Towards frequency control with large scale Virtual Power Plants

The ongoing substitution of conventional power plants by renewable energy resources (RES) in Europe leads to new challenges for the operation of future power systems. Grid auxiliary services like frequency control which are traditionally provided by a few dedicated large power plants may in the future be realized by smaller generation units or loads. This paper discusses the applicability of small loads and generation units to participate to system frequency stabilization, by introducing a novel distributed coordination algorithm, that uses the concept of direct control to enable small generation units or loads to provide secondary control reserve. First we point out how the algorithm can be applied to classical Virtual Power Plants (VPP) control concepts using the example of price controlled VPPs. We analyse the aggregated ramping behaviour as well as the communication complexity and investigate the impact of particular (communication) parameters on the overall activation costs. First simulation studies will demonstrate a first prove of concept.