Load Frequency Control for Small Hydro Power

Plants Using Adaptive Fuzzy Controller

Ebru zbay
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering
Frat University
Elaz, Turkey
eozbay@firat.edu.tr
Muhsin Tunay Genolu
Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering
Frat University
Elaz, Turkey
mtgencoglu@firat.edu.tr


Abstract Electrical energy generation is very important due
to the increasing energy need. To satisfy the need, small scale
hydro power plants are constructed in addition to large scale
hydro power plants. Hydro power plants have a significant role
in the generation of electrical energy. Small hydro power is a
kind of clean and renewable energy sources. Small hydro
power has a big potential in most areas of the world. This
article proposed a novel model design for small hydro power
plant (SHPP) using linear and nonlinear turbine model without
surge tank effects. The model was created using adaptive fuzzy
logic controller. The aim of this article is to improve their
implementations by developing a SHPP model without using
conventional control methods. The conventional control
methods require choosing individual P and I parameters for
each load value whereas in the developed model this process
carried out by means of a single equations by using adaptive
fuzzy logic controller.
Keywordshydro power plant, linear and nonlinear
turbine model, adaptive fuzzy controller
I. INTRODUCTION
In electric power generation, small SHPPs have special
importance caused by their low administrative, executive
costs, and short construction time compared to large power
plants [1]. A SHPP consists of diversion dam, conveyance
of water system, forebay, penstock, wicket gate, power
house, tailrace structure of the body and electrical and
mechanical equipments [2].
SHPPs are generally isolated from grid network. SHPPs
have some problems. These are; their storage potential is
very small, unit cost is high and it affects quickly a small
change in the regime of river. But the main problem on
these plants is to keep the constant speed value. Frequency
is an important criterion in electric power systems. The
consumers want continuous, stabile, quality and reliable
energy. For a power system, constant frequency and active
power balance must be provided. If the active power balance
is provided on the change of instantaneous power, frequency
control can be provided [3,4].
In a power system operation such as SHPP, load-
frequency control is very important for supplying efficiently
electrical power of good quality. Many control techniques
have been used for this operation [5,6].
The conventional PID controllers are not suitable for
complex, nonlinear, uncertain, high-order and time-delay
systems. As an alternative to conventional control methods,
the fuzzy logic that Zadeh first presented in 1965 has been
studied for modeling of the complex systems in the past few
decades and fuzzy logic controllers have been widely used
to nonlinear, complex and uncertain systems such as
engineering problems, robotics, renewable energy, signal
processing, power electronics and modeling [7,8].
II. DEVELOPMENT OF SMALL HYDRO POWER PLANT
MODEL
A. Mathematical Model
Kinetic energy of the water is converted mechanical
energy by turbines and the mechanical energy is converted
to electrical energy by synchronous generators in the hydro
power plants. There are two basic types of hydraulic
turbines. These are impulse turbines and reaction turbines.
The dynamic of hydraulic turbines have a significantly
influence on the dynamic stability of the power system. The
performance of a hydraulic turbine is influenced by the
characteristics of the water column feeding the turbine.
These include the effects of water inertia, water
compressibility and pipe wall elasticity in the penstock. The
effect of water inertia is to cause changes in turbine flow to
lag behind changes in turbine gate opening. Travelling
waves of pressure is the effect of elasticity in the pipe. This
phenomenon is commonly referred to as water hammer.
Therefore, water hammer effects are relatively insignificant
for short penstock.
Hydro power plant models are classified in form of
linear and nonlinear models. These models can be divided
into two groups; the turbine model assuming elastic water
column and inelastic water column.
1) Linear Turbine Model: In linear model, the hydraulic
resistance is negligible, the penstock pipe is inelastic and the
water is incompressible. The velocity of the water in the
penstock and turbine mechanical power is given by
0 = K
u
uB (1)
P
m
= K
p
B0 (2)
K
u
and K
p
are constants of proportionality [9].
T
w
called as water time constant or water starting time and
its value varies between 1-4 s. T
w
is 1 s for low head, 2.2 s
for medium head and 4 s for high head [2]. T
w
is defined as
T
w
=
LU
0
a
g
H
0
=
LQ
0
a
g
AH
0
(3)

P
m

=
1-T
v
s
1+
1
2
T
v
s
(4)
Equation (4) is the classic transfer function of hydraulic
turbine.
2) Nonlinear Turbine Model Assuming a Inelastic
Water Column: The model is constructed assuming an
incompressible fluid and a rigid conduit. The friction head
loss in the penstock is given by
B
I
= f
p
Q
2
(5)
From the laws of momentum, the rate of flow change in the
conduit is

dQ

dt
=
(1-H

-H
I

)
T
v
(6)
The conduit head losses (B
I
) can be ignored in the models
for simplicity.
The per unit (p.u.) value of the turbine power output is:
P
m

= A
t
B

(Q

- Q
nI

) - B
n
u

n (7)
Where B
n
is the turbine damping factor and its value varies
between 0.5 and 2. Damping effects can be neglected in the
model.
If the turbine net head changes the turbine flow rate will also
change. The p.u. flow rate through the turbine is
Q

= u

(8)

The turbine gain A
t
is
A
t
=
1
G
fI

-G
nI

x
TurbInc MW
atng
Gcncrator MW
atng
(9)

P
m
G
=
1-G
0
T
v
s
1+
G
0
T
v
s
2
x A
t
(10)
Equation (10) is nonlinear turbine transfer function which is
linearized in the operation point. The linearized equations
are suitable for computer applications [10-15].
B. Fuzzy Controlled System
The fuzzy controllers are suitable for white-box
problems, based on expert knowledge of the system. Fig.1.
shows block diagram of a fuzzy controller. A fuzzy
controller consists of four main components as fuzzification,
rule base, inference mechanism and defuzzification. The
fuzzification converts its inputs into fuzzy values with
membership functions in the form of triangle, trapezoid, bell
or other appropriate forms expressed by the fuzzy linguistic
variables. The rule base contains the experts linguistic
descriptions expressed in the form of logical implications
such as IF x is positive THEN y is big. The inference
mechanism evaluates fuzzy information to activate and
apply control rules. The defuzzification that uses methods
such as centre of gravity, maximum and weighted mean
converts from the inference mechanism into the crisp values
applied to the actual system [16-19].
K1, K2 and K3 are called as scaling factors in Fig. 1.
Input and output scaling factors in the fuzzy controllers are
important for providing to fire of appropriate rules
independent from physical domain of the input and output
signals. The scaling factors can be tuned to obtain maximum
control performance.




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
e(t)=r(t)-y(t) (11)
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
distributed five triangular functions
The range of the input and output membership
functions is chosen in [-1, +1]. Input scaling factors are
used to normalize the input magnitude. The membership
functions of the input and output variables are shown in
Fig. 3 (a) - (b).
The fuzzy controller is used the max-min inference
method that called as the Mamdani type inference.
Defuzzification method is chosen as centre of gravity
method. The parameters of the fuzzy controller are shown
in Fig. 3.

(a) Membership functions of input variables error and
derivative of error

(b) Membership functions of output variable control
action
Figure 3. Parameters of the fuzzy controller
The input and output scaling factors must be adjusted
in order to make the fuzzy controller more sensitive to
changes in the system. The input values of the fuzzy
controller would range between [-1, +1]. In the proposed
algorithm, many simulations have been performed to find
optimum values of the scaling factors. Thus, the
appropriate values of the scaling factors have chosen in
different load conditions. And a polynomial function has
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).

(a) Gain adjustment functions of input and output scaling factors for linear turbine

(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
In this study, a load-frequency control based model
using linear turbine and nonlinear turbine assuming
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
wicket gate position according to the load. Because the
water flow into the turbine is controlled by guide vane
which is changed the gate position depend on the governor
control signal. When some variations are appeared in the
load, the controller regulates wicket gate position with
servomotor. The servomotor open or close the gate until
the produced and the desired electrical power is equal to
each other. The servomotor regulated by controller is the
governor of the system.
Five different load values were used in this study; the
values are 0.05, 0.25, 0.50, 0.75 and 0.95 p.u. All of the
figures show comparatively the obtained simulation
results for a step or ramp load changes.
Primarily simulation results were obtained for linear
turbine model. Fig. 5-9. present the variation of frequency
along time for different five loads changing in form of
ramp or step by using linear turbine model.

Figure 5. The variation of frequency with respect to time
for the load 0.05 p.u.
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
2
2.2
2.4
2.6
2.8
Load (pu)
I
n
p
u
t

s
c
a
l
i
n
g

f
a
c
t
o
r

a
d
j
u
s
t
m
e
n
t
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
Load (pu)
O
u
t
p
u
t

s
c
a
l
i
n
g

f
a
c
t
o
r

a
d
j
u
s
t
m
e
n
t
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
2
2.2
2.4
2.6
2.8
Load (pu)
I
n
p
u
t

s
c
a
l
i
n
g

f
a
c
t
o
r

a
d
j
u
s
t
m
e
n
t
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
Load (pu)
O
u
t
p
u
t

s
c
a
l
i
n
g

f
a
c
t
o
r

a
d
j
u
s
t
m
e
n
t
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
-0.2
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
Time (s)
F
r
e
q
u
e
n
c
y

(
p
u
)
Ramp
Step

Figure 6. The variation of frequency with respect to time
for the load 0.25 p.u.

Figure 7. The variation of frequency with respect to time
for the load 0.5 p.u.

Figure 8. The variation of frequency with respect to time
for the load 0.75 p.u.










Figure 9. The variation of frequency with respect to time
for the load 0.95 p.u.


Figure 10. The variation of frequency with respect to time
for the load 0.05 pu

Figure 11. The variation of frequency with respect to time
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.

0 20 40 60 80 100 120
-0.2
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
Time (s)
F
r
e
q
u
e
n
c
y

(
p
u
)
Ramp
Step
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
-0.2
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
Time (s)
F
r
e
q
u
e
n
c
y

(
p
u
)
Ramp
Step
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
-0.5
0
0.5
1
Time (s)
F
r
e
q
u
e
n
c
y

(
p
u
)
Ramp
Step
0 100 200 300 400 500
-1
-0.5
0
0.5
1
Time (s)
F
r
e
q
u
e
n
c
y

(
p
u
)
Ramp
Step
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
-0.2
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
Time (s)
F
r
e
q
u
e
n
c
y

(
p
u
)
Ramp
Step
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
-0.2
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
Time (s)
F
r
e
q
u
e
n
c
y

(
p
u
)
Ramp
Step

Figure 12. The variation of frequency with respect to time
for the load 0.5 p.u.

Figure 13. The variation of frequency with respect to time
for the load 0.75 p.u.

Figure 14. The variation of frequency with respect to time
for the load 0.95 p.u.

III. CONCLUSION
There are many studies using different control
methods for load frequency control in literature. In this
article a novel alternative controller for load frequency
control in an isolated SHPP was proposed. Comparisons
between frequencies of step or ramp changes in the load
were illustrated by figures.
It was observed in comparison that the stabilizing time
of frequency in the model with nonlinear turbine was
shorter than that of the model with linear turbine and
moreover the stabilizing time for ramp changes in the load
was shorter than that of step changes in the load.
The proposed adaptive fuzzy controller was easily
adapted to different load values. For the simulation
results, it was observed that the obtained results for small
load change values in form of ramp or step was similar
and when the load value increased the importance of ramp
load revealed better.
The stabilizing time takes long time because of water
hammer and water inertia effects on the servo motor.
These effects grow with increasing water time constant.
Also when a change occurs in gate position turbine
produces an opposite turbine power change. This effect is
seen more on linear model.

NOMENCLATURE
U : Water velocity (m/s)
G : Gate position (%)
H : Net hydraulic head (m)
P
m
: Turbine mechanic power
H
0
: the initial head of the water (m)
U
0
: the initial velocity of water (m/s)
G
0
: the initial gate position (%)
Q
0
: the initial flow rate
a
g
: acceleration due to gravity
L : length of conduit (m)
A : pipe cross section area (m
2
)
T
w
: water time constant (s)
P
m

: per unit turbine mechanic power

u

: per unit gate position

Q

: per unit flow rate

B

: per unit head

H
f
: the head loss in the conduit (m)
f
p
: water friction in conduit
Q : turbine flow rate (m
3
/s)
A
t
: turbine gain
D
n
: turbine damping term
n : per unit turbine speed
u
fI

: per unit full-load gate position

u
nI

: per unit no-load gate position

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