Interdependency of Transmission and Distribution Pricing

Distribution markets are among the prospect being considered for the future of power systems. They would facilitate integration of distributed energy resources (DERs) and microgrids via a market mechanism and enable them to monetize services they can provide. This paper follows the ongoing work in implementing the distribution market operator (DMO) concept, and its clearing and settlement procedures, and focuses on investigating the pricing conducted by the DMO. The distribution locational marginal prices (D-LMPs) and their relationship with the transmission system locational marginal prices (T-LMPs) are subject of this paper. Numerical simulations on a test distribution system exhibit the benefits and drawbacks of the proposed DMO pricing processes.Comment: Accepted to 2016 IEEE PES Innovative Smart Grid Technologies (ISGT

Measuring nurses' response to configurations of work system parameters a data mining approach

Medical error, patient safety and nurses’ performance are some of the critical concerns within healthcare systems. Several factors contribute to nurses’ performance and patient safety including fatigue, sleepiness and work system parameters. Furthermore, because of a shortage of nurses, working nurses are often experiencing high workloads. They often work in 12- hour shifts and/or consecutive night shifts without receiving enough sleep or recovery. Thus, they frequently are fatigued and suffer from sleep deprivation, which again is negatively associated with patient safety. Therefore, health care researchers and decision makers are interested in developing policies and tools that help decrease nurses’ errors and increase their performance. Thus, there is a need for a promising approach to understanding nurse fatigue and its causes and consequences that is able to capture dynamic nature of the problem. This study aimed to address this need. In the first step, data were collected from a private hospital. Next, a data mining technique was applied to uncover the patterns and associations among contributing factors that affect performance and patient safety. Finally, a model was developed to measure nurses’ responses to different work system parameters and stressors

Distribution Market Clearing and Settlement

There are various undergoing efforts by system operators to set up an electricity market at the distribution level to enable a rapid and widespread deployment of distributed energy resources (DERs) and microgrids. This paper follows the previous work of the authors in implementing the distribution market operator (DMO) concept, and focuses on investigating the clearing and settlement processes performed by the DMO. The DMO clears the market to assign the awarded power from the wholesale market to customers within its service territory based on their associated demand bids. The DMO accordingly settles the market to identify the distribution locational marginal prices (DLMPs) and calculate payments from each customer and the total payment to the system operator. Numerical simulations exhibit the merits and effectiveness of the proposed DMO clearing and settlement processes.Comment: 2016 IEEE Power & Energy Society General Meetin

Design and Operation of Distribution Markets

The growing penetration of distributed prosumers especially microgrids poses new challenges to the operation of wholesale markets and distribution power systems. Price spikes and higher uncertainty are among these consequences. Distribution markets are envisioned as a remedy to streamline integration of distributed resources and microgrids in the electricity market. This dissertation offers an analytical formulation of electricity markets in the distribution level, considering various prevailing aspects of the market operation problem. The prevailing challenges in regards to integration of microgrids in the electricity markets are illustrated first, and the distribution market operator (DMO) construct is outlined. The day-ahead scheduling of a microgrid participating in a DMO market is formulated and studied. Then the operation of distribution markets integrated with large numbers of responsive participants is considered, and its transactions with the distribution market participants on one hand, and the wholesale market on the other hand are modeled and studied. The market settlement and clearing, essential in operation of distribution markets, is considered and solved. The pricing mechanism in a distribution market is proposed and the relation of distribution and transmission and distribution prices is studied. A more advanced pricing mechanism considering voltages and reactive power is developed and studied. In order to offer a more accurate pricing structure within the distribution system, a linearized distribution power flow is utilized. The performance of the proposed methods is analyzed and the results are presented. Markets have been recently envisioned to be a suitable instrument for integration of distributed energy resources in the distribution system, but most of the discussions surrounding this topic is at the conceptual level. In this work, it is demonstrated that distribution markets are effective in integrating microgrids and distributed resources in the electricity markets, and an analytical model is presented for design and operation of such markets

Distributed Smart Decision-Making for a Multimicrogrid System Based on a Hierarchical Interactive Architecture

In this paper, a comprehensive real-time interactive energy management system (EMS) framework for the utility and multiple electrically coupled MGs is proposed. A hierarchical bi-level control scheme (BLCS) with primary and secondary level controllers is applied in this regard. The proposed hierarchical architecture consists of sub-components of load demand prediction, renewable generation resource integration, electrical power-load balancing, and responsive load demand. In the primary level, EMSs are operating separately for each microgrid (MG) by considering the problem constraints, power set-points of generation resources, and possible shortage or surplus of power generation in the MGs. In the proposed framework, minimum information exchange is required among MGs and the distribution system operator. It is a highly desirable feature in future distributed EMS. Various parameters such as load demand and renewable power generation are treated as uncertainties in the proposed structure. In order to handle the uncertainties, Taguchi's orthogonal array testing approach is utilized. Then, the shortage or surplus of the MGs power should be submitted to a central EMS in the secondary level. In order to validate the proposed control structure, a test system is simulated and optimized based on multiperiod imperialist competition algorithm. The obtained results clearly show that the proposed BLCS is effective in achieving optimal dispatch of generation resources in systems with multiple MGs

Identify Challenges of Evaluating Students' Academic Performance E-Courses

This study was performed aims to Identification challenges of evaluating Virtual College students' perceptions of electronics courses. Statistical population was consisted of all students of Virtual University. For samples, 140 students were selected using stratified random sampling. Research instrument, researcher made questionnaire was a valid and reliable. The obtained data were analyzed. The mean, standard deviation, variance analysis and paired t-tests to measure t. The results showed that the greatest challenges to the evaluation of students' views of electronic Respectively Technical problems with mean 3/71 , Pedagogical difficulties, with a mean 3/20, And Mental health problems with an average of 3.Also, the students' perspective. In the terms different And various disciplines. There was a difference. In the particular challenges of of evaluation. Yet from the perspective of students And in terms different academic, technical problems as the most important challenge of evaluating students' academic performance was introduced

Optimal energy scheduling for a grid connected Microgrid based on Multi-period Imperialist competition algorithm

More flexibility, better reliability achievement and optimal usage of distributed generation are all together caused to develop Microgrids (MGs) in the power systems. The main duty of an optimal Energy Management System (EMS) is to find the best solution for operation and scheduling of generation resources with the least possible of the operation cost, demand side management and power exchange with the main grid. An EMS based on Multi-dimension Imperialist Competitive Algorithm (thereafter it is called EMS-MICA briefly) is proposed in this paper to consider the non-linear nature of MG system. The fulfillment of the load requirement, the technical specifications of the generation resources and the main grid constraints are included in the proposed problem. Moreover, the obtained results are compared to an EMS based on Mixed Integer Non-linear Programming (EMS-MINLP) approach to achieve the lower Market Clearing Price (MCP) during day-ahead scheduling. The results are proved that the efficiency of the proposed algorithm is significantly improved in comparison with the EMS-MINLP algorithm