Fast Active Power-Frequency Support Methods by Large Scale Electrolyzers for Multi-Energy Systems

Abstract

This paper presents a comparative assessment of fast active power regulation (FAPR) control strategies implemented on megawatt-scale controllable electrolysers, with the goal of achieving enhanced frequency support during large active power imbalances that lead to major under-frequency deviations. The FAPR control strategies consist of three different types of controllers, namely, droop, derivative and Virtual Synchronous Power (VSP). Each of these controllers has been implemented on a 300 MW electrolyser plant with proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolysers. The compared FAPR controllers are individually set to perform a fast adjustment of the active power consumption of the plant-based on the dynamic grid conditions. The modelling and comparative assessment is done in a platform for computationally efficient simulations of Electromagnetic Transients (EMT) in real-time. A synthetic model of the Northern Netherlands Network (N3 Network) is prototyped as a test bench to simulate and evaluate the performance of the implemented FAPR controllers. The EMT simulations show the superiority of the VSP based FAPR developed for controlling and exploiting the boundaries for active power adjustment of the Voltage Source Converter (VSC) that interfaces the PEM electrolyser plant with the N3 Network.