Field Measurement and Analysis of Frequency and RoCoF for Low-Inertia Power Systems

The frequency measurement and rate of change of frequency (RoCoF) calculations are important for active power, frequency control, and frequency-related protection in power system operations. With the rapid decrease in inertia under modern power systems, however, multiple power variations introduced by variable renewable energy bring large RoCoF and introduce oscillations in frequency measurements. To shed light on this issue, this article proposes a frequency measurement and RoCoF analysis technology, as well as the sensitivity analysis for the real low-inertia power grid. First, a real-world event in an island power grid is analyzed as an example, and an event numerical model is estimated considering four uncertainties, including event RoCoF, oscillation magnitude, oscillation frequency, and underfrequency load-shedding threshold. Then, a sensitivity analysis is performed using the Sobol indices method and quasi-Monte Carlo simulations to identify the dominant uncertainties based on the event model. The dominant uncertainties are compared to provide a guideline for the frequency estimation algorithm selection under different event cases. This algorithm is compared with an enhanced zero-crossing algorithm and gives a 3.41% better RoCoF error rate. Finally, an experiment is conducted using universal grid analyzers to validate the simulation results and the theoretical analysis.