State-Of-The-Art and Prospects for Peer-To-Peer Transaction-Based Energy System

Transaction-based energy (TE) management and control has become an increasingly relevant topic, attracting considerable attention from industry and the research community alike. As a result, new techniques are emerging for its development and actualization. This paper presents a comprehensive review of TE involving peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading and also covering the concept, enabling technologies, frameworks, active research efforts and the prospects of TE. The formulation of a common approach for TE management modelling is challenging given the diversity of circumstances of prosumers in terms of capacity, profiles and objectives. This has resulted in divergent opinions in the literature. The idea of this paper is therefore to explore these viewpoints and provide some perspectives on this burgeoning topic on P2P TE systems. This study identified that most of the techniques in the literature exclusively formulate energy trade problems as a game, an optimization problem or a variational inequality problem. It was also observed that none of the existing works has considered a unified messaging framework. This is a potential area for further investigation

Microgrid Disaster Resiliency Analysis: Reducing Costs in Continuity of Operations (COOP) Planning

The electric grid serves a vital role in the supply chain of nearly all industrial and commercial organizations. A Microgrid infrastructure can provide this service and beneficial non-emergency services including a variety of generation/energy sources. To demonstrate the applicability of microgrids for energy resiliency, we present a microgrid resiliency case study for United Parcel Service’s (UPS) three separate shipping facilities. The goal, to enhance energy security, minimize cost and prevent cascading losses within other related business units. The impacts and consequences of which are quantified in this study using a Mean Failure Cost (MFC) risk assessment measure. MFC accounts for the potential loses to identified stakeholders that may result from a set of identified failures due to a set of identified threats. In this case, our study uses a method we call All Hazards Econometric System (AHES). AHES incorporates the cost of COOP using a strategy that considers the payback period of microgrid installation as compared to other energy delivery strategies

Distribution market as a ramping aggregator for grid flexibility support

The growing proliferation of microgrids and distributed energy resources in distribution networks has resulted in the development of Distribution Market Operator (DMO). This new entity will facilitate the management of the distributed resources and their interactions with upstream network and the wholesale market. At the same time, DMOs can tap into the flexibility potential of these distributed resources to address many of the challenges that system operators are facing. This paper investigates this opportunity and develops a distribution market scheduling model based on upstream network ramping flexibility requirements. That is, the distribution network will play the role of a flexibility resource in the system, with a relatively large size and potential, to help bulk system operators to address emerging ramping concerns. Numerical simulations demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model on when tested on a distribution system with several microgrids.Comment: IEEE PES Transmission and Distribution Conference and Exposition (T&D), Denver, CO, 16-19 Apr. 201

Electric Vehicles Charging Technology Review and Optimal Size Estimation

AbstractMany different types of electric vehicle (EV) charging technologies are described in literature and implemented in practical applications. This paper presents an overview of the existing and proposed EV charging technologies in terms of converter topologies, power levels, power flow directions and charging control strategies. An overview of the main charging methods is presented as well, particularly the goal is to highlight an effective and fast charging technique for lithium ions batteries concerning prolonging cell cycle life and retaining high charging efficiency. Once presented the main important aspects of charging technologies and strategies, in the last part of this paper, through the use of genetic algorithm, the optimal size of the charging systems is estimated and, on the base of a sensitive analysis, the possible future trends in this field are finally valued

Design of a Resilient and Eco-friendly Microgrid for a Commercial Building

Recent natural disasters such as hurricanes Harvey and Maria have caused great disruption to the electric grid system. Additionally, government authorities have set ambitious goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, there is a growing interest in making the electric power systems more resilient while reducing their carbon footprint. In this work, a methodology to design a resilient and eco-friendly microgrid is presented. First, the input parameters of the model are defined; second, simulation of different microgrid configurations are performed in HOMER Grid software; third, the outputs of the model are analyzed; and finally, a microgrid configuration is selected based on economic, environmental, and resilience criteria. The considered microgrids consist of PV, battery, natural gas generator, and the electric load of an office building that consumes an average of 2 MWh per day. Different component sizes were used to determine the configuration with the lowest generator size to provide power during a two-day outage in the summer peak load. Environmental and economic analysis were performed to show the tradeoffs between different system design goals. The results indicate that installing a microgrid in an office building with a 600 kW PV array and 2.8 MWh lithium-ion battery can avoid the release of up to 287 tons of CO2 per year. The same microgrid configuration can endure a two-day blackout during the highest electric demand in the hurricane season without the need of a polluting backup generator. From this study, it was concluded that the optimal microgrid configuration depends on specific needs. Additionally, based on current technology costs, large PV systems with small batteries are economically more attractive than the base case configuration.Los desastres naturales recientes, como los huracanes Harvey y María, han causado una gran interrupción en la red eléctrica. Por otra parte, las autoridades gubernamentales se han fijado metas ambiciosas para reducir las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero. Por lo tanto, existe un interés creciente en hacer que los sistemas de energía eléctrica sean más resilientes y con un impacto mínimo al medio ambiente. En este trabajo, se utilizó el software HOMER Grid para modelar microrredes que se contienen sistemas fotovoltaicos, baterías de ión-litio, generadores de gas natural y la carga eléctrica de un edificio de oficinas que consume un promedio de 2 MWh por día. Se modificaron los tamaños de los componentes para determinar la configuración con el generador más pequeño que pudiera suministrar energía durante un corte de energía de dos días en verano. Se realizaron análisis ambientales y económicos para mostrar las diferencias entre los diferentes objetivos de diseño del sistema. Los resultados indican que la instalación de una microrred en un edificio de oficinas con un arreglo fotovoltaico de 600 kW y una batería de ión-litio de 2.8 MWh puede evitar la emisión de hasta 287 toneladas de CO2 por año. La misma configuración de microrred puede soportar un apagón de dos días durante la mayor demanda eléctrica en la temporada de huracanes sin la necesidad de un generador de respaldo. Las microrredes jugarán un papel importante en la transición a una red inteligente porque proporcionan energía confiable, hacen que el sistema sea más tolerante a fallas de la red y permiten una alta penetración de energía renovable en la red eléctrica, lo que en consecuencia reduce el impacto ambiental

ERIGrid Holistic Test Description for Validating Cyber-Physical Energy Systems

Smart energy solutions aim to modify and optimise the operation of existing energy infrastructure. Such cyber-physical technology must be mature before deployment to the actual infrastructure, and competitive solutions will have to be compliant to standards still under development. Achieving this technology readiness and harmonisation requires reproducible experiments and appropriately realistic testing environments. Such testbeds for multi-domain cyber-physical experiments are complex in and of themselves. This work addresses a method for the scoping and design of experiments where both testbed and solution each require detailed expertise. This empirical work first revisited present test description approaches, developed a newdescription method for cyber-physical energy systems testing, and matured it by means of user involvement. The new Holistic Test Description (HTD) method facilitates the conception, deconstruction and reproduction of complex experimental designs in the domains of cyber-physical energy systems. This work develops the background and motivation, offers a guideline and examples to the proposed approach, and summarises experience from three years of its application.This work received funding in the European Community’s Horizon 2020 Program (H2020/2014–2020) under project “ERIGrid” (Grant Agreement No. 654113)

Applications, Operational Architectures and Development of Virtual Power Plants as a Strategy to Facilitate the Integration of Distributed Energy Resources

In this article, we focus on the development and scope of virtual power plants (VPPs) as a strategy to facilitate the integration of distributed energy resources (DERs) in the power system. Firstly, the concepts about VPPs and their scope and limitations are introduced. Secondly, smart management systems for the integration of DERs are considered and a scheme of DER management through a bottom-up strategy is proposed. Then, we analyze the coordination of VPPs with the system operators and their commercial integration in the electricity markets. Finally, the challenges that must be overcome to achieve the large-scale implementation of VPPs in the power system are identified and discussed.The authors acknowledge the support from GISEL research group IT1191-19, as well as from the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU (research group funding 181/18)

Research on μPMU Configuration Optimization Considering Multiple Operation Modes of Distribution Network

A micro-phasor measurement unit (μPMU) configuration optimization approach is proposed in this article, considering the numerous operation modes of distribution network reconfiguration. The PSO algorithm with dynamic adaptability is used to optimize the setup of μPMU and improve the accuracy of state estimation for each distribution network operation mode. The configuration nodes of various operation modes are grouped and assessed by K-means according to the shortest distance, and the weights of the evaluation indexes are calculated by the AHP-CRITIC subjective and objective combination weighting method. The node with the highest comprehensive evaluation index is selected as the configuration node. The probability of multiple operation modes is then introduced. Finally, using the IEEE 118-bus distribution system as an example, the simulation demonstrates the proposed method’s effectiveness in improving distribution network state estimate