An overview of an AGC for a de-regulated power system

Abstract

This paper reviews the structure of the Spanish Automatic Generation Control (AGC) under the new competitive environment which started on January 1st, 1998, and details how Endesa Generación (the largest Spanish generating company) has organised its AGC. Differences between a classical AGC and the one that should be used in a competitive market are analysed and shown. Then, a simple model of a thermal group and a hydraulic zone are presented. The paper details also a new area regulator aimed at distributing the regulating requirement among different units which is also capable of fulfilling the dynamic response required by the Spanish System Operator. In addition, the regulator proposed minimises the regulation effort and selects the most economic generating units to fulfil the regulating requirement. Performance results under real life conditions are shown in the paper.