Optimal Controller Design for Speed Governors of Hydroelectric Power Plant

Speed governors have critical importance on hydroelectric power plants, which are adjusted to the rotating speed of hydroelectric generation based on load demand of the grid. The rotating speed is the main factor to balance power generation and load demand. The well-designed controller is needed to control speed governors with high accuracy. A well-defined model is needed to obtain desired control structure. Therefore, in this study, initially, the mathematical model of a hydroelectric power plant is obtained by using physical characteristics of a real-world. Then by using this model and corresponding real-world data, a set of controller parameters is designed by using tuning methodologies based on heuristic optimization algorithms, and their performances are compared with each other and with a classical tuning methodology. Evolutionary-based and nature-inspired-based heuristic optimization algorithms are selected as the tuning algorithms not only to compare the performance of these algorithms with a classical method but also with different origins. The performance of the optimized controller improves the performance of the overall system and helps to get desired performance. The results also indicate that as long as the desired performance criteria are defined as accurate as possible, the performance of the optimization algorithms is acceptable

Experimental Studies and Test Results on the Energy Efficiency of Household Refrigerating Appliances

575-580Refrigerators are a must for every household around the world. They are important in terms of energy efficiency as they exist almost in every home and many of the offices. In addition their consumption counts a considerable percentage of the overall electricity bill. In this study we describe the details of a test cell for household refrigerating appliances' energy efficiency measurement, including equipment and provide the experimental and test results obtained. The test cell, which is inside the test and measurement laboratory is named ''Ankara Energy Efficiency in Household Appliances Technologies Research Centre'' and it was financially supported by UNDP (United Nations Development Programme). Measurements were recorded according to IEC 62552, Household refrigerating appliances - Characteristics and test methods - Part 3: Energy consumption standard. Test results which confirmed the manufacturer's claimed energy efficiency index of A+++ were recorded and assessed using MATLAB&reg

Estimation of magnetic field distributions in substation centers using artificial neural networks

819-827Magnetic fields at different operation conditions, in and out of the measurement points, were estimated and visualized by the developed visual software, which has 3D screening unit, based on artificial neural networks and grid data. Software enables users to estimate electromagnetic field distributions in and out of the measurement points