AbstractIn this paper we consider a damping control of low‐frequency oscillations in an electric power system. On the basis of the hypothesis that an auto‐parametric resonance model can explain a power oscillation, we propose a new model for a robust damping control, by which the system maintains stability even if some auto‐parametric resonance happens. With this model, we can express a parametric variation of a principal oscillation mode and a class of uncertainties which cover neglected dynamics. Since the model has a certain structure of uncertain parameters, we design a robust controller via µ‐synthesis. The robust controller which can be obtained from the presented design strategy has the property that the control performances are more sophisticated in comparison to controllers designed with other existing methods based on the H∞ control. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 142(1): 42–49, 2003; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/eej.10069