Impact of virtual inertia and damping control on stability delay margins of load frequency control systems with renewable energy sources

The utilization of communication linkages generates delays that degrade system dynamic performance and cause fluctuations in the system frequency while the extensive integration of renewable energy sources may cause further increase in the frequency oscillations owing to low inertia. By considering the inclusion of the virtual inertia and damping (VID) control in load frequency control (LFC) systems with time delays, this article investigates the impacts of the VID control on the stability delay margins (SDMs) of two-area LFC systems. For this purpose, an exact method, which is based on recursively removing exponential terms from the characteristic equation, is first implemented to compute SDMs of the two-area LFC system enhanced by VID control for a wide range of controller gains. Secondly, the effect of the VID parameters on the SDMs is investigated by employing the exact method. Theoretical results clearly illustrate that SDMs significantly increase as VID parameters increase. Furthermore, simulation analysis elucidates that with the VID incorporation, the performance of the LFC system with low inertia is enhanced and the rate of change of the frequency and frequency nadir are remarkably decreased, improving the stability of time-delayed LFC systems. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2023.