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Load frequency control for small hydro power plants using adaptive fuzzy
controller

Conference Paper · November 2010

DOI: 10.1109/ICSMC.2010.5642495 · Source: IEEE Xplore

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 Load Frequency Control for Small Hydro Power
Plants Using Adaptive Fuzzy Controller
Ebru Özbay Muhsin Tunay Gençoğlu
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering
Fırat University Fırat University
Elazığ, Turkey Elazığ, Turkey
eozbay@firat.edu.tr mtgencoglu@firat.edu.tr

Abstract— Electrical energy generation is very important due The conventional PID controllers are not suitable for
to the increasing energy need. To satisfy the need, small scale complex, nonlinear, uncertain, high-order and time-delay
hydro power plants are constructed in addition to large scale systems. As an alternative to conventional control methods,
hydro power plants. Hydro power plants have a significant role the fuzzy logic that Zadeh first presented in 1965 has been
in the generation of electrical energy. Small hydro power is a
studied for modeling of the complex systems in the past few
kind of clean and renewable energy sources. Small hydro
power has a big potential in most areas of the world. This decades and fuzzy logic controllers have been widely used
article proposed a novel model design for small hydro power to nonlinear, complex and uncertain systems such as
plant (SHPP) using linear and nonlinear turbine model without engineering problems, robotics, renewable energy, signal
surge tank effects. The model was created using adaptive fuzzy processing, power electronics and modeling [7,8].
logic controller. The aim of this article is to improve their
implementations by developing a SHPP model without using II. DEVELOPMENT OF SMALL HYDRO POWER PLANT
conventional control methods. The conventional control MODEL
methods require choosing individual P and I parameters for
A. Mathematical Model
each load value whereas in the developed model this process
carried out by means of a single equations by using adaptive Kinetic energy of the water is converted mechanical
fuzzy logic controller. energy by turbines and the mechanical energy is converted
to electrical energy by synchronous generators in the hydro
Keywords—hydro power plant, linear and nonlinear
power plants. There are two basic types of hydraulic
turbine model, adaptive fuzzy controller
turbines. These are impulse turbines and reaction turbines.
I. INTRODUCTION The dynamic of hydraulic turbines have a significantly
In electric power generation, small SHPPs have special influence on the dynamic stability of the power system. The
importance caused by their low administrative, executive performance of a hydraulic turbine is influenced by the
costs, and short construction time compared to large power characteristics of the water column feeding the turbine.
plants [1]. A SHPP consists of diversion dam, conveyance These include the effects of water inertia, water
of water system, forebay, penstock, wicket gate, power compressibility and pipe wall elasticity in the penstock. The
house, tailrace structure of the body and electrical and effect of water inertia is to cause changes in turbine flow to
mechanical equipments [2]. lag behind changes in turbine gate opening. Travelling
waves of pressure is the effect of elasticity in the pipe. This
SHPPs are generally isolated from grid network. SHPPs phenomenon is commonly referred to as “water hammer”.
have some problems. These are; their storage potential is Therefore, water hammer effects are relatively insignificant
very small, unit cost is high and it affects quickly a small for short penstock.
change in the regime of river. But the main problem on
these plants is to keep the constant speed value. Frequency Hydro power plant models are classified in form of
is an important criterion in electric power systems. The linear and nonlinear models. These models can be divided
consumers want continuous, stabile, quality and reliable into two groups; the turbine model assuming elastic water
energy. For a power system, constant frequency and active column and inelastic water column.
power balance must be provided. If the active power balance 1) Linear Turbine Model: In linear model, the hydraulic
is provided on the change of instantaneous power, frequency resistance is negligible, the penstock pipe is inelastic and the
control can be provided [3,4]. water is incompressible. The velocity of the water in the
In a power system operation such as SHPP, load- penstock and turbine mechanical power is given by
frequency control is very important for supplying efficiently
U K G√H (1)
electrical power of good quality. Many control techniques
have been used for this operation [5,6]. P K HU (2)
Ku and Kp are constants of proportionality [9]. The turbine gain A is
Tw called as water time constant or water starting time and T MW
its value varies between 1-4 s. Tw is 1 s for low head, 2.2 s A Gf G
x G MW
(9)
for medium head and 4 s for high head [2]. Tw is defined as
∆P G T
T
LU LQ
(3) G T xA (10)
∆G
H AH

∆P T Equation (10) is nonlinear turbine transfer function which is

(4) linearized in the operation point. The linearized equations
∆G T
are suitable for computer applications [10-15].
Equation (4) is the classic transfer function of hydraulic B. Fuzzy Controlled System
turbine.
The fuzzy controllers are suitable for white-box
2) Nonlinear Turbine Model Assuming a Inelastic problems, based on expert knowledge of the system. Fig.1.
Water Column: The model is constructed assuming an shows block diagram of a fuzzy controller. A fuzzy
incompressible fluid and a rigid conduit. The friction head controller consists of four main components as fuzzification,
loss in the penstock is given by rule base, inference mechanism and defuzzification. The
H f Q (5) fuzzification converts its inputs into fuzzy values with
membership functions in the form of triangle, trapezoid, bell
From the laws of momentum, the rate of flow change in the or other appropriate forms expressed by the fuzzy linguistic
conduit is variables. The rule base contains the expert’s linguistic
descriptions expressed in the form of logical implications
Q H H
(6) such as IF x is positive THEN y is big. The inference
T mechanism evaluates fuzzy information to activate and
The conduit head losses (H ) can be ignored in the models apply control rules. The defuzzification that uses methods
for simplicity. such as centre of gravity, maximum and weighted mean
converts from the inference mechanism into the crisp values
The per unit (p.u.) value of the turbine power output is: applied to the actual system [16-19].
P AH Q Q D G∆n (7) K1, K2 and K3 are called as scaling factors in Fig. 1.
Input and output scaling factors in the fuzzy controllers are
Where D is the turbine damping factor and its value varies
important for providing to fire of appropriate rules
between 0.5 and 2. Damping effects can be neglected in the
independent from physical domain of the input and output
model.
signals. The scaling factors can be tuned to obtain maximum
If the turbine net head changes the turbine flow rate will also control performance.
change. The p.u. flow rate through the turbine is

Q G H (8)

Figure 1. The block diagram of a fuzzy controller

 Figure 2. Block diagram of the proposed model
C. Adaptive Fuzzy Control System
The proposed model of a SHPP is shown in Fig. 2. The
model consists of regulator, servomotor, turbine and
generator. The adaptive fuzzy controller is used as
regulator. The scaling factors of the fuzzy controller are
tuned with load information.
There are two inputs and one output of the fuzzy
controller. The first input is the error between reference
value that is desired output value and generator output
value. The second input is the derivative of the error. The
inputs are given by
(a) Membership functions of input variables “error” and
e(t)=r(t)-y(t) (11) “derivative of error”
de(t)=e(t)-e(t-1) (12)
The inputs and output are multiplied by the scaling
factors K1, K2 and K3, respectively. The design of the
fuzzy controller depends on information about the system
behavior or experience of a human expert. The
fuzzification stage is determined by the choice of the
range, shape and number of the membership functions.
The output membership functions are chosen to be
nonuniformly distributed seven triangular functions in
order to minimize the computation time. The input
membership functions are chosen to be uniformly (b) Membership functions of output variable “control
distributed five triangular functions action”
The range of the input and output membership Figure 3. Parameters of the fuzzy controller
functions is chosen in [-1, +1]. Input scaling factors are
The input and output scaling factors must be adjusted
used to normalize the input magnitude. The membership
in order to make the fuzzy controller more sensitive to
functions of the input and output variables are shown in
changes in the system. The input values of the fuzzy
Fig. 3 (a) - (b).
controller would range between [-1, +1]. In the proposed
The fuzzy controller is used the max-min inference algorithm, many simulations have been performed to find
method that called as the Mamdani type inference. optimum values of the scaling factors. Thus, the
Defuzzification method is chosen as centre of gravity appropriate values of the scaling factors have chosen in
method. The parameters of the fuzzy controller are shown different load conditions. And a polynomial function has
in Fig. 3. fit using these values [20,21]. The functions used for gain
adjustment in the proposed algorithm for linear and
nonlinear turbine models are respectively shown in Fig. 4
(a) - (b).
 2.8 3

Output scaling factor adjustment

Input scaling factor adjustment
2.5
2.6
2

2.4 1.5

1
2.2
0.5

2 0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Load (pu) Load (pu)
(a) Gain adjustment functions of input and output scaling factors for linear turbine

2.8 3

Output scaling factor adjustment

Input scaling factor adjustment

2.5
2.6
2

2.4 1.5

1
2.2
0.5

2 0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Load (pu) Load (pu)

(b) Gain adjustment functions of input and output scaling factors for nonlinear turbine
Figure 4. Gain adjustment functions of input and output scaling factors
III. SIMULATION RESULTS Primarily simulation results were obtained for linear
turbine model. Fig. 5-9. present the variation of frequency
In this study, a load-frequency control based model
along time for different five loads changing in form of
using linear turbine and nonlinear turbine assuming
ramp or step by using linear turbine model.
inelastic water column was proposed for isolated SHPPs.
The models were designed by using the Matlab-Simulink
program. An adaptive fuzzy controller was applied to
SHPP model as a governor. The controller regulates the 1
wicket gate position according to the load. Because the
water flow into the turbine is controlled by guide vane 0.8
Frequency (pu)

which is changed the gate position depend on the governor

control signal. When some variations are appeared in the 0.6
load, the controller regulates wicket gate position with 0.4
servomotor. The servomotor open or close the gate until
the produced and the desired electrical power is equal to 0.2
each other. The servomotor regulated by controller is the
0 Ramp
governor of the system.
Step
Five different load values were used in this study; the -0.2
values are 0.05, 0.25, 0.50, 0.75 and 0.95 p.u. All of the 0 20 40 60 80 100 120
figures show comparatively the obtained simulation Time (s)
results for a step or ramp load changes.
Figure 5. The variation of frequency with respect to time
for the load 0.05 p.u.
 1 1

0.8
Frequency (pu)

0.5

Frequency (pu)
0.6

0.4 0

0.2
-0.5
Ramp Ramp
0 Step Step

-0.2 -1
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 0200100 300 400 500
Time (s) Time (s)
Figure 6. The variation of frequency with respect to time Figure 9. The variation of frequency with respect to time
for the load 0.25 p.u. for the load 0.95 p.u.

1 1
0.8 0.8
Frequency (pu)

Frequency (pu)
0.6 0.6
0.4 0.4
0.2 0.2
0 Ramp Ramp
Step 0 Step
-0.2 -0.2
0 20
60 40 80 100 120 0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Time (s) Time (s)
Figure 7. The variation of frequency with respect to time Figure 10. The variation of frequency with respect to time
for the load 0.5 p.u. for the load 0.05 pu

1
1
0.8
Frequency (pu)

Frequency (pu)

0.5 0.6
0.4
0 0.2
Ramp Ramp
Step
0
Step
-0.5 -0.2
0 20
60 40 80 100 120 0 20
60 40
80 100 120
Time (s) Time (s)
Figure 8. The variation of frequency with respect to time Figure 11. The variation of frequency with respect to time
for the load 0.75 p.u. for the load 0.25 p.u.

Figures 10-14 show the variation of frequency along

time for different five loads changing in form of ramp or
step by using nonlinear turbine model.
 It was observed in comparison that the stabilizing time
of frequency in the model with nonlinear turbine was
1 shorter than that of the model with linear turbine and
moreover the stabilizing time for ramp changes in the load
0.8 was shorter than that of step changes in the load.
Frequency (pu)

0.6 The proposed adaptive fuzzy controller was easily

adapted to different load values. For the simulation
0.4 results, it was observed that the obtained results for small
0.2 load change values in form of ramp or step was similar
and when the load value increased the importance of ramp
0 Ramp
load revealed better.
Step

-0.2 The stabilizing time takes long time because of water

0 20
60 40
80 100 120 hammer and water inertia effects on the servo motor.
Time (s) These effects grow with increasing water time constant.
Figure 12. The variation of frequency with respect to time Also when a change occurs in gate position turbine
for the load 0.5 p.u. produces an opposite turbine power change. This effect is
seen more on linear model.

1
NOMENCLATURE
U : Water velocity (m/s)
Frequency (pu)

0.5 G : Gate position (%)

H : Net hydraulic head (m)
Pm : Turbine mechanic power
H0 : the initial head of the water (m)
0 U0 : the initial velocity of water (m/s)
Ramp G0 : the initial gate position (%)
Step Q0 : the initial flow rate
-0.5 ag : acceleration due to gravity
0 20
60 40
80 100 120 L : length of conduit (m)
Time (s) A : pipe cross section area (m2)
Figure 13. The variation of frequency with respect to time Tw : water time constant (s)
for the load 0.75 p.u. P : per unit turbine mechanic power
G : per unit gate position
Q : per unit flow rate
1
H : per unit head
Hf : the head loss in the conduit (m)
Frequency (pu)

fp : water friction in conduit

0.5 Q : turbine flow rate (m3/s)
At : turbine gain
Dn : turbine damping term
∆n : per unit turbine speed
0
Gf : per unit full-load gate position
Ramp G : per unit no-load gate position
Step

-0.5
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