A Fast Load Control System Based on Mobile Distribution-Level Phasor Measurement Unit

The increase of renewable penetration in power grids calls for loads to participate in frequency regulation to avoid under-frequency load shedding after large resource contingencies. The motivation of this paper is to fulfill a fast residential load control for frequency stability enhancement. For this purpose, a novel mobile distribution-level phasor measurement unit (MDPMU) is developed for disturbance event detection, power mismatch estimation and fast load control. First, the systematic design of the MDPMU introduced. The proposed MDPMU has the major advantages of low cost and high frequency measurement accuracy. Second, the distribution-level measurement is utilized for the rate of change of frequency (ROCOF) calculation. Upon detection of a power system frequency event, power mismatch is estimated at the early stage of the event. Details of a robust approach to calculate ROCOF and determine the event starting point are presented. Practical issues including the measurement reporting rate and estimation time are also considered. Last, with the proposed control system, residential load responses can be controlled coordinately based on load availability and compensation prices offered by customers, providing adaptive frequency regulation service after large resource contingencies. The accuracy of frequency measurement and power mismatch estimation are evaluated via experimental analysis. The frequency stability improvement by load control is validated via PSS/E simulation.