled ACE: ACE of the Northern Region scaled by a value of ~30
(user entry), because entire Northern Region ACE will be too high for
Dadri alone.
• Delta P : AGC correction wrt ULSP Schedule (eg. Delta P is 20 MW
means Regulation Up signal of 20 MW is given above the ULSP
schedule by AGC)
• Dadri Stg-II Plant: has 2 units (unit -5 &6, 2x490 MW)
• AGC Remote: NTPC DCS accepts AGC signal sent by NLDC
• AGC Local: NTPC DCS does not accept AGC signal sent by NLDC
 AGC ON/OFF
tested for 4
minutes from
1847 to 1851 hrs

Actual generation following the Unit 5 taken into Dadri Stg-II total
Unit 6 taken Mock Test
ULSP schedule before AGC AGC Remote at Plant actual
into AGC finished at
correction 1814 hrs generation
Remote at 1910 hrs
AGC in local mode Total Plant following the
1741 hrs under AGC AGC Set point
 AGC Correction +ve = Reg Up ACE +ve = NR Surplus
AGC Correction -ve = Reg Down ACE –ve = NR Deficit
Variation of AGC correction (Delta P) wrt NR Scaled Area Control Error
AGC Correction Restricted to +/- 50 MW (Maximum Spinning Reserve utilization from NTPC Dadri Stg-II)

AGC ON/OFF
tested for 4
minutes from
1847 to 1851 hrs

AGC in local mode Unit 5 taken into

Unit 6 taken Mock Test
AGC Remote at
into AGC finished at
1814 hrs
Remote at 1910 hrs
Total Plant
1741 hrs under AGC
 General
• NTPC and POSOCO (NRLDC and NLDC) met
at NTPC Dadri before the AGC Mock test
• Presentation made by POSOCO regarding
implementation philosophy
• Concerns raised by NTPC regarding frequent
change in load set point may be detrimental
to the plant
– NTPC reported smooth operation during the test
Extra Reading
 Effect of RGMO
• Presently Grid Frequency is frequently out of the dead
band (+/- 0.03 Hz)
• RGMO signal is given directly to the Turbine Governor
• AGC signal passes through Coordinated Boiler and Turbine
controls and reaches the Turbine Governor
• If Grid Frequency is out of dead band interaction between
secondary (AGC) and primary (RGMO) is inevitable
(sometimes on the positive side and some times on the
negative side)
• If Grid Frequency stabilizes to 50 Hz within dead band, then
interaction of RGMO and Secondary Control will be
minimized.
Interaction with RGMO

Plant taken into AGC

Remote at 1814 hrs
RGMO
switched ON
Mock test
at 1900 hrs
completed at
1910 hrs
 Ramp rate of the AGC Set Point
• Ramp rate limit was set at 10 MW/min
• Change in Set point will be processed with this
rate by the AGC software
• Set Point was sent every 2 seconds to the plant
– Ramp rate honoured while giving signals
– Temporary instantaneous deviations in adhering to
the ramp rate by the control mechanism for 5% of
the time
• Smoothened out by NLDC AGC, NTPC Digital Control
System and the natural boiler/turbine response
• 2 minute average ramp rate of the set point is
100% below the limit given (10 MW/min)
 AGC way forward
• Petition no. 79/RC/2017 was filed in this matter
by POSOCO with Hon’ble Commission.
• Pettion was admitted on 18th july 2017
• A detailed implementation plan to
operationalize the spinning reserves in the
country was also submitted to CERC
highlighting the issues involved
• CERC directed POSOCO to notify in WEB and to
serve petition copies to concerned.
• Next hearing on 21st sept 2017
Thank you