Chapter 6

AUTOMATIC
GENERATION CONTROL

6.1 Perspective
Automatic generation control (AGe), is a rLlajor control function within a
utility's energy control center, whose purpose is the tracking of load vari-
ations while maintaining system frequency, net tie-line interchanges, and
optimal generation levels close to scheduled (or specified) values. When
several utilities are interconnected, each will perform its own AGe indepen-
dently of the others. This decentralized control system has worked quite well
since its introduction in the fifties, in spite of the fact that at that time, the
only control theory tools available were those of classical frequency-domain,
single-input single-output, systems. Thus AGe is a true predecessor of the
much highlighted recent approaches of hierarchical modern control theory.
The success of AGe may be attributed to two important considerations.
The first is related to the fact that feedback control will almost always tend
to stablize and regulate the system being controlled. And the second is due
to the clever design of AGC by its originators in a manner that guaranteed
the correct steady-state response of the entire system. Since the transient
response will depend on the dynamics of generators, loads, and feedback
control parameters, the original designers of AGe had to depend on highly
simplified models at the design stage, and on actual system response, in
order to tune the control system parameters.
The advent of modern control theory in the sixties and early seventies
did little to change these very successful AGC practices. However, it has

203
A. S. Debs, Modern Power Systems Control and Operation
©
Kluwer Academic Publishers 19
204 CHAPTER 6. AUTOMATIC GENERATION CONTROL

.1w
WO
EXCITER

EFD lit

Vt TURBO PG +jQG
GENE-
.1w RATOR
GOVENOR/ w
WO
TURBINE PM

W po
M

Figure 6.1: General Block Diagram for a Power Generating System

provided, and will continue to provide, a more careful understanding of the

entire problem. By so doing, a possible new generation AGe may emerge.
Such an AGe will have to retain the simplicity of classical AGe but with
improved overall performance.
In the following sections, the reader is first alerted to the key modeling
and control issues associated with AGe. Next, classical AGe is intro.duced
and illustrated. Following that, modern control theory approaches are pre-
sented.

6.2 The Issues

Single Generator and Its Response
Figure 6.1 provides a general block diagram for a generating system. The
turbo-generator receives two key input quantities: mechanical power input
PM in the form of rotating shaft power from the turbine; and field vo~tage
EFD from the exciter. The key outputs are: (a) the generated electric power
PG + JQG, (b) terminal voltage lit, and (c) angular speed w. These outputs
are measured (sensed) by appropriate devices, and then used, in a feedback
fashion, to control the system. The angular frequency w is compared with
the rated (or desired) frequency woo The resulting frequency error .1w is
then amplified (in the turbine-governor feedback loop) by the factor 1/R