Modelling and Control of a Hydropower Plant in Dealing with the Speed Control Problem of Synchronous Generators

Maintaining the rotational speed of synchronous generators in a hydropower plant is a vital control strategy in power system stability and operation. It is because such rotational speed is proportional to the output frequency of the synchronous generator, thereby it strongly affects the stability of the electric power grid. This paper presents a study regarding the modelling and control of a hydropower plant to maintain the generator speed. This study is divided into two main parts. A well-used model of an isolated hydropower plant is established in this study at first; then two controllers including conventional PI and intelligent fuzzy logic regulators are investigated to speed control of the generator. Simulations implemented in MATLAB/Simulink package demonstrate effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed speed controllers.