Quantifying the performance of optimal frequency regulators in the presence of intermittent communication disruptions

We investigate the robustness of existing control strategies for economically optimal frequency regulation in power grids in the presence of disruptions to the controllers' communication network. Using a strict Lyapunov function, we are able to derive exponential bounds on the convergence rate in terms of the proportion of time during which the disruption is active. This allows us to explicitly quantify the performance degradation, measured in terms of system overshoot and convergence rate.