Abstract With an increasing penetration of wind power in the modern electrical grid, the increasing replacement of large conventional synchronous generators by wind power plants will potentially result in deteriorated frequency regulation performance due to the reduced system inertia and primary frequency response. A series of challenging issues arise from the aspects of power system planning, operation, control and protection. Therefore, it is valuable to develop variable speed wind turbines (VSWTs) equipped with frequency regulation capabilities that allow them to effectively participate in addressing severe frequency contingencies. This paper provides a comprehensive survey on frequency regulation methods for VSWTs. It fully describes the concepts, principles and control strategies of prevailing frequency controls of VSWTs, including future development trends. It concludes with a performance comparison of frequency regulation by the four main types of wind power plants.