Area interchange control using the holomorphic embedding load flow method considering automatic generation control

•The proposed method derives a non-iterative holomorphic embedding load flow method (HELM) for area interchange control in the multi-area interconnected system.•Based on the participation factor of each regulating bus, all of the generators can take part in the adjustment even though only one variable is added for each control area.•The proposed approach is compared with the conventional NR approach by studying cases on the 4-bus system, IEEE 118-bus system, the Polish 3012-bus system and 25,000-bus system under different operating conditions.•The results show that the proposed approach is superior to the conventional NR approach in terms of computation efficiency in small and midsize system. This paper proposes a new approach to realize area interchange control based on the non-iterative holomorphic embedding load flow method (HELM) in a multi-area interconnected system. In this approach, the area interchange equations are firstly incorporated into the power flow equations and then the extended power flow equations are embedded by holomorphic functions. Furthermore, the adjustable generators participating in automatic generation control are considered as active power resources to control interchange among areas. A participation factor matrix is integrated into the HELM to distribute active power injections among multiple adjustable generators. To evaluate the performance of the proposed approach, comparative studies were conducted on various power systems, including the 4-bus system, IEEE 118-bus system, Polish 3012-bus system, and 25,000-bus system, under diverse operating conditions. The obtained results demonstrate the effectiveness and computational efficiency of the proposed non-iterative area interchange formulation in small and midsize power systems, in comparison with traditional iterative methods such as Newton's method. However, for large-scale systems, further improvements in computational efficiency and convergence performance are required.