Open Access

ARTICLE

Distributed Coordinated Frequency Regulation Strategy for Multi-Area Interconnected Power Systems with Wind, Photovoltaic, Energy Storage Power Stations

Yongming Zhang¹, Yifan Liu¹, Kunting Tang¹, Yuhao Zhou^1,*, Jiayi Gong², Jiaxing Lei^3,4, Zhichao Yang^3,4
1 Huadian Electric Power Research Institute Co., Ltd., Hangzhou, China
2 School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology—Beijing, Beijing, China
3 School of Electrical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China
4 Advanced Ocean Institute of Southeast University Nantong, Nantong, China
* Corresponding Author: Yuhao Zhou. Email:
(This article belongs to the Special Issue: New Energy and Energy Storage System)

Energy Engineering https://doi.org/10.32604/ee.2026.085694

Received 15 May 2026; Accepted 15 September 2026; Published online 22 September 2026

Abstract

The rapid growth in the penetration of renewable energy deteriorates the frequency characteristics of interconnected power systems, and the participation of renewable energy power stations in frequency regulation has become a crucial approach to improving system frequency dynamic characteristics. Due to the wide geographical distribution and large number of renewable energy power stations, their involvement in frequency regulation substantially increases the computational burden on centralized automatic generation control (AGC) controllers, thereby degrading the frequency regulation performance of interconnected power systems. To address this issue, this paper proposes a frequency regulation strategy for interconnected power systems based on the distributed consensus algorithm. Firstly, considering the differences in control characteristics among various frequency regulation units, frequency response-power models are established for different types of frequency regulation units. Secondly, from the perspective of frequency regulation economy, an optimal dynamic allocation model of AGC commands for heterogeneous frequency regulation units is designed, with the minimization of the quadratic cost function corresponding to active power variations as the optimization objective. The minimum frequency regulation cost is achieved by introducing an adjustment coefficient for AGC commands. Moreover, this adjustment coefficient avoids solving the optimization problem for optimal frequency cost, which is beneficial for the online application of the proposed method. Furthermore, a distributed coordinated frequency regulation strategy is proposed for interconnected power systems with heterogeneous frequency regulation units by adopting the distributed consensus algorithm. Finally, simulation verification is carried out on a modified four-machine two-area test system consisting of synchronous generators, wind farms, photovoltaic power stations, and energy storage power stations. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed strategy can effectively improve system frequency characteristics and reduce the frequency regulation cost of interconnected power systems.

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Keywords

Frequency regulation; interconnected power system; wind farm; photovoltaic power station; energy storage power station; distributed coordinated; consensus algorithm

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