30 research outputs found
How fast can one overcome the paradox of the energy transition? A physico-economic model for the European power grid
The paradox of the energy transition is that the low marginal costs of new
renewable energy sources (RES) drag electricity prices down and discourage
investments in flexible productions that are needed to compensate for the lack
of dispatchability of the new RES. The energy transition thus discourages the
investments that are required for its own harmonious expansion. To investigate
how this paradox can be overcome, we argue that, under certain assumptions,
future electricity prices are rather accurately modeled from the residual load
obtained by subtracting non-flexible productions from the load. Armed with the
resulting economic indicator, we investigate future revenues for European power
plants with various degree of flexibility. We find that, if neither carbon
taxes nor fuel prices change, flexible productions would be financially
rewarded better and sooner if the energy transition proceeds faster but at more
or less constant total production, i.e. by reducing the production of thermal
power plants at the same rate as the RES production increases. Less flexible
productions, on the other hand, would see their revenue grow more moderately.
Our results indicate that a faster energy transition with a quicker withdrawal
of thermal power plants would reward flexible productions faster.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures and 2 table
A predictive pan-European economic and production dispatch model for the energy transition in the electricity sector
The energy transition is well underway in most European countries. It has a
growing impact on electric power systems as it dramatically modifies the way
electricity is produced. To ensure a safe and smooth transition towards a
pan-European electricity production dominated by renewable sources, it is of
paramount importance to anticipate how production dispatches will evolve, to
understand how increased fluctuations in power generations can be absorbed at
the pan-European level and to evaluate where the resulting changes in power
flows will require significant grid upgrades. To address these issues, we
construct an aggregated model of the pan-European transmission network which we
couple to an optimized, few-parameter dispatch algorithm to obtain time- and
geographically-resolved production profiles. We demonstrate the validity of our
dispatch algorithm by reproducing historical production time series for all
power productions in fifteen different European countries. Having calibrated
our model in this way, we investigate future production profiles at later
stages of the energy transition - determined by planned future production
capacities - and the resulting interregional power flows. We find that large
power fluctuations from increasing penetrations of renewable sources can be
absorbed at the pan-European level via significantly increased electricity
exchanges between different countries. We identify where these increased
exchanges will require additional power transfer capacities. We finally
introduce a physically-based economic indicator which allows to predict future
financial conditions in the electricity market. We anticipate new economic
opportunities for dam hydroelectricity and pumped-storage plants.Comment: 6 pages, 8 figure
Locating line and node disturbances in networks of diffusively coupled dynamical agents
A wide variety of natural and human-made systems consist of a large set of
dynamical units coupled into a complex structure. Breakdown of such systems can
have dramatic impact, as for instance neurons in the brain or lines in an
electric grid. Preventing such catastrophic events requires in particular to be
able to detect and locate the source of disturbances as fast as possible. We
propose a simple method to identify and locate disturbances in networks of
coupled dynamical agents, relying only on time series measurements and on the
knowledge of the (Kron-reduced) network structure. The strength and the appeal
of the present approach lies in its simplicity paired with the ability to
precisely locate disturbances and even to differentiate between line and node
disturbances. If we have access to measurement at only a subset of nodes, our
method is still able to identify the location of the disturbance if the
disturbed nodes are measured. If not, we manage to identify the region of the
network where the disturbance occurs.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure
The Cenozoic evolution of the Roer Valley Rift System integrated at a European scale
International audienceThe Roer Valley Rift System (RVRS) is located between the West European rift and the North Sea rift system. During the Cenozoic, the RVRS was characterized by several periods of subsidence and inversion, which are linked to the evolution of the adjacent rift systems. Combination of subsidence analysis and results from the analysis of thickness distributions and fault systems allows the determination of the Cenozoic evolution and quantification of the subsidence. During the Early Paleocene, the RVRS was inverted (Laramide phase). The backstripping method shows that the RVRS was subsequently mainly affected by two periods of subsidence, during the Late Paleocene and the Oligocene–Quaternary time intervals, separated by an inversion phase during the Late Eocene. During the Oligocene and Miocene periods, the thickness of the sediments and the distribution of the active faults reveal a radical rotation of the direction of extension by about 70–80j (counter clockwise). Integration of these results at a European scale indicates that the Late Paleocene subsidence was related to the evolution of the North Sea basins, whereas the Oligocene–Quaternary subsidence is connected to the West European rift evolution. The distribution of the inverted provinces also shows that the Early Paleocene inversion (Laramide phase) has affected the whole European crust, whereas the Late Eocene inversion was restricted to the southern North Sea basins and the Channel area. Finally, comparison of these deformations in the European crust with the evolution of the Alpine chain suggests that the formation of the Alps has controlled the evolution of the European crust since the beginning of the Cenozoic
Differentiable Simulator For Dynamic & Stochastic Optimal Gas & Power Flows
In many power systems, particularly those isolated from larger
intercontinental grids, operational dependence on natural gas becomes pivotal,
especially during fluctuations or unavailability of renewables coupled with
uncertain consumption patterns. Efficient orchestration and inventive
strategies are imperative for the smooth functioning of these standalone
gas-grid systems. This paper delves into the challenge of synchronized dynamic
and stochastic optimization for independent transmission-level gas-grid
systems. Our approach's novelty lies in amalgamating the staggered-grid method
for the direct assimilation of gas-flow PDEs with an automated sensitivity
analysis facilitated by SciML/Julia, further enhanced by an intuitive linkage
between gas and power grids via nodal flows. We initiate with a single pipe to
establish a versatile and expandable methodology, later showcasing its
effectiveness with increasingly intricate examples.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures, submitted to PSCC 202
System-Wide Emergency Policy for Transitioning from Main to Secondary Fuel
Inspired by the challenges of running the Israel's power system -- with its
increasing integration of renewables, significant load uncertainty, and primary
reliance on natural gas -- we investigate an emergency scenario where there's a
need to transition temporarily to a pricier secondary fuel until the emergency
resolves. Our objective is to devise tools that can assist power system
operators in making decisions during such critical periods. We frame this
challenge as a Markov Decision Process (MDP) optimization, considering
uncertainties like potential failures of dual-fuel generators during the
transition, operator attentiveness under stress, available but finite amount of
primary fuel (linepack available in the natural gas part of the system), power
forecast (net demand after renewable production), and the cost implications of
unavoidable load shedding. By solving the MDP in a simplified context, we
identify viable policies through simulations of multiple parametrized Markov
Processes (MPs). We verify our methodology using a realistic open-source model
replicating Israel's power-gas infrastructure and outline next steps for
refining and adapting this approach.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure
Européens en Algérie indépendante : un corpus sonore à la phonothèque de la MMSH
Le 5 juillet 2012, l’Algérie fêtera le 50ème anniversaire de son indépendance. A cette occasion l’ouvrage de l’historienne Hélène Bracco ((Bracco, Hélène. L’autre face “Européens” en Algérie indépendante. Paris : Paris-Méditerranée, 1999, 220p.)), sera réédité dans une version complétée. Cette monographie a été éditée à partir de son mémoire de DEA d’études Arabes et Islamiques, portant sur les Européens ayant fait le choix de rester ou de venir vivre en Algérie après l’indépendance de 1962 (..
Disturbance propagation, inertia location and slow modes in large-scale high voltage power grids
Conventional generators in power grids are steadily substituted with new renewable sources of electric power. The latter are connected to the grid via inverters and as such have little, if any rotational inertia. The resulting reduction of total inertia raises important issues of power grid stability, especially over short-time scales. We have constructed a model of the synchronous grid of continental Europe with which we numerically investigate frequency deviations as well as rates of change of frequency (RoCoF) following abrupt power losses. The magnitude of RoCoF's and frequency deviations strongly depend on the fault location, and we find the largest effects for faults located on the slowest mode - the Fiedler mode - of the network Laplacian matrix. This mode essentially vanishes over Belgium, Eastern France, Western Germany, northern Italy and Switzerland. Buses inside these regions are only weakly affected by faults occuring outside. Conversely, faults inside these regions have only a local effect and disturb only weakly outside buses. Following this observation, we reduce rotational inertia through three different procedures by either (i) reducing inertia on the Fiedler mode, (ii) reducing inertia homogeneously and (iii) reducing inertia outside the Fiedler mode. We find that procedure (iii) has little effect on disturbance propagation, while procedure (i) leads to the strongest increase of RoCoF and frequency deviations. These results for our model of the European transmission grid are corroborated by numerical investigations on the ERCOT transmission grid
Optimal Placement of Inertia and Primary Control: A Matrix Perturbation Theory Approach
The increasing penetration of new renewable sources of electrical energy reduces the overall mechanical inertia available in power grids. This raises a number of issues regarding grid stability over short to medium time scales. A number of approaches have been proposed to compensate for this inertia reduction by deploying substitution inertia in the form of synchronous condensers, flywheels or powerelectronic-based synthetic inertia. These resources are limited and expensive; therefore, a key issue is to determine how to optimally place them in the power grid, for instance, to mitigate voltage angle and frequency disturbances following an abrupt power loss. Performance measures in the form of H-2-norms have recently been introduced to evaluate the overall magnitude of such disturbances. However, despite the mathematical convenience of these measures, analytical results can only be obtained under rather unrealistic assumptions of a uniform damping-to-inertia ratio or a homogeneous distribution of the inertia and/or primary control. Here, we introduce and apply matrix perturbation theory to obtain analytical results for an optimal inertia and primary control placement in the case where both are heterogeneous. This powerful method allows us to construct two simple algorithms that independently optimize the geographical distribution of the inertia and primary control. The algorithms are then implemented for a numerical model of the synchronous transmission grid of continental Europe with different initial configurations. We find that an inertia redistribution has little effect on the grid performance but that the primary control should be redistributed on the slow modes of the network, where the intrinsic grid dynamic requires more time to damp frequency disturbances. For a budget-constraint optimization, we show that increasing the amount of primary control in the periphery of the grid, without changing the inertia distribution, achieves 90 % or more of the maximal possible optimization, already for relatively moderate budgets