PIC Controlled Hardware Model Realization for Frequency Regulation in Power Plants

Frequency regulation in power plants is the need of the hour to maintain power system reliability. Generation and load demand are continuously monitored and the governor system of turbine is operated to keep the frequency within the desirable limit. In the proposed scheme, a hardware model is realized which consists of separate control for real power and reactive power to maintain a constant frequency. In the existing power plants, complete opening and closing of valves are done when the frequency exceeds the tolerance limit. This results in huge stresses on turbine blades. The proposed valve control mitigates the turbine blade stresses by partially opening and closing the valves even when there is a slight change in frequency. The proposed frequency regulation eliminates the steady state error through integral action. The complexity of gate control circuitry in the existing system for reactive power control is also eliminated by a separate reactive power control circuitry comprising of an operational amplifier and a current amplifier. The proposed system performs better than the existing method in thermal power plants.