3 research outputs found
Message Passing for Integrating and Assessing Renewable Generation in a Redundant Power Grid
A simplified model of a redundant power grid is used to study integration of
fluctuating renewable generation. The grid consists of large number of
generator and consumer nodes. The net power consumption is determined by the
difference between the gross consumption and the level of renewable generation.
The gross consumption is drawn from a narrow distribution representing the
predictability of aggregated loads, and we consider two different distributions
representing wind and solar resources. Each generator is connected to D
consumers, and redundancy is built in by connecting R of these consumers to
other generators. The lines are switchable so that at any instance each
consumer is connected to a single generator. We explore the capacity of the
renewable generation by determining the level of "firm" generation capacity
that can be displaced for different levels of redundancy R. We also develop
message-passing control algorithm for finding switch settings where no
generator is overloaded.Comment: 10 pages, accepted for HICSS-4
Distributed control of reactive power flow in a radial distribution circuit with high photovoltaic penetration
We show how distributed control of reactive power can serve to regulate
voltage and minimize resistive losses in a distribution circuit that includes a
significant level of photovoltaic (PV) generation. To demonstrate the
technique, we consider a radial distribution circuit with a single branch
consisting of sequentially-arranged residential-scale loads that consume both
real and reactive power. In parallel, some loads also have PV generation
capability. We postulate that the inverters associated with each PV system are
also capable of limited reactive power generation or consumption, and we seek
to find the optimal dispatch of each inverter's reactive power to both maintain
the voltage within an acceptable range and minimize the resistive losses over
the entire circuit. We assume the complex impedance of the distribution circuit
links and the instantaneous load and PV generation at each load are known. We
compare the results of the optimal dispatch with a suboptimal local scheme that
does not require any communication. On our model distribution circuit, we
illustrate the feasibility of high levels of PV penetration and a significant
(20% or higher) reduction in losses.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures