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A new load frequency control approach in an

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ARTICLE in INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ELECTRICAL POWER & ENERGY SYSTEMS MARCH 2014
Impact Factor: 3.43 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijepes.2013.11.002

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Electrical Power and Energy Systems 56 (2014) 110116

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Electrical Power and Energy Systems

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijepes

A new load frequency control approach in an isolated small power

systems using coefcient diagram method
Raheel Ali b, Tarek Hassan Mohamed a,, Yaser Soliman Qudaih b, Y. Mitani b
a
b

Faculty of Energy Engineering, Aswan University, Egypt

Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics, Kyushu Institute of Technology, Japan

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 11 July 2013
Received in revised form 30 October 2013
Accepted 6 November 2013

Keywords:
Load frequency control
Coefcient diagram method
Heat pump and plug-in hybrid electric
vehicle

a b s t r a c t
This paper applies the Coefcient Diagram Method (CDM) as a new robust controller design of heat pump
(HP) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (EV) for frequency control in an isolated small power system
powered by diesel generator and renewable photovoltaic PV power source. In order to reduce frequency
uctuation resulted from the uctuating power generation from renewable energy sources, the smart
control of power consumption of HP and the power discharging of EV in the customer side can be
performed.
The CDM technique has been designed to enhance the performance and robustness against system
uncertainties. Simulation studies conrm the superior robustness and frequency control effect of the
proposed HP and EV controllers in comparison to other conventional controllers of HPs and EVs like
the conventional PID controllers optimized using practical swarm controllers based a specied-structure
mixed H2/H1 control design.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Increasing concern about environmental problems and the
shortage and rising costs of fossil fuels have promoted a growing
interest in massive integration of renewable energy sources in
power systems. Power supplied by renewable sources is
intermittent and cannot be easily predicted. These oscillations in
the primary power supply can produce instantaneous differences
in the necessary balance between generation and demand. As consequences, continuous variations in frequency and voltage levels
which negatively affect the electric power system stability usually
appear. To tackle these problems there are different Distributed
Generation (DG) technologies described as small isolated power
systems connected to the grid, are implemented to support and
regulate the system voltage and frequency at rural application,
large commercial areas and process industries. In most isolated
small power system, electrical power is supplied by diesel generators. Additionally, wind generation and photovoltaic generation
have gained attention as green energy in most of the small isolated
power systems. However, due to intermittent power generations
from wind power (WP) and PV, the unbalance between generation
and load demand also causes the large frequency uctuation
problem in the small isolated power system. Consequently these
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: raheelali@yahoo.com (R. Ali), tarekhie@yahoo.com (T.H.
Mohamed), yaser_qudaih@yahoo.com (Y.S. Qudaih), mitani@ele.kyutech.ac.jp (Y.
Mitani).
0142-0615/$ - see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijepes.2013.11.002

problems are also serious in small size isolated grids, and therefore
a continuous control on the instantaneous power supplied by the
renewable energy sources is required [1,2].
Recently various utilities including buildings and electric vehicles appeared as a result of increasing demand of electric power
sources which can increase the chances for rapid uctuations in
loads. However, there are upward trends to install the controllable
loads such as HP and EV in isolated grids [3,4]. In [5,6], the HPs and
EVs are installed in residential areas for frequency control in the
smart microgrid (MG) system.
The practical controller structures such as the proportional
integral PI controller, is widely employed in the load frequency
control (LFC) application [6]. But this type is considered as a xed
parameters controller which designed at nominal operating points
and may no longer be suitable in all operating conditions. For this
reason, adaptive gain scheduling approaches have been proposed
for LFC synthesis [79].
In [10], the practical swarm optimization based-mixed H2/H1 is
presented to enhance the performance and robustness against system uncertainties. Despite to the fact that this controller succeeded
in its target, but the door is still opened to more techniques to improve the system frequency in face of system renewable power
uctuations and random load disturbances.
On the other hand, a new robust control strategy involving
Coefcient Diagram Method (CDM) has been introduced. Basically,
CDM is an algebraic approach applied to a polynomial loop in the
parameter space, such special diagram called coefcient diagram,

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R. Ali et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 56 (2014) 110116

Nomenclature

DPg
DPd
Df
DPL
DPc
DPPV
DPEV
DPHP
UEV
UHP
M
D
R
THP

the governor output change

the diesel power change
the frequency deviation
the load change
supplementary control action
the photovoltaic power change
discharging power of plug-in hybrid electric vehicle
power consumption of heat pump
control signal of plug-in hybrid electric vehicle
control signal of heat pump
equivalent inertia constant
equivalent damping coefcient
speed droop characteristic
time constant of heat pump

Tg
Td
N(s)
D(s)
F(s)
B(s)

Abbreviations
TEV
time constant of plug-in hybrid electric vehicle
CDM
coefcient diagram method
EV
plug-in hybrid electric vehicle
HP
heat pump
PID + H2/H1 PID controller optimized using practical swarm
optimization based mixed H2/H1 presented in [10]

which is used as the vehicle to carry the necessary design information, and as the criteria of good design [11].
The CDM is fairly new and not well-known, but its basic
principle has been known in industry and in control community
for more than 40 years with successful application in servo control,
steel mill drive control, gas turbine control, and spacecraft attitude
control [12]. In this paper, CDM controller design of HPs and EVs
for the load frequency control in an isolated small area power system has been presented. The parameters of the polynomials of
CDM technique have been designed based on the dynamic model
of the power system.
The power system with the proposed CDM technique has been
tested through the effect of uncertainties due to system parameters variation and load disturbance using computer simulation.
The simulation results proved that the proposed controller can
be applied successfully to the application of power system load
frequency control. In order to demonstrate the robustness and
performance of the proposed controllers, the proposed CDM controllers of HP and EV are compared with the (PID + H2/H1) presented in [10]. Simulation studies based on the MATLAB program
show the superiority robustness and frequency control effect of
the proposed HP and EV controllers.
This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 describes the
system dynamics and the employed models of the proposed an
isolated small power system with the PVEVHP as well as proposed CDM controller. Section 3 describes the General consideration about CDM and its Structure. Section 4 presents three
congurations for case studies of the proposed an isolated small
Power system and analyzes time-domain simulated results of
three studied cases of proposed controller with an isolated small
Power system under various operated conditions is presented.
And nally Specic conclusions are drawn in Section 5.
2. System dynamics
Fig. 1 illustrates an isolated small power system, where PV is
used as renewable energy source beside the diesel generator and
HPs and EVs are used in this system.
In this section, a simplied frequency response model for an
isolated small power system with diesel generator and PV is described [1].
The overall generatorload dynamic relationship between the


supply error DPd  Dp0L and the frequency deviation Df can be expressed as:

Df

 
 
 
1
1
D
 DP d 
 Dp0L 
 Df
M
M
M

governor time constant

turbine time constants
numerator polynomial
denumerator polynomial
reference numerator polynomial
feedback numerator polynomial

where Dp0L DP L DP EV DP HP  DP PV , as shown in Fig. 3.The dynamic of the diesel generator can be expressed as:

DP d

 
 
1
1
 DP g 
 DP d
Tt
Tt

the dynamic of the governor can be expressed as:

DP g

 


 
1
1
1
 DP c 
 Df 
 DP g
Tg
R  Tg
Tg


dP

where Df ; DPd ; DPg equal to df

; dPdtd ; dtg respectively, and the
dt
block diagrams of the past equations are included in Fig. 3.
The heat pump (HP) and the electric vehicle (EV) are modeled as
a rst order lag systems [3,4] as shown in Figs. 2, while Appendix A
shows a description of the used simplied photo voltaic PV
The block diagrams of the past equations are included in Fig. 3.
3. Coefcient diagram method
In general, the classical control and modern control are mainly
used in control design. Additionally, there is a third approach
generally called as algebraic design approach [12]. The Coefcient
Diagram Method (CDM) is one of the algebraic design approaches,
where the coefcient diagram is used instead of Bode diagram, and
the sufcient condition for stability by Lipatov constitutes its theoretical basis [10].
The CDM is a technique to arrange the poles of a closed loop
transfer function, in order to get wanted response in the time domain [11,13].
In CDM, the design specications parameters are equivalent
time constant (s), stability indices (ci). These parameters have certain relationship with each other which is explained in the design
part with the controller polynomials. Coefcient diagram provides
to know the stability, time response and robustness characteristics
of systems in a single diagram, which is important for systems with
large characteristic polynomial degree. Coefcient diagram is accurate and easy to design. The diagram which provides the designer
to make a stable decision about the process of the design, cannot
be found in other design methods. In coefcient diagram, logarithmic vertical axis shows the coefcients of characteristic polynomial (ai), stability indices (ci) and equivalent time constant (s)
whereas the horizontal axis shows the order i values corresponding
to each coefcients. The degree of convexity obtained from coefcients of the characteristic polynomial gives a measure of stability,
whereas the general inclination of the curve gives the measure of
the speed of response. The shape of the ai curve due to plant
parameter variation gives a measure of robustness [11].

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R. Ali et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 56 (2014) 110116

Fig. 1. Smart isolated microgrid system.

Fig. 2. EV and HP models.

Fig. 3. Block diagram of an isolated small power system.

The standard block diagram of the CDM for single input single
output (SISO) system is shown in Fig. 4. Here y is the output, r is
the reference input, u is the control and d is the external

disturbance signal. N(s) and D(s) are the numerator and denominator polynomials of the transfer function of the plant respectively.
The output of the control system can be described as:

R. Ali et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 56 (2014) 110116

Ptarget

"(
!
)
#
n
i1
X
Y
1
i
o
a
ss ss 1
j
i2

j1

cij

113

11

where P(s) = Ptarget(s)

Also, the reference numerator polynomials F(s) can be calculated from:

Fs Psjs0 =Ns

Fig. 5 illustrates the block diagram of the system to design of

the CDM controller of area (i), where the output of HPi or EVi is
the
main
input
of
the
power
system,
while
Dp00L PL  P PV  Pd participation of the rest of HP and EV units.

Fig. 4. A block diagram of a CDM control system.

NsFs
AsNs
r
d
Ps
Ps

where P(s) is considered as the characteristic polynomial of the

closed-loop system and is dened by

Ps AsDs BsNs

A(s) is the forward denominator polynomial while F(s) and B(s)

are the reference numerator and the feedback numerator polynomials of the controller transfer function.
A(s) and B(s) are considered as the control polynomial and is dened as

As

q
P
X
X
li si and Bs
ki si
i0

i0

Since the transfer function of the controller has two numerators, thus it is resembled to a two-degree of freedom (2DOF) system structure. A(s) and B(s) are designed as to satisfy the desired
transient behavior. The pre-lter F(s) is used to provide the steady-state gain. Better performance can be expected when using a
2DOF structure, because it can focus on both tracking the desired
reference signal and disturbance rejection. Also, it is avoided from
unstable pole-zero cancellation and using more number of integrators in implementation with this structure [12-14].
For practical realization, the condition p P q must be satised.
To get the characteristic polynomial P(s), the controller polynomials from (6) are substituted in (5) and is given as

9
q
P
X
X
>
i
i
>
Ps
li s Ds
ki s Ns >
>
=
i0

i0

and Ps

n
X

ai si ;

ai > 0

i0

>
>
>
>
;

a2i
;
ai1 ai1

a1
a0

ci

ci1

i 2 1; n  1;

c0 cn 1

4. Results and discussion

Computer simulations have been carried out in order to validate
the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. The Matlab/Simulink
software package has been used for this purpose. An isolated small
area power system shown in Fig. 1 consists of 20 MW diesel generator, 6 MW photovoltaic, 17 MW load, 1.62 MW HP and 2.38 MW
PHEV. System has the following nominal parameters [10] listed below in Table 1.
The CDM controllers are set as follows:
For the HPs units where CD1 = CD2 = CD3.
The time constant can be taken as s = 2 s, and from (11).

Ptarget 3451 2S 4S2 0:0035S3 0:000058S4

the stability indices (ci) have been chosen as:

ci 1; 2225; 0:0557; i 2 1; 3; c0 c4 1

 
And the stability limits ci are:

ci 0:000449; 18:95; 0:000449; i 2 1; 3

And choosing k0 = 1, then

B 345 680:4S 1362:4S2

A 2S 80S2
For the EVs units where CD4 = CD5.
The time constant can be taken as s = 2 s, and from (11).

Ptarget 3451 2S 4S2 0:006S3 0:000116S4

the stability indices (ci) have been chosen as:

ci 1; 1227:75; 0:0915; i 2 1; 3; c0 c4 1

CDM needs some design parameters with respect to the characteristic polynomial coefcients which are the equivalent time constant (s) (which gives the speed of closed loop response), the
stability indices (ci) (which give the stability
  and the shape of
the time response), and the stability limits ci . The relations between these parameters and the coefcients of the characteristic
polynomial (ai) can be described as follows:

ci

12

 
And the stability limits ci are:

ci 0:0008114; 11:92; 0:0008114; i 2 1; 3

And choosing k0 = 1, then

B 345 680:4S 1362:4S2

A 2S 80S2
In order to validate the proposed controller, system with CDM
controllers has been tested at 3 cases.

ci1

i 2 1; n  1

10

According to Manabes standard form, ci values are selected as

{2.5, 2, 2. . .2}. The above ci values can be changed by the designer
as per the requirement. Using the key parameters (s and ci), target
characteristic polynomial, Ptarget (s) can be framed as

Fig. 5. The block diagram of the power system used to design the CDMi controller.

114

R. Ali et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 56 (2014) 110116

Table 1
Parameters and data of an isolated small area power system.
D (pu/Hz)

H (pu s)

R (Hz/pu)

Tg (s)

Td (s)

0.12
THP1 (s)

0.1
THP2 (s)

3.00
THP3 (s)

0.1
TEV1 (s)

0.4
TEV1 (s)

0.1

0.1

0.1

0.2

0.2

Case 1: In this case, nominal parameters of the system are supposed, and the system is tested in presence of PV output uctuations and random changes of the load as shown in Fig. 6. In
addition, a comparison between the proposed CDM controller
and (PID + H2/H1) control technique presented in [10] has been
made. System response of this case is illustrated in Fig. 7. From
Fig. 7a, it is clear that the frequency deviation of the system with
proposed CDM controller is less than 0.0015 Hz while system
with (PID + H2/H1) can give frequency deviation about 0.005 Hz,
which means that with proposed CDM, frequency response of the
system is improved.
Fig. 7b indicates that system proposed CDM succeeded to decrease the needed power from diesel generator DPd  0.065pu
(for system with CDM and DPd  0.065pu for system with
(PID + H2/H1). Fig. 7c shows that EVs power is greatly discharged
by the proposed CDM controllers DPEV  0.055 pu (for system with
CDM and DPEV  0.015 pu for system with (PID + H2/H1). From
Fig. 7d, when (DPhp  0.015 pu for system with CDM and DPhp  0.08 pu for system with (PID + H2/H1) it is obviously that the
consumed power of HPs in case of the proposed CDM controllers
is less than those of the compared with (PID + H2/H1).
Case 2: In this case the robustness of the proposed system
against parameters uncertainty is validated. Both of the governor
and diesel turbine time constants are increased to Tg = 0.14 s and
Td = 7 s., respectively. D is changed from 0.12 puMW/Hz (positive
damping) to 0.24 puMW/Hz (negative damping). In addition,
the units HP1 and EV1 Are assumed to be disconnected at t = 0 s.
Also, the random changes in the load and PV power are assumed
to be as described in the rst case. Fig. 8 depicts the system frequency response with proposed CDM and (PID + H2/H1) in this
case of study. It has been shown that the frequency deviation of
the system with proposed CDM controller is less than 0.002 Hz
while system with (PID + H2/H1) can give frequency deviation
about 0.0065 Hz, this result supports that the system response
is more convenient with CDM controllers.
Case 3: in this case, system has been tested in multiple operating conditions, it is assumed that Tg, Td, THP1, THP2, THP3, TEV1, TEV2
are increased by 40% from the nominal values, D is changed from

Fig. 7. System response in case 1.

Fig. 6. PV power and random load.

0.12 puMW/Hz to 0.3 puMW/Hz at t = 950 s. which means system is changed to unstable mode at t = 950 s. The random changes
in the load and PV power are assumed to be as described in the rst
case. In addition, HPs and EVs are connected under the supposed
multiple operating conditions in Table 2.

R. Ali et al. / Electrical Power and Energy Systems 56 (2014) 110116

115

situation cases. The results were compared with the results of

(PID + H2/H1) control method.
The presence of HP, PV and EV systems have been addressed as
important application and implementation of the renewable
energy in the power system showing that the role of these systems
is positively acting with the proper arrangement of the CDM control scheme.
Simulation results demonstrated the effectiveness of the
proposed CDM methodology. It was shown that the system with
the proposed CDM controller is robust against load change and
parameter perturbation and has desirable performance in comparison of (PID + H2/H1) control design in all of the performed test
cases. Such a promising result gives a clear perspective on utilizing
robust but simple algorithms for load frequency control.
Appendix A

Fig. 8. System frequency response in case 2.

A.1. Variable solar power system

Table 2
Multiple operating conditions of CDM1 to CDM5.
Controller
Controller
Controller
Controller
Controller
Controller

of
of
of
of
of

HP1
HP2
HP3
EV1
EV2

Start

Stop

Start

Stop

0s
750 s
0s
0s
450 s

750 s
952 s
1200 s
451 s
850 s

950 s

850 s

1200 s

1200 s

The characteristic of PV system is illustrated in [15,16]. Power

output (in Watts) of a PV array which varies with irradiance and
cell-surface temperature of a PV system is given by [15]. The
output power of the studied PV system is determined by Ppv = SUg{10.005(Ta + 25)}.
The transfer function of PV can be given as:

Gpv

K pv
T pv 1

where g ranging from 9% to 12% is the conversion efciency of the

PV array, (S =4084 m2) is the measured area of the PV array, (U
=1 kW/m2) is the solar radiation, and Ta is ambient Temperature
in degree Celsius. The value of Ppv depends on Ta and U because
g and S are constant. In this paper, Ta is kept at 25 C and Ppv is
linearly varied with U only. In addition, DP PV Ppv-rated  P pv .
References

Fig. 9. System frequency response in case 3.

Fig. 9 depicts the system frequency response with proposed

CDM and (PID + H2/H1) in this case of study, From the gure, comparing with (PID + H2/H1), It has been shown that the frequency
deviation of the system with proposed CDM controller is less than
0.002 Hz while system with (PID + H2/H1) can give frequency
deviation about 0.0065 Hz, this result indicates that a desirable
performance response has been achieved using the proposed
CDM controllers.

5. Conclusions
In this paper, a new method for robust frequency control design
of HP and EV in an isolated small power system with PV power
source using the coefcient diagram method CDM has been proposed. System with the proposed method was tested with random
load change, parameters change and unexpected controller outage

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