Variable-speed hydropower control and ancillary services : a remedy for enhancing grid stability and flexibility

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Cebeci, Cagatay and Parker, Max and Recalde-Camacho, Luis and Campos-Gaona, David and Anaya-Lara, Olimpo (2025) Variable-speed hydropower control and ancillary services : a remedy for enhancing grid stability and flexibility. Energies, 18 (3). 642. ISSN 1996-1073 (https://doi.org/10.3390/en18030642)

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Abstract

Variable-Speed Hydropower Plants (VSHP) are becoming more promising for stabilising power grids with the increasing integration of renewable energy sources. This research focuses on improving fault ride-through capabilities and delivering efficient ancillary services for VSHPs to support the grid by developing a comprehensive control strategy. The control system proposed integrates a machine-side controller, a Frequency Support Controller (FSC), a Virtual Synchronous Machine (VSM), a Vector Current Controller (VCC) for the grid-side converter, a turbine governor for regulating turbine speed, and a DC-link controller. PID with an anti-windup scheme and a Model Predictive Controller (MPC) were employed for the turbine governor. The MPC turbine governor results demonstrate the potential of advanced control methods for enhanced performance of the VSHP. A benchmarking between the MPC and the PID governor was made. The benchmarking results have reported that the MPC can achieve reference tracking improvements up to 99.42%. Tests on a diverse set of grid scenarios were conducted, and the graphical results showed significant improvements in mitigating the frequency drops through the effective governor response. The synthetic inertia provision is swift, completing within seconds of a frequency drop. Compared to the fixed-speed approach, the VSHP improves the grid’s overall stability by minimising frequency dipping and achieving steady-state recovery remarkably faster. The fixed-speed approach only begins to recover minutes after the VSHP reaches the settling time. By effectively providing critical ancillary services such as frequency support, synthetic inertia, and smooth fault ride-through capability, the VSHP can become a transformative solution for future power grids, which are estimated to be more reliant on renewable energy sources.

ORCID iDs

Cebeci, Cagatay, Parker, Max ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8268-4829, Recalde-Camacho, Luis ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3911-2857, Campos-Gaona, David ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0347-6288 and Anaya-Lara, Olimpo ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5250-5877;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)