Energy resource scheduling considering reactive power management

The reactive power management is an important task in future power systems. The control of reactive power allows the increase of distributed energy resources penetration as well as the optimal operation of distribution networks. Currently, the control of reactive power is only controlled in large power units and in high and very high voltage substations. In this paper a reactive power control in smart grids paradigm is proposed, considering the management of distributed energy resources and of the distribution network by an aggregator namely Virtual Power Player (VPP)

Chance-Constrained ADMM Approach for Decentralized Control of Distributed Energy Resources

Distribution systems are undergoing a dramatic transition from a passive circuit that routinely disseminates electric power among downstream nodes to the system with distributed energy resources. The distributed energy resources come in a variety of technologies and typically include photovoltaic (PV) arrays, thermostatically controlled loads, energy storage units. Often these resources are interfaced with the system via inverters that can adjust active and reactive power injections, thus supporting the operational performance of the system. This paper designs a control policy for such inverters using the local power flow measurements. The control actuates active and reactive power injections of the inverter-based distributed energy resources. This strategy is then incorporated into a chance-constrained, decentralized optimal power flow formulation to maintain voltage levels and power flows within their limits and to mitigate the volatility of (PV) resources

Microgrid operation improvement by adaptive virtual impedance

© The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2018.. Microgrids (MGs) are regarded as the best solution for optimal integration of the renewable energy sources into power systems. However, novel control strategies should be developed because of the distinct inherent feature of MG components in comparison to conventional power systems. Although the droop-based control method is adopted in the MG to share power among distributed generation units, its dependency to grid parameters makes its implementation not as convenient as that in conventional power systems. Virtual impedance has been proposed as the complementary part of droop control in MGs. In this study, adaptive virtual impedance is designed considering its effects on the system performance in the MG including: (i) decoupling active and reactive power control by making the grid X/R ratio high, (ii) maximum transferable power through the feeder, (iii) stability concern and (iv) precise reactive power sharing in different operating modes as well as smooth transition from connected mode to islanded mode (IM). To this end, a novel method is proposed to determine the reactive power reference of distributed generation (DG) units according to their contribution in reactive power sharing in IM. In addition, simulation in MATLAB/Simulink environment is conducted to assess the performance of the control system

Secondary Voltage Control using Singular Value Decomposition by Discovering Community Structures in Power Networks

Voltage and Frequency control are the two fundamental control problems in power systems. Unlike frequency control, voltage control is complicated by the fact that reactive power can\u27t travel far distances from its source of generation. Due to this distributed nature of reactive power, voltage control is usually performed in decentralized manner. Typically, voltage control problem is divided into a three-level hierarchical structure namely primary, secondary and tertiary voltage control.;The aim of this thesis is to present an optimal secondary voltage control by decomposing a large power system into small subsystems called voltage control areas (VCAs) using the fast community detection algorithm. Each VCA is self-sufficient in satisfying its reactive power demand. A load bus, called pilot point/bus, is selected in each VCA as a representative of the voltage profile of the whole area. Singular value decomposition of Fast Decoupled Load Flow (FDLF) Jacobian is used to optimally control the voltages of these pilot buses.;The presented approach is tested on two standard IEEE test power systems i.e. 9-Bus and 39-Bus systems. The computational time comparison of the fast community detection algorithm with another algorithm called original-GN algorithm is also presented. Through simulation results, it is shown that the presented optimal voltage control (Opt-VC) is a better approach compared to sensitivity based voltage control (Sen-VC)

Reactive power control in photovoltaic systems through (explainable) artificial intelligence

Across the world, efforts to support the energy transition and halt climate change have resulted in significant growth of the number of renewable distributed generators (DGs) installed over the last decade, among which photovoltaic (PV) systems are the fastest growing technology. However, high PV penetration in the electricity grid is known to lead to numerous operational problems such as voltage fluctuations and line congestions, which could be eased by utilizing the reactive power capability of PV systems. To this end, we propose to use artificial neural network (ANN) to predict optimal reactive power dispatch in PV systems by learning approximate input–output mappings from AC optimal power flow (ACOPF) solutions in either a centralized or a decentralized manner. In the case of decentralized control, we leverage Shapley Additive Explanations (SHAP), an explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) technique, to identify non-local grid state measurements which significantly influence the optimal dispatch of each individual system. Both centralized and decentralized ANN-based controllers are evaluated through a case study based on the CIGRE medium-voltage distribution grid and compared to baseline control strategies. Results show that both ANN-based controllers exhibit superior performance, hindering voltage problems and line congestions which are encountered with baseline strategies while recording an energy saving of 0.44% compared to fixed power factor control. By leveraging ANN and SHAP, the proposed decentralized controllers for reactive power control are able to achieve ACOPF-level performance while promoting data privacy and reducing computational burden

Co-optimisation of Planning and Operation forActive Distribution Grids

Given the increased penetration of smart grid technologies, distribution system operators are obliged to consider in their planning stage both the increased uncertainty introduced by non-dispatchable distributed energy resources, as well as the operational flexibility provided by new real-time control schemes. First, in this paper, a planning procedure is proposed which considers both traditional expansion measures, e.g. upgrade of transformers, cables, etc., as well as real-time schemes, such as active and reactive power control of distributed generators, use of battery energy storage systems and flexible loads. At the core of the proposed decision making process lies a tractable iterative AC optimal power flow method. Second, to avoid the need for a real-time centralised coordination scheme (and the associated communication requirements), a local control scheme for the operation of individual distributed energy resources and flexible loads is extracted from offline optimal power flow computations. The performance of the two methods is demonstrated on a radial, low-voltage grid, and compared to a standard local control scheme

Microgrid-Enabled Reactive Power Support to Enhance Grid Economics

Reactive power plays an essential role in voltage control and stability in electric power systems. Various Volt/VAR techniques are utilized in electric power systems to maintain the voltage profile within defined acceptable limits and accordingly provide reliability and stability. Reactive power has been commonly generated through large-scale synchronous generators or distributed capacitor banks to provide proper transmission and distribution level system management, however, reactive power can be further used as an effective means to reduce total system operation cost. In this dissertation, an optimal reactive power model is proposed to determine the optimal nodal reactive powers that result in the lowest total system operation cost. Microgrid is introduced as a source of real and reactive power where its capability curve as a single generator unit is further determined and utilized. An optimization-based method is proposed to determine this capability curve. The results of numerical analyses of this proposal show how the reactive power behaves under gradual changing of real power generation in a microgrid and how these two outputs are correlated. This model is further integrated into an optimal power flow problem to show the potential economic benefits of microgrid-generated reactive power of the larger system. The numerical analyses on standard test systems show the performance of the proposed model and provide insights on the role of microgrid as a source of reactive power in the system

Model Predictive Control for Distributed Microgrid Battery Energy Storage Systems

© 2017 IEEE. This brief proposes a new convex model predictive control (MPC) strategy for dynamic optimal power flow between battery energy storage (ES) systems distributed in an ac microgrid. The proposed control strategy uses a new problem formulation, based on a linear d-q reference frame voltage-current model and linearized power flow approximations. This allows the optimal power flows to be solved as a convex optimization problem, for which fast and robust solvers exist. The proposed method does not assume that real and reactive power flows are decoupled, allowing line losses, voltage constraints, and converter current constraints to be addressed. In addition, nonlinear variations in the charge and discharge efficiencies of lithium ion batteries are analyzed and included in the control strategy. Real-time digital simulations were carried out for an islanded microgrid based on the IEEE 13 bus prototypical feeder, with distributed battery ES systems and intermittent photovoltaic generation. It is shown that the proposed control strategy approaches the performance of a strategy based on nonconvex optimization, while reducing the required computation time by a factor of 1000, making it suitable for a real-time MPC implementation

Coordinated Voltage and Reactive Power Control of Power Distribution Systems with Distributed Generation

Distribution system voltage and VAR control (VVC) is a technique that combines conservation voltage reduction and reactive power compensation to operate a distribution system at its optimal conditions. Coordinated VVC can provide major economic benefits for distribution utilities. Incorporating distributed generation (DG) to VVC can improve the system efficiency and reliability. The first part of this dissertation introduces a direct optimization formulation for VVC with DG. The control is formulated as a mixed integer non-linear programming (MINLP) problem. The formulation is based on a three-phase power flow with accurate component models. The VVC problem is solved with a state of the art open-source academic solver utilizing an outer approximation algorithm. Applying the approach to several test feeders, including IEEE 13-node and 37-node radial test feeders, with variable load demand and DG generation, validates the proposed control. Incorporating renewable energy can provide major benefits for efficient operation of the distribution systems. However, when the number of renewables increases the system control becomes more complex. Renewable resources, particularly wind and solar, are often highly intermittent. The varying power output can cause significant fluctuations in feeder voltages. Traditional feeder controls are often too slow to react to these fast fluctuations. DG units providing reactive power compensation they can be utilized in supplying voltage support when fluctuations in generation occur. The second part of this dissertation focuses on two new approaches for dual-layer VVC. In these approaches the VVC is divided into two control layers, slow and fast. The slow control obtains optimal voltage profile and set points for the distribution control. The fast control layer is utilized to maintain the optimal voltage profile when the generation or loading suddenly changes. The MINLP based VVC formulation is utilized as the slow control. Both local reactive power control of DG and coordinated quadratic programming (QP) based reactive power control is considered as the fast control approaches. The effectiveness of these approaches is studied with test feeders, utility load data, and fast-varying solar irradiance data. The simulation results indicate that both methods achieve good results for VVC with DG