Electrical Power and Energy Systems 117 (2020) 105588

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Electrical Power and Energy Systems

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Primary frequency control with BESS considering adaptive SoC recovery T

a,⁎ a a a b
Zhuangxi Tan , Xinran Li , Li He , Yong Li , Jiyuan Huang
a
College of Electrical and Information Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410000, China
b
State Grid Changsha Power Supply Company, Changsha 410000, China

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: In this article, a control method which combines adaptive droop control with adaptive state of charge (SoC)
Battery energy storage system recovery control is proposed for battery energy storage system (BESS) to participate in primary frequency
Primary frequency regulation regulation (PFR), aiming to improve the system frequency dynamics and contribute to the long-term perfor-
Charging demand mance of BESS during PFR. Firstly, based on the frequency operation characteristics of power grid and the
Power system operation
economic operation requirements of BESS, an adaptive droop control function of BESS participating in PFR is
constructed. Secondly, the recovery power of BESS is determined by regarding SoC as feedback signal. Then,
according to the frequency signal of power grid with the operation characteristics of conventional generator
units (CGUs), the limiting coefficient of recovery power for BESS is designed. Furthermore, based on the re-
covery power and the recovery power limit coefficient, the adaptive recovery power of BESS is obtained, which
avoids the negative impact of BESS on the operation of CGUs when restoring SoC. Finally, according to the
adaptive droop control of BESS with the adaptive SoC recovery control, a comprehensive control method is
designed to maintain the proper SoC during the whole operation of BESS, which indirectly reduces the frequency
adjustment burden of CGUs. The performance of the proposed method is validated through case studies under
conditions of various power variation.

1. Introduction
With the increasing penetration of renewable energy sources (RESs),
the intermittent and difficulty in prediction have brought negative
impact on power system stability [1,2]. To ensure the safety of system
operation, the measure of the wind and photovoltaic curtailment is
often performed, which leads to at least 30% energy loss of RESs every
year [2–4]. The battery energy storage system (BESS) is a good solution
to reduce the power fluctuation and negative influence exerted by RESs
[5,6]. Recently, the decrease of cost and technology development of
BESS have attracted much attention on its bulk implementation in
power system [7,8].
As an important equipment to maintain power balance, the BESS is
introduced to the medium and low voltage scenarios (i.e., microgrid
and distribution network) in the early stage. The BESS unit features
large power density and fast response speed [9,10]. To reduce the
fluctuation of RESs power, the BESS technique is used to compensate
the net power variation between RES sources and local loads in mi-
crogrid [11,12]. As alternative, the BESS is used to track the high-fre-
quency power variation, which is suitable for the low-installed capacity
of BESS [13]. The technology and development in the aforementioned
scenarios can serve as the reference for BESS when deployed in utility
grid.
The frequency is one of the most important indexes to keep stability
for power system. And the primary frequency regulation (PFR) features
short-term process, fast speed requirement and high priority [14]. Thus
the BESS is suitable for PFR due to its fast response and relatively small
installed capacity compared with conventional generator units (CGUs).
Recently, some problems of BESS application in PFR have attracted the
attention of experts and provided good solutions, such as the determi-
nation of BESS type and location [15,16]; simulation model establish-
ment [17–19]; BESS control strategy [18–22] and the economic eva-
luation methods [22,23]. Published literatures have investigated the
economic efficiency of BESS participating in PFR [24–28]. The control
methods of maintaining or restoring SoC have a significant impact on
the capacity allocation, the benefits of participating in PFR and the
lifetime of BESS. As the demand for BESS to restore SoC often goes
against the demand for frequency regulation of power grid, the SoC
recovery control strategies must consider both FR and charging de-
mands. Research on SoC maintaining strategies of BESS combining
these two aspects has been largely missing in the literatures.
The coordinated control strategy for BESS and CGUs in PFR can be
the key for BESS maintaining SoC, which means that the charging and
discharging power of BESS needs to be aware of the output power state

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: tanzhuangxi@hnu.edu.cn (Z. Tan), 903177673@qq.com (X. Li).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijepes.2019.105588
Received 22 April 2019; Received in revised form 20 August 2019; Accepted 30 September 2019
0142-0615/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Z. Tan, et al. Electrical Power and Energy Systems 117 (2020) 105588

of CGUs and the operation requirements of CGUs. The recent research

on the frequency regulation (FR) control has taken the SoC recovery of
BESS into consideration, which can be classified into two categories:
BESS will restore SoC when the frequency reaches the dead band, and
BESS will participate both in FR and SoC recovery when the frequency
falls out of the dead band [25–31].
Published literature describes the general concepts and methods,
which is called the method of using constant recovery power (CRP), and
the BESS recovers SoC in dead band [25–29]. The aim of the above
strategy is to reduce the deep charge and discharge of BESS, thus Fig. 1. PFR control structure of power system model with BESS.
prolonging the lifespan of BESS which take part in PFR. In [29], the
evaluation methods of expected Li-ion batteries’ lifetime under the 2. Regional power system with BESS
different battery operation scenarios based on different control strate-
gies at different operating temperatures were investigated. In our pre- 2.1. Model of power system with BESS
vious research [30], an integrated control method for BESS was pro-
posed to participate in secondary frequency regulation (SFR), in which The PFR control structure diagram of power grid with BESS is
the BESS SoC recovery control method considering CGUs operation shown in Fig. 1. Pact
RES
and Psched
RES
represent the actual output and planned
state in dead band is preliminarily explored. output of the renewable energy, respectively. KG is the coefficient of the
Some studies have also discussed the benefits of BESS for the SoC unit regulated power of CGUs, KBESS is the coefficient of the unit
recovery out of dead band, i.e. BESS can achieve both scheduled regulated power of BESS, Pg_ref is the given value of secondary fre-
charging and participate in FR, which are called method of battery SoC quency regulation (SFR), which is 0; ΔPL (s) is the fluctuation of load
holder (BSH) and charging with frequency regulation(CFR) [30,31]. In power; Gg(s) and Gb(s) are transfer functions of CGUs and BESS re-
[31], the author studied the charging demand of electric vehicle when spectively. The specific simulation model and parameters of BESS are
it participates in PFR, and this method provides a new energy man- derived from the reference [14]. Since the validations are based on a
agement method for BESS to participate in FR control. However, the simplified model of the considered power system, the analysis and re-
reserve (also called remaining frequency regulation capability) of CGUs search in this paper tacitly implies that the schedulability of BESS is
must be taken as a constraint condition for BESS to restore SoC outside good, which means the factors such as power flow congestion and
dead band. Otherwise, when the load power increases, BESS would communication delay in actual power grid are not considered. It can be
absorb energy from the power system, which would lead to the increase inferred from the control diagram that the integration of additional
of frequency regulation burden of CGUs, and that is not conducive to RESs and the BESS will clearly increase the complexity of the system.
the safety and stability of power grid frequency. Obviously, PFR loop will become more complex when the new energy
In this article, we focus on the control strategies for BESS to restore connects with the grid and BESS participates in FR. As a result, the
SoC in PFR. In order to achieve a good PFR performance and better SoC required reserve capacity will also increase. If the spare capacity is not
maintenance level of BESS, an adaptive coordinated control method for fully utilized, the BESS operation and conventional unit economic
BESS and CGUs, which is based on the practical operation constraints of benefits will be reduced, which will make it harder to improve the AGC
utility grid, is proposed. The main contributions are summarized as control level of power system.
follows. We start with the analysis of the comprehensive characteristics of
power system with BESS and disturbance. Suppose the comprehensive
(1) The relationship between the CGU’s reserve power of PFR and disturbance ΔPc = −(ΔPL + Pact RES
−Psched
RES
), which includes the variation
power grid’s frequency droop characteristics is analyzed, which can of load power and the variation of power of renewable energy such as
serve as the basis of the SoC recovery control in the proposed wind and solar.
strategy.
PG (s ) + PBESS (s ) PC (s ) = (2Hs + D)· F (s ) (1)
(2) A coordinated control method is designed, which considers both the
demand of BESS for SoC restoration and the operation state of where
CGUs. By analyzing the influence of BESS’s charging and dischar-
PG (s ) = K G·Gg (s )· F (s )
ging on utility grid, the proposed strategy can achieve the balance
between maintaining SoC and reducing the frequency regulation PBESS (s ) = KBESS· G b (s )· F (s ) (2)
burden of CGUs. represent the power changes of CGUs and BESS responding to the fre-
(3) The proposed method provides a new guide for the BESS energy quency changes of power grids, respectively.
management to participate in frequency regulation, which can be The specific expressions of Gg(s) and Gb(s) are as follows:
used for different kinds of BESS involved in FR.
1 + FHP TRH s
Gg (s ) =
This article is organized as follows. In Section 1, the current re- (1 + TG s )(1 + TCH s )(1 + TRH s ) (3)
search review of BESS control methods considering SoC recovery is 1
introduced, and the shortcomings of current control methods and the G b (s ) =
(4)
1 + sT b
main contributions of this article are summarized. Section 2 presents
the frequency deviations and associated operating controls and the where TG, TCH, TRH and Tb are respectively the time constants of gen-
change of the output power for CGUs. Section 3 gives a brief in- erator-turbine and BESS. FHP is the gain of generator-turbine. Their
troduction of the BESS recovery strategy proposed by other researchers. specific values will be given in the case study.
Section 4 gives the control method for PFR considering SoC recovery. The frequency deviation of power grid caused by load disturbance is
Section 5 validates the effectiveness of the proposed method by simu- as follows:
lation results. Section 5 concludes the article. PC (s )
F (s ) =
2Hs + D + K G·Gg (s ) + KBESS· G b (s ) (5)
Therefore, we define the amplitude-frequency characteristics of
power grids as (6).

2
Z. Tan, et al.
Fig. 2. Comparison of amplitude-frequency characteristics of power systems
with and without BESS.
1 the reference frequency; Δfdb, Δf1 and Δf2 represent dead band of fre-
H (s ) =
2Hs + D + K G· Gg (s ) + KBESS·G b (s ) (6)
Reasonable requirement range of load disturbance for power grid is
shown in (7) and (8).
Pc (s )·H (s ) = F (s ) (7)
F (s )
| Pc (s )|
H (s ) max (8)
Fig. 2 shows that the maximum amplitude of the amplitude-fre-
quency characteristic function of the regional power grid is 0.1545p.u.
without energy storage battery. The maximum allowable load dis-
turbance amplitude is 6.47% when the allowable frequency deviation is
1%, i.e. |Δfmax| is 0.5 Hz. When the BESS is introduced, the maximum
amplitude of the power grid amplitude-frequency characteristic func-
tion is 0.0399p.u. and the maximum load disturbance amplitude is
25.06%. Therefore, adding BESS in regional power grid can effectively
improve the ability of power grid to withstand load disturbance.
As for the improvement of frequency regulation effect, |H(s)| de-
creases with the increase of the regulating power factor KBESS, which
means that maximum allowable load disturbance amplitude is in-
creasing and the anti-interference ability of the power grid is increasing
(see Fig. 3).
The speed governing brings the frequency back to the nominal or
scheduled value by adjusting the turbine gate. According to the mag-
nitude of frequency deviation and the response ability of synchronous
generator, the FR of power grid is usually divided into three categories,
namely, primary, secondary and tertiary frequency regulation. The PFR
is to achieve the local automatic local frequency control by utilizing the
load frequency characteristics and speed governing of CGUs, which is in
the time scale of few seconds. The secondary frequency regulation
(SFR) realizes the frequency recovery to the reference value with the
time intervals ranging from seconds to minutes. The tertiary frequency
regulation (TFR) means the determination of active power curve made
by the system operator, which is usually set up days or weeks ahead of
schedule. The FR categories mentioned above are illustrated in Fig. 4
[32].
In power system, the CGUs adjusts the frequency according to the
Fig. 3. Comparison of amplitude-frequency characteristics of power system
with different KBESS.
3
Electrical Power and Energy Systems 117 (2020) 105588
Fig. 4. Frequency deviation intervals.
frequency deviation intervals shown in Fig. 4. As is shown, f0 presents
quency deviation, maximum allowable frequency deviation of PFR, and
maximum allowable frequency difference of SFR, respectively. The in-
dexes defined above are based on the operation of the practical system
and the corresponding value of each frequency are selected as 0.033 Hz,
0.15 Hz, and 0.5 Hz in this article [14,32].
2.2. The reserve power of PFR and frequency droop characteristics
The state of CGUs’ operation can be involved to better design the
BESS’s response in PFR. More specifically, the following aspects are
considered in the proposed strategy:
(1) Establish the relationship between the frequency deviations of
power grid with variation of output power of CGUs, and then the
control strategy of BESS can be flexibly designed by perceiving the
output state of CGUs.
(2) The proposed control method should be feasible both in the dead
band and out of dead band.
To illustrate the relationship between CGUs’ reserve power of PFR
and power grid’s frequency, we can analyze the power-frequency
characteristic curve of CGUs described as
0 (| f | 0.033Hz)
PG = - K G· f (0.033Hz < | f | 0.133Hz)
sgn( f ) PG_ max (| f | > 0.133Hz) (9)
where sgn(Δf) is the sign function, of which the value is −1 when
Δf > 0, otherwise it is set as 1; KG and ΔPG_max represent the droop
coefficient of CGUs participating in PFR and the maximum variable
power (usually 4% of the rated power) of CGUs participating in fre-
quency regulation, respectively.
As shown in Fig. 5, the frequency drop will accordingly lead to the
power increase of CGU. The exception occurs when the CGU reaches its
power limitation, denoted as ΔPG_max, and the CGU will be unable to
respond to frequency drop. At this time, the static characteristics of
CGUs become a straight line parallel to the transverse axe, corre-
sponding to KG = 0 for the CGU.
Fig. 5. The reserve capacity-frequency schematic diagram of PFR for CGUs.
Z. Tan, et al.
The BESS operates as a load in power system during recharging, and
the power reserve of CGUs should be considered carefully to avoid
overloading condition. Otherwise, the frequency drop (FD) will affect
the stability of system frequency when there is insufficient reserve
power of CGUs.
3. Existing BESS control method considering charging demands
As we discussed earlier, introducing BESS to participate in FR can
enhance the anti-interference ability of power system. However, the
need to restore SoC must be considered in the actual operation of BESS.
Therefore, some strategies for considering BESS charging demands have
been developed to deal with such question in [25,26,30,31]. In order to
compare with the proposed method in Section 4, three representative
recovery SoC strategies of BESS, namely CRP, BSH and CFR, are spe-
cially analyzed.
3.1. Constant recovery power control (CRP)
The CRP control [25,26] is used to maintain the residual battery
energy by recharging with a constant power (5% of rated power or
maximum power) when the grid frequency falls into dead band.
Precharge = 0.05Pn (| f | 0.033Hz)
where Precharge and Pn represent the recharging power in dead band and
the rated power or maximum power of BESS, respectively.
3.2. Battery SoC holder control (BSH) and charging with FR (CFR)
There is only one difference between the control strategy BSH and
CFR [30,31] in response frequency: CFR adds an additional charging
power. Therefore, here we briefly introduce the adaptive droop coef-
ficient of BSH and the droop control loop of CFR.
The calculation and specific results of adaptive charge-discharge
coefficients in control strategy BSH can be seen in reference [20,30,31].
The characteristic of BSH control strategy is to reduce the discharge
power coefficient of BESS when SoC is low, so as to achieve the effect of
maintaining SoC. When SoC is high, the charging power coefficient of
BESS is reduced (see Fig. 6), which prevents BESS from overcharging.
Power of BESS is described as
PBESS = K (SoC )· f | f | 0.033
The control strategy CFR adds an additional charge power signal
based on BSH, as shown in Fig. 7.
Additional scheduled charging power (Precharge) may be described as
rate
Precharge = (SoC 0.5)· EBESS /(Tout Tin )
where EBESS
rate
, Tout and Tin represent the capacity of BESS, the completion
time of energy storage charging and the start time of charging, re-
spectively.
When the SoC of BESS is higher than expected, the Precharge is
Fig. 6. Adaptive droop of the BSH for maintaining the initial SoC.
Electrical Power and Energy Systems 117 (2020) 105588
positive, which means that BESS will discharge in a planned time to
release excess power. But when the SoC of BESS is lower than the ex-
pected value, the Precharge is negative, then BESS will charge, so as to
achieve the desired SoC.
4. Proposed coordinated method for PFR with BESS
4.1. Overview of the proposed method
There are two operational requirements for BESS to participate in
primary frequency regulation: (1) to maintain SoC in the reference in-
tervals (SoCref); (2) to alleviate the frequency regulation burden of
CGUs. It should be noted that the reference intervals of SoC is not fixed.
In most researches, SoCref was set as a fixed point (0.5 or 0.7)
[22,25,27,30]. However, due to the diversity of SoC in BESS operation,
the SoC of BESS will not operate at the set point, which leads to the
need for frequent charging and discharging of BESS to correct their SoC,
which will shorten the lifetime of BESS, but also bring unstable factors
to the power grid. In order to make full use of the power response
ability of BESS and reduce the number of start-ups for SoC recovery,
here SoCref is set to 0.45–0.55.
The two essential factors are the key elements to achieve the above
fundamental purpose. More specifically, BESS should respond on the
(10) basis of the operating status of CGUs. The outline of the proposed
strategy is shown in Fig. 8.
4.2. Control strategy flow
On the basis of the previous analysis, BESS participation frequency
regulation strategy and SoC recovery strategy are combined. The in-
tegrated control strategy flow is as shown in Table 1 and Fig. 9. The
steps of BESS participating in PFR are designed as follows:
(1) According to the dead band setting value of PFR to determine
whether BESS participates in PFR. If BESS does not need to parti-
cipate in FR, the SoC of BESS is adjusted according to the restora-
tion limited power coefficient [i.e. λ(Δf) in Figs. 9 and 12 and Eqs.
(17)–(20)] and the adaptive recovery power of BESS (ΔPRSOC) in the
dead band.
(2) When the BESS participates in PFR, the adaptive droop control
(ΔPPFR) is adopted. Then Δf and SoC are obtained as feedback sig-
(11) nals, and the adaptive recovery power is calculated (ΔPRSOC).
Finally, the actual output power of BESS is obtained by combining
ΔPPFR and ΔPRSOC.
(3) Finally, check whether Δf return to the dead band and SoC recover
to the reference intervals, and determine the deactivation timing of
(12) BESS.
4.3. Output power of BESS during PFR
The operational scenario of BESS was divided into two parts, i.e., FR
stage and SoC recovery stage. Therefore, the output power of BESS is
defined as PFR power and SoC recovery power, which is described as
PRSOC (| f | 0.033Hz)
PBESS = PPFR + PRSOC (0.033Hz < | f | 0.1Hz)
PPFR (| f | > 0.1Hz) (13)
where ΔPPFR and ΔPRSOC represent the variable power of BESS parti-
cipating in PFR and the variable power of SoC recovery, respectively.
1) Determination of ΔPPFR: Based on (10), it can be seen that three
different power references of BESS in PFR are designed according to the
state of system frequency. More specifically,
• |Δf| < 0.033 Hz. It suggests that the BESS and CGUs do not need to
participate in PFR, so BESS can restore SoC in the frequency dead
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Z. Tan, et al. Electrical Power and Energy Systems 117 (2020) 105588

Fig. 7. Droop control loop of the CFR.

Fig. 8. Outline of the proposed strategy.

band of power grid. The restoring power of BESS cannot make the
frequency fall out of the dead band, otherwise CGUs will frequently
participate in frequency regulation, leading to the increase of me-
chanical and operating cost.
• 0.033 Hz < |Δf| < 0.1 Hz. It suggests that CGUs are involved in Fig. 9. Adaptively coordinated control strategy flow.
FR. Moreover, the reserve power of CGUs for PFR is sufficient.
Consequently, the SoC recovery of BESS can be performed in this
- K d (SoC )· f ( f < 0.033)
frequency intervals.
• |Δf| < 0.1 Hz. It suggests that the residual PFR support power of PPFR = 0 (| f | 0.033)
CGUs is insufficient, leading to the frequency drop with a lower - K c (SoC )· f ( f > 0.033) (14)
nadir. In this case, the activation of SoC recovery will add much
burden on CGUs’ power regulation, and indirectly deteriorate the where Kc and Kd are the adaptive charge and discharge coefficients of
frequency stability. BESS considering SoC, respectively.
Based on the analysis above and previous research (also known as
The PFR power is accordance with the droop principle of frequency BSH control strategy) [20,31], the focus of the strategy is designed to
regulation in power system, and is described as smooth output of BESS when SoC exceeds the limits. Therefore, the SoC
value should be involved in determining the PFR regulation coefficient.
More specifically, the charging and discharging coefficient of BESS

Table 1
Comparison of different scenarios.
|Δf| CGUs state SoC CGUs BESS Characteristics

< 0.033 No PFR demand Normal No action No action Preparing for BESS’s participation in FR
Abnormal No action Recover SoC
< 0.133 Remainder reserve Normal Suppress Δf Suppress Δf Utilizing the complementary advantages of CGUs and BESS
Abnormal Suppress Δf Suppress Δf and Recover SoC Realizing balance between FR task and maintaining SoC of BESS
> 0.133 None reserve Normal Can’t suppress Δf Suppress Δf Relieving power burden of CGUs and stop recovering SoC
Abnormal

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Z. Tan, et al. Electrical Power and Energy Systems 117 (2020) 105588

Fig. 12. Diagram of BESS adaptive recovery power with SoC.

Fig. 10. Adaptive output coefficient of BESS considering SoC limitation.

should be gradually reduced when the SoC gradually deteriorates at the

same time, which is expressed by

0 (0 < SoC 0.1)

Kd = Km K 0 e n (soc - 0.1)
(0.1 < SoC < 1)
Km + K 0 (en (soc - 0.1) 1) (15)

0 (0.9 SoC < 1)

Kc = Km K 0 en (0.9 SoC)
(0 < SoC < 0.9)
Km + K 0 (e n (0.9 SoC) 1) (16)
where Km is the maximum charging/discharging coefficient of BESS; K0
and Km represent the initial and final values of logistic functions, re-
spectively. And n is an adjustable factor tuning the coefficient’s value.
Fig. 10 gives the visualization of determining values of Kc and Kd
with the change of SoC. As can be seen, Kd increases with the larger SoC
value, since it indicates that the BESS has enough power to compensate
frequency drop. On the contrary, Kc decreases when with the larger
SoC, because the BESS should be protected from overcharging during
PFR. More details of n, the initial and final values of logistic functions
can be referred to the Appendix A. Further, the corresponding value of
ΔPPFR is illustrated in Fig. 11, which clearly shows that the power of
BESS in the proposed strategy can be adaptively adjusted considering
SoC and frequency change.
2) Determination of ΔPRSOC: The value of ΔPRSOC is influenced by
both Δf and SoC. More specifically, the BESS should not impose the
power pressure when PFR is activated, and take advantage of PFR re-
quirements in different intervals, then determine ΔPRSOC with the SoC
indicator. Therefore, the adaptive strategies are designed as
d( f )·Pd (SoC) (SoC > 0.55)
PRSOC( f ,SoC) = 0 (0.45 SoC 0.55)
c ( f )·Pc (SoC) (SoC < 0.45) (17)
where Pc and Pd represent the charging and discharging power when
BESS restores SoC, respectively, which can be pre-set by the system
operator; λc and λd present the adjusting coefficients of charging and
discharging operation for satisfying the power quality demand, re-
spectively.
Fig. 13. Restriction coefficient of BESS recovery power.
Fig. 12 shows the SoC recovery power considering different situa-
tions of SoC and system frequency variation. As can be seen, Pd in-
creases with the larger SoC value, since it indicates that the BESS should
be protected from overcharging during PFR. On the contrary, Pc in-
creases with the smaller SoC, because the BESS should be protected
from over-discharging
The values of λc and λd are determined according to Fig. 13. As is
shown, there are two categories divided according to Δf, namely, within
dead band and out of dead band, respectively. When system frequency
variation falls out of dead band, it indicates that the utility grid might
possess insufficient FR power, so the charging coefficient, re-denoted as
λc2, gradually decreases with the deterioration of frequency, aiming to
release CGUs’ power burden. When Δf approaches to the boundary (i.e.,
−0.033 Hz in this article), the charging coefficient, re-denoted as λc1, is
forced to zero and starts to smoothly increase to maximum value with
the frequency increasing. The similar analysis can also be applied to the
change of λd.
The value of the restoration limited power coefficient (λ) can be
divided into two cases: (i) when the BESS needs to be recharged, it is λc;
(ii) when the BESS needs to be discharged, it is λd. Furthermore, both
the value of λd and λc can be divided into three cases, which are de-
scribed in detail in (19)–(20) and Fig. 13.
d (SoC > 0.55)
=
c (SoC < 0.45) (18)

c2( f < 0.033)

c = c1(| f | < 0.033)
1 ( f > 0.033) (19)

( f > 0.033)
d2

d = (| f | < 0.033)
d1
1 ( f < 0.033) (20)

Based on the discussion above, Fig. 14 shows the SoC recovery

Fig. 11. Power change of BESS in PFR. power considering different situations of SoC and system frequency

6
Z. Tan, et al. Electrical Power and Energy Systems 117 (2020) 105588

Fig. 14. Adaptive power of BESS for SoC recovery.

Table 2
Model parameters.
Parameter Value Parameter Value

BESS capacity (MWh) 5 D(p.u.) 1

H (s) 5 Frequency reference (Hz) 50
KG (p.u.) 20 BESS rated power (MW) 5
TG (s) 0.08 Pm(MW) 5
Fig. 15. The simulation results of frequency variation with step load dis-
TCH (s) 0.3 P0(MW) 0.001
turbance of 0.0005p.u.
TRH (s) 7 |Δfdb| (Hz) 0.033
FHP (p.u.) 0.3 Km (p.u) 20
SoCmax 0.9 SoCmin 0.1

variation.

5. Case studies

The FR dynamic model is shown in Fig. 1, in which the maximum

rated capacity unit is set as 1000 MW, and the value of BESS capacity is
5 MWh. The values of the specific parameters of the model are shown in
Table 2.
In order to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method, the
Fig.16. Simulation results of output power of CGUs with step load disturbance
dynamic performance of BESS and CGUs under two different cases
of 0.005p.u.
using different control strategies were analyzed and discussed in detail,
namely step disturbance and continuous disturbance.
It should be noted that the disturbance we discuss here refers to
comprehensive disturbance, which includes the variation of load power
and the variation of power of new energy such as wind and solar, i.e.
ΔPL + Pact
RES
−Psched
RES
in Fig. 1. Under step disturbance conditions, the
effect of each specific strategy on frequency and CGUs’ output can be
shown precisely. Under continuous disturbance conditions, the effec-
tiveness of the proposed method can be more clearly reflected.

5.1. Step load disturbance 1

In order to verify that the proposed method can effectively prevent

the frequency from falling out the dead band, when BESS restores SoC
in the dead band, a step disturbance of 0.005p.u. was set at 20 s. Under
this condition, the advantages of the proposed method over CRP control
method will be clearly demonstrated. The performances of frequency
deviation and output power for CGUs and BESS’ SoC are shown in
Figs. 15–17.
In Fig. 15, we can see that the proposed method and the control
strategy using constant recovery power(CRP) can restore SoC in 0–20 s
without causing the system frequency deviation to fall out of the dead
band. However, when step disturbance occurs, the strategy of CRP will
cause frequency to fall out of the dead band, but the proposed method
will keep the frequency deviation in the dead band.
Specifically, the frequency deviation of the proposed method is
stable at −0.0223 Hz in 0–20 s. The frequency deviation of the control
strategy CRP keeps increasing and drops to −0.0105 Hz at 20 s. After
the step load disturbance occurs, the frequency deviation of the pro-
posed method is stable at −0.025 Hz (less than the dead band
Fig.17. Simulation results of SoC with step load disturbance of 0.005p.u.
boundary, i.e. −0.033 Hz), but the frequency deviation of the control
strategy CRP falls to −0.033 Hz and fluctuates slightly near the dead
band boundary. Actually, this result can be seen more clearly in the
output power of CGUs (i.e. Fig. 16).
It must be noted that the control strategy of CFR and BSH in this
scenario will not change the output power of BESS because they do not
focus on restoring or maintaining the SoC of BESS in the dead band of
frequency deviation.
As illustrated in Fig. 16, the control strategy of CRP does not affect
the output power of CGUs in the intervals of 0–20 s. But when the
system frequency deviation approaches the boundary of dead band,
since the step disturbance occurs, CPR will cause frequent changes in
the output of CGUs due to the fact that the tasks of BESS participating in
PFR and SoC recovery are not well coordinated and controlled, which

7
Z. Tan, et al.
has a great impact on the operation economy of both BESS and CGUs.
And it will not only greatly improve the mechanical loss and operation
and maintenance costs of CGUs, but also will reduce the service life of
BESS and CGUs.
As can be seen from Fig. 17, when the frequency deviation ap-
proaches the dead band boundary, the restoration limited power coef-
ficient (λ) successfully suppresses the recovery power of BESS, that is,
the proposed method stops charging when the frequency deviation
exceeds −0.023 Hz (70%*0.033 Hz). The CRP control strategy will
cause the output power of CGUs to oscillate when the frequency de-
viation is at the dead-zone boundary. That is to say, BESS will con-
tinuously switch between the two tasks of frequency regulation and SoC
restoration, and restore the SoC of BESS at a lower speed.
In conclusion, the proposed method not only utilizes the advantages
of CPR strategy, but also improves the shortcomings of CPR to meet the
requirements of BESS and CGUs operating in dead band of power grid
frequency deviation.
5.2. Step load disturbance 2
In order to verify the proposed method will not increase the fre-
quency regulation burden of CGUs when the system frequency devia-
tion is large, we set up a step power disturbance with amplitude with
0.01p.u. at 20 s, then a step power disturbance with amplitude of
0.02p.u. was set at 120 s. Under this condition, the shortcomings of CFR
and BSH can be clearly demonstrated.
As shown in Fig. 18, the proposed method and CRP did not cause the
frequency to fall out of the dead band due to the effect of the restoration
limited power coefficient (λ) in 0–20 s. In this scenario, the FR effect of
the proposed method is worse for the first step disturbance of 0.01p.u.
occurred at 20 s, because the residual frequency regulation ability of
CGUs will be used to restore the SoC of BESS as far as possible without
increasing the frequency regulation frequency of CGUs.. According to
Fig. 5, it can be concluded that the residual PFR support capability of
CGUs is sufficient in this frequency deviation state (when the absolute
value of frequency deviation is less than 0.1 Hz, CGUs' primary FR re-
serve capacity will be insufficient.). However, when the second step
disturbance of 0.02p.u. occurred at 120 s, the FR effect of the proposed
method is much better than that of other control strategies (CRP, CFR,
BSH). This is because the proposed method will stop the BESS SoC re-
covery task when the residual PFR capability of CGUs is insufficient.
Compared with the control methods of CFR, BSH and CRP, the proposed
method can consider the operation status of CGUs for SoC recovery,
Fig.18. Simulation results of frequency variation with double step dis-
turbances.
8
Electrical Power and Energy Systems 117 (2020) 105588
Fig. 19. Simulation results of Pg variation with double step disturbances.
which is necessary for the operation of power grid.
As can be seen from Fig. 19, under the first step disturbance con-
dition, the output power variation of CGUs under the proposed method
is 0.0137p.u., while that of CGUs under other methods is about
0.0082p.u. That is to say, compared with other control strategies (CRP,
CFR, BSH), the CGUs provides more FR support power for the proposed
method under the first step disturbance, but less FR support power
under the second step disturbance. However, under the second step
disturbance condition, the situation is opposite. Due to the limitation of
λ, the proposed method will prevent the recovery of SoC from ab-
sorbing energy to the power grid when the frequency deviation worsens
further. But the other three strategies do not take this important point
into account. In addition, it should be highlight that the other control
strategies could barely provide FR support for CGUs when the SoC of
BESS deteriorates.
As can be seen from Fig. 20, in the time scale of 6 min (360 s),
whether it is CRP control method or BSH and CFR control method, SoC
changes very little under this condition, which means that the energy
exchange between BESS and power grid is also very small. Put it an-
other way, when SoC deteriorates, the CRP, BSH and CFR control
strategies can neither enable BESS to effectively restore SoC nor enable
BESS to provide FR support power for power grid. Combining with
Figs. 18 and 19, the proposed method sacrifices the effect of FR under
the first small step disturbance, but also utilizes the remaining PFR
support capability of CGUs to restore SoC for BESS. Under the second
large step disturbance, the proposed method temporarily sacrifices the
SoC maintenance effect, but it will greatly reduce the FR burden of
CGUs under these extreme conditions.
In summary, when restoring SoC of BESS, the proposed method
takes into account the operation status of CGUs and BESS in an all-
round way.
5.3. Continuous load disturbance
In order to examine the effects of the proposed method in actual
power grid operation, the load variation of 3600 s in certain southern
Fig. 20. Simulation results of SoC variation with double step disturbances.
Z. Tan, et al. Electrical Power and Energy Systems 117 (2020) 105588

Fig. 21. 3600 s continuous load disturbance.

Table 3
Relevant indexes.
Index ECGUs (MWh) EBESS (MWh) Δfrms SoCref
rms

Proposed method 3.83 × 10−3 3.01 × 10−3 0.57 1.02

CRP 4.06 × 10−3 1.69 × 10−3 0.61 3.75
BSH 4.07 × 10−3 1.67 × 10−3 0.61 3.85
CFR 4.11 × 10−3 1.63 × 10−3 0.62 3.18
Without BESS 5.66 × 10−3 / 0.85 /

region of China was selected, as shown in Fig. 21. Under this condition,
the advantages of the proposed method over other control methods will
be clearly demonstrated.
In order to analyze the dynamic performance of BESS and CGUs
more clearly, the evaluation indexes of FR effects and contribution for
PFR were considered. The evaluation indexes, presented in Table 3,
include the root mean square value of frequency deviation (Δfrms), the
root mean square error of the SoC and its reference value (SoCref rms ), the
total contribution energy of the battery storage for PFR (EBESS), the total
output energy of the CGUs to PFR (ECGUs).
As illustrated in Fig. 22, the FR effect of the proposed method is
Fig. 23. Simulation results of output power of CGUs and SoC variation under
continuous load disturbance. (a) Pg variation, (b) SoC variation.
worse in the period of 0–140 s and 250–300 s, but the frequency
maintenance effect is better in the period of 140–250 s. The maximum
frequency deviation under the other three control strategies (CRP, CFR
and BSH) is 0.1 Hz, while the maximum frequency deviation of the
proposed method is 0.09 Hz. That means the SoC recovery power will
be effectively limited when large disturbance occurs in 0–300 s and the
reserve capacity of PFR of CGUs is insufficient. Then all the control
strategies have almost the same FR effect during the period of
400–700 s. However, after 2300 s, the FR effect of the proposed method
is better than that of other control strategies. To summarize, the FR
effect of proposed method will get better with the increase of time.
As can be seen from Fig. 23, the proposed method makes the total
output power of CGUs change more greatly, but the changes of max-
imum output power of CGUs are the least, during the period of 0–400 s.
Thereafter, the FR power variation of CGUs in the proposed method is
relatively small. The dynamic changes of SoC are clearly shown in
Fig. 23(b). The proposed method only takes about 1000 s to restore SoC
to 0.5, while other methods do not make SoC back to 0.5 in 1 h.
In Table 3, the specific values of the evaluation indicators are pre-
sented. The proposed method shows some advantages in the evaluation
results of various indexes. The root mean square value of frequency
deviation (Δfrms) of the proposed method is 6.56% and 8.06% lower
than that in CRP and CFR control strategy, respectively. The result of
rms under proposed method is 72.8%, 73.5% and 67.9% lower than
SoCref
that under CRP, BSH and CFR control strategy.
The contribution of CGUs with the proposed method is 5.67% and
32.3% lower than that in the CRP and without BESS, respectively,
which implies that the proposed method reduces the frequency reg-
ulation burden of CGUs. Meanwhile, the contribution of BESS with the
proposed method is 78.1% and 84.7% higher than that in the CRP and
CFR control strategy, respectively, which implies that the proposed
method improves the utilization rate of BESS.
In summary, compared with the classical intelligent charging
methods BSH and CFR, the proposed method makes full use of the PFR
reserve capacity and dead band.

Fig. 22. Simulation results of frequency variation of continuous load dis-

turbance.

9
Z. Tan, et al. Electrical Power and Energy Systems 117 (2020) 105588

6. Conclusion In the future works, the method of BESS participating in FR based

on load forecasting technology will be further discussed, and how to
(1) Considering the influence of BESS output on the power grid, the evaluate the economic value of the FR capacity provided by the BESS
adaptive power and coefficient of BESS SoC recovery are obtained, according to the state of the grid will also be considered.
which enables the BESS to restore the SoC by using the PFR reserve
capacity of the CGUs, and also can effectively restrain the dis-
Declaration of Competing Interest
turbance caused by BESS recovery to the system.
(2) The simulation results show that the proposed control method takes
The authors declare that we do not have any commercial or asso-
into account the advantages of classical control strategies BSH, CFR
ciative interest that represents a conflict of interest in connection with
and CRP, as well as the coordinated operation of BESS and CGUs. It
the work submitted.
can give full play to the advantages of FR technology of conven-
tional units and BESS, and also improve the energy management
level of BESS. Acknowledgement
(3) The adaptive control strategy based on the real-time state percep-
tion of stored energy to conventional units, can provide a new re- This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science
ference for BESS capacity allocation, operation optimization and Foundation of China (51477043), and in part by National Key R&D
economic evaluation and enhance the renewable energy con- Program Project of China (2017YFB0903400), State grid hunan power
sumptive ability of power grid. co., LTD. Science and technology project of China (5216A1170002).

Appendix A

When the reference intervals of SoC are different, the corresponding adaptive output coefficient and adaptive recovery power will change. Here
we give two different case (SoCref ∈ 0.45–0.55 and SoCref ∈ 0.55–0.65) of curve graphics shown in Figs. 24 and 25.
As shown in Figs. 24 and 25, the corresponding SoCref can be selected according to different types of BESS and different operation requirements.
As shown in Figs. 26 and 27, the larger value of n is, the faster function values will change, which means the faster the function changes from
initial value to final value.

Fig. 24. Charging and discharging coefficient of BESS participating in PFR corresponding to different SoCref.

Fig. 25. Recovery power of BESS corresponding to different SoCref.

10
Z. Tan, et al.
Fig. 26. Charging and discharging coefficient of BESS participating in PFR corresponding to different n values.
Fig. 27. Recovery power of BESS participating in PFR corresponding to different n values.
Appendix B. Supplementary material
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijepes.2019.105588.
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