Patent ID: 8704390

Claim:
A power plant for controlling power output to a power grid, the power plant comprising: a wind farm including a plurality of wind turbines configured to generate and output a wind farm power signal to a point of common connection, each wind turbine of the plurality of wind turbines including a pitch mechanism to change a pitch of blades of the respective wind turbine of the plurality of wind turbines, and a turbine power converter to output a portion of the wind farm power signal generated by the respective wind turbine; a grid power converter connected to the point of common connection and configured to receive the wind farm power signal and output a power signal for the power grid; a sensor to measure a frequency of the power grid; and a supervisory controller coupled in communication with each of the plurality of wind turbines of the wind farm, the grid power converter, and the sensor, the supervisory controller configured to implement a control algorithm to dynamically adjust the power signal in response to the frequency measured by the sensor dropping below a first target frequency by: changing the pitch of the blades of at least one respective wind turbine of the wind farm, increasing a level of the portion of the wind farm power signal output by the turbine power converter of at least one respective wind turbine of the wind farm, and increasing a level of the power signal output by the grid power converter.