1.Department of Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China;2.State Key Laboratory of Power System Operation and Control (Tsinghua University), Beijing 100084, China;3.Key Laboratory for Thermal Science and Power Engineering of Ministry of Education, Department of Engineering Mechanics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

Frequency stabilization is one of the most critical requirements for the operation of new power systems in the future. Energy endowment of China determines that coal-fired thermal power units are the most core and reliable primary frequency regulation resources. However, coal-fired thermal power has begun to show a trend of insufficient primary frequency regulation capability. In order to meet the current and long-term development needs, this paper reviews the challenges, research status and key problems faced by the primary frequency regulation of coal-fired thermal power. Firstly, four significant trends of primary frequency regulation of thermal power are summarized on the background of the development of new power systems, and the shortcomings of next frequency regulation in the operation of power grids and thermal power plants are analyzed. The key challenges of improving the ability of primary frequency regulation and fast and accurate simulation of frequency regulation are extracted. Secondly, from the two-way perspective of power grids and thermal power plant operation, the research status and existing problems of frequency regulation capability improvement and frequency regulation dynamic simulation are reviewed. Finally, combined with the above challenges and bottlenecks, the key technical problems of primary frequency regulation for new power systems in the future are prospected.