Coordinated contribution of wind turbines to frequency regulation by model predictive control

This work proposes an innovative control technique for improving the contribution to the grid frequency regulation provided by a set of wind power generators belonging to a wind farm. Models of individual generators and of the conventional grid primary frequency control are developed and used for designing a model predictive controller. A proper estimation algorithm is also introduced in order to provide both the dynamical state of the wind turbines and the actual local wind conditions to the regulator. The availability of this data makes the control algorithm able to improve the participation of the whole wind farm to the frequency regulation by suitably coordinating and differentiating the contribution of the individual generators. The proposed strategy is tested on a large wind farm using a dedicated real-time/real-data simulation environment.