Automatic Generation Control and Its Implementation in Real Time

In power systems, the control mechanism responsible for maintaining the system frequency to the nominal value and the real power interchange between balancing authority areas to the scheduled values is referred to as automatic generation control (AGC). The purpose of this paper is to present a systematic way to determine, in real time, the power allocated to each generator participating in AGC by taking into account the cost and quality of the AGC service provided. To this end, we formulate the economic dispatch process and gain insights into the economic characteristics of the generating units. We value the quality of AGC service by taking into consideration the ramping constraints of the generating units. The proposed methodology is illustrated in the WECC system and is compared with other allocation methods.