Analysis of Solar Energy Aggregation under Various Billing Mechanisms

Ongoing reductions in the cost of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems are driving their increased installations by residential households. Various incentive programs such as feed-in tariff, net metering, net purchase and sale that allow the prosumers to sell their generated electricity to the grid are also powering this trend. In this paper, we investigate sharing of PV systems among a community of households, who can also benefit further by pooling their production. Using cooperative game theory, we find conditions under which such sharing decreases their net total cost. We also develop allocation rules such that the joint net electricity consumption cost is allocated to the participants. These cost allocations are based on the cost causation principle. The allocations also satisfy the standalone cost principle and promote PV solar aggregation. We also perform a comparative analytical study on the benefit of sharing under the mechanisms favorable for sharing, namely net metering, and net purchase and sale. The results are illustrated in a case study using real consumption data from a residential community in Austin, Texas.Comment: 12 page

A Minimal Incentive-based Demand Response Program With Self Reported Baseline Mechanism

In this paper, we propose a novel incentive based Demand Response (DR) program with a self reported baseline mechanism. The System Operator (SO) managing the DR program recruits consumers or aggregators of DR resources. The recruited consumers are required to only report their baseline, which is the minimal information necessary for any DR program. During a DR event, a set of consumers, from this pool of recruited consumers, are randomly selected. The consumers are selected such that the required load reduction is delivered. The selected consumers, who reduce their load, are rewarded for their services and other recruited consumers, who deviate from their reported baseline, are penalized. The randomization in selection and penalty ensure that the baseline inflation is controlled. We also justify that the selection probability can be simultaneously used to control SO's cost. This allows the SO to design the mechanism such that its cost is almost optimal when there are no recruitment costs or at least significantly reduced otherwise. Finally, we also show that the proposed method of self-reported baseline outperforms other baseline estimation methods commonly used in practice

Planning of Fast Charging Infrastructure for Electric Vehicles in a Distribution System and Prediction of Dynamic Price

The increasing number of electric vehicles (EVs) has led to the need for installing public electric vehicle charging stations (EVCS) to facilitate ease of use and to support users who do not have the option of residential charging. The public electric vehicle charging infrastructures (EVCIs) must be equipped with a good number of EVCSs, with fast charging capability, to accommodate the EV traffic demand, which would otherwise lead to congestion at the charging stations. The location of these fast-charging infrastructures significantly impacts the distribution system (DS). We propose the optimal placement of fast-charging EVCIs at different locations in the distribution system, using multi-objective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO), so that the power loss and voltage deviations are kept at a minimum. Time-series analysis of the DS and EV load variations are performed using MATLAB and OpenDSS. We further analyze the cost benefits of the EVCIs under real-time pricing conditions and employ an autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model to predict the dynamic price. The simulated test system without any EVCI has a power loss of 164.36 kW and squared voltage deviations of 0.0235 p.u. Using the proposed method, the results obtained validate the optimal location of 5 EVCIs (each having 20 EVCSs with a 50kWh charger rating) resulting in a minimum power loss of 201.40 kW and squared voltage deviations of 0.0182 p.u. in the system. Significant cost benefits for the EVCIs are also achieved, and an R-squared value of dynamic price predictions of 0.9999 is obtained. This would allow the charging station operator to make promotional offers for maximizing utilization and increasing profits

Identification of Forced Oscillation Sources in Wind Farms using E-SINDy

The rapid growth of wind power generation has led to increased interest in understanding and mitigating the adverse effects of wind turbine wakes and forced oscillations in wind farms. In this paper, we model a wind farm consisting of three wind turbines connected to a distribution system. Forced oscillations due to wind shear and tower shadow are injected into the system. If these oscillations are unchecked, they could pose a severe threat to the operation of the system and damage to the equipment. Identifying the source and frequency of forced oscillations in wind farms from measurement data is challenging. Thus, we propose a data-driven approach that discovers the underlying equations governing a nonlinear dynamical system from measured data using the Ensemble-Sparse Identification of Nonlinear Dynamics (E-SINDy) method. The results suggest that E-SINDy is a valuable tool for identifying sources of forced oscillations in wind farms and could facilitate the development of suitable control strategies to mitigate their negative impacts

Peer-to-Peer Sharing of Energy Storage Systems under Net Metering and Time-of-Use Pricing

Sharing economy has become a socio-economic trend in transportation and housing sectors. It develops business models leveraging underutilized resources. Like those sectors, power grid is also becoming smarter with many flexible resources, and researchers are investigating the impact of sharing resources here as well that can help to reduce cost and extract value. In this work, we investigate sharing of energy storage devices among individual households in a cooperative fashion. Coalitional game theory is used to model the scenario where utility company imposes time-of-use (ToU) price and net metering billing mechanism. The resulting game has a non-empty core and we can develop a cost allocation mechanism with easy to compute analytical formula. Allocation is fair and cost effective for every household. We design the price for peer to peer network (P2P) and an algorithm for sharing that keeps the grand coalition always stable. Thus sharing electricity of storage devices among consumers can be effective in this set-up. Our mechanism is implemented in a community of 80 households in Texas using real data of demand and solar irradiance and the results show significant cost savings for our method

A Resilient Power Distribution System using P2P Energy Sharing

The adoption of distributed energy resources (DERs) such as solar panels and wind turbines is transforming the traditional energy grid into a more decentralized system, where microgrids are emerging as a key concept. Peer-to-Peer (P2P) energy sharing in microgrids enhances the efficiency and flexibility of the overall system by allowing the exchange of surplus energy and better management of energy resources. This work analyzes the impact of P2P energy sharing for three cases - within a microgrid, with neighboring microgrids, and all microgrids combined together in a distribution system. A standard IEEE 123 node test feeder integrated with renewable energy sources is partitioned into microgrids. For P2P energy sharing between microgrids, the results show significant benefits in cost, reduced energy dependence on the grid, and a significant improvement in the system's resilience. We also predicted the energy requirement for a microgrid to evaluate energy resilience for the control and operation of the microgrid. Overall, the analysis provides valuable insights into the performance and sustainability of microgrids with P2P energy sharing.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2212.0231

Identification of Surface Defects on Solar PV Panels and Wind Turbine Blades using Attention based Deep Learning Model

According to Global Electricity Review 2022, electricity generation from renewable energy sources has increased by 20% worldwide primarily due to more installation of large green power plants. Monitoring the renewable energy assets in those large power plants is still challenging as the assets are highly impacted by several environmental factors, resulting in issues like less power generation, malfunctioning, and degradation of asset life. Therefore, detecting the surface defects on the renewable energy assets would facilitate the process to maintain the safety and efficiency of the green power plants. An innovative detection framework is proposed to achieve an economical renewable energy asset surface monitoring system. First capture the asset's high-resolution images on a regular basis and inspect them to detect the damages. For inspection this paper presents a unified deep learning-based image inspection model which analyzes the captured images to identify the surface or structural damages on the various renewable energy assets in large power plants. We use the Vision Transformer (ViT), the latest developed deep-learning model in computer vision, to detect the damages on solar panels and wind turbine blades and classify the type of defect to suggest the preventive measures. With the ViT model, we have achieved above 97% accuracy for both the assets, which outperforms the benchmark classification models for the input images of varied modalities taken from publicly available sources

Advancements in Arc Fault Detection for Electrical Distribution Systems: A Comprehensive Review from Artificial Intelligence Perspective

This comprehensive review paper provides a thorough examination of current advancements and research in the field of arc fault detection for electrical distribution systems. The increasing demand for electricity, coupled with the increasing utilization of renewable energy sources, has necessitated vigilance in safeguarding electrical distribution systems against arc faults. Such faults could lead to catastrophic accidents, including fires, equipment damage, loss of human life, and other critical issues. To mitigate these risks, this review article focuses on the identification and early detection of arc faults, with a particular emphasis on the vital role of artificial intelligence (AI) in the detection and prediction of arc faults. The paper explores a wide range of methodologies for arc fault detection and highlights the superior performance of AI-based methods in accurately identifying arc faults when compared to other approaches. A thorough evaluation of existing methodologies is conducted by categorizing them into distinct groups, which provides a structured framework for understanding the current state of arc fault detection techniques. This categorization serves as a foundation for identifying the existing constraints and future research avenues in the domain of arc fault detection for electrical distribution systems. This review paper provides the state of the art in arc fault detection, aiming to enhance safety and reliability in electrical distribution systems and guide future research efforts