Smart, Flexible Controls
The Smart Flexible Controls work-stream has contributed to three themes; Intermittency, System Operation and Active Distribution.
Intermittency
The focus has been on three areas, which have the potential to mitigate the challenges posed by intermittency:
Demand-side measures: the ability of certain types of load to shift the timing of demand.
Transmission networks: the value of increased interconnections, and smarter control of existing networks.
System operation: design of power markets and operational methodologies.
There has been significant progress, and deliverables have included:
Simulation of stochastic power systems - beta version of simulator tool: A simulation tool has been developed, based on a stochastic Unit Commitment algorithm, to assess the operational characteristics of power systems with a very large wind component.
Intermittency mitigation measures: New techniques and algorithms have been used to assess the ability of demand side flexibility and interconnections to (i) ?firm up? intermittent renewables, and (ii) to reduce the need for operating reserves and flexible generation.
Assessment of observability of oscillatory modes in networks subject to wind intermittency: This work has analysed the variations in modal observability in simulation of an IEEE 68-bus test network, under different operating conditions arising from wind variability.
System Operation
The concept of corrective control has been proposed to enhance the flexibility of the network and allow greater energy transfers over the existing infrastructure. This rests on a wide-area measurement system able to rapidly assess system state and a control system able to react to outages to achieve a new stable operating condition.
Progress has included:
Mathematical tools to analyse the interactions amongst various dynamic devices such as series capacitors and quadrature boosters.
An algorithm to compute new operational reliability indices and a novel protection algorithm to enhance transient stability in the presence of significant fault current contribution from wind generation.
Verification of adaptive auto-reclosing of breakers using a real-time digital simulator model.
A software/hardware test system for validating various adaptive protection schemes.
Progress continues on coordinated setting of quad-boosters with respect to stability margin.
Active Distribution
Deliverables have included:
A distribution planning tool incorporating stochastic generation and demand.
Research on control room integration, which has defined a methodology for integrating active network management (ANM) systems into control room systems using a traditional Distribution Management Systems (DMS). An emulation of a System Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system is being used to explore the data flows (alarms, alerts and analogue data) from the ANM and DMS subsystem to the control room.
Adaptive control development: Simulation of decentralised control and coordination of multiple generators has been undertaken.
Professor Goran Strbac
Department of Electronic & Electrical Engineering
Imperial College London
South Kensington Campus
London, SW7 2BT, UK
Tel: +44 (0)20 7594 6169
Email: g.strbac@imperial.ac.uk