Power systems with high renewable energy sources: A review of inertia and frequency control strategies over time

Traditionally, inertia in power systems has been determined by considering all the rotating masses directly connected to the grid. During the last decade, the integration of renewable energy sources, mainly photovoltaic installations and wind power plants, has led to a significant dynamic characteristic change in power systems. This change is mainly due to the fact that most renewables have power electronics at the grid interface. The overall impact on stability and reliability analysis of power systems is very significant. The power systems become more dynamic and require a new set of strategies modifying traditional generation control algorithms. Indeed, renewable generation units are decoupled from the grid by electronic converters, decreasing the overall inertia of the grid. ‘Hidden inertia’, ‘synthetic inertia’ or ‘virtual inertia’ are terms currently used to represent artificial inertia created by converter control of the renewable sources. Alternative spinning reserves are then needed in the new power system with high penetration renewables, where the lack of rotating masses directly connected to the grid must be emulated to maintain an acceptable power system reliability. This paper reviews the inertia concept in terms of values and their evolution in the last decades, as well as the damping factor values. A comparison of the rotational grid inertia for traditional and current averaged generation mix scenarios is also carried out. In addition, an extensive discussion on wind and photovoltaic power plants and their contributions to inertia in terms of frequency control strategies is included in the paper.This work was supported by the Spanish Education, Culture and Sports Ministry [FPU16/04282]

Relaciones entre el contrato colectivo de trabajo y el reglamento interno de la empresa

La contratación colectiva, constituye quizá la parte más importante del Derecho Colectivo de Trabajo y es hecho mediante el cual patronos y trabajadores, fijan los salarios y demás prestaciones de trabajo

Vertical wind profile characterization and identification of patterns based on a shape clustering algorithm

Wind power plants are becoming a generally accepted resource in the generation mix of many utilities. At the same time, the size and the power rating of individual wind turbines have increased considerably. Under these circumstances, the sector is increasingly demanding an accurate characterization of vertical wind speed profiles to estimate properly the incoming wind speed at the rotor swept area and, consequently, assess the potential for a wind power plant site. The present paper describes a shape-based clustering characterization and visualization of real vertical wind speed data. The proposed solution allows us to identify the most likely vertical wind speed patterns for a specific location based on real wind speed measurements. Moreover, this clustering approach also provides characterization and classification of such vertical wind profiles. This solution is highly suitable for a large amount of data collected by remote sensing equipment, where wind speed values at different heights within the rotor swept area are available for subsequent analysis. The methodology is based on z-normalization, shape-based distance metric solution and the Ward-hierarchical clustering method. Real vertical wind speed profile data corresponding to a Spanish wind power plant and collected by using a commercialWindcube equipment during several months are used to assess the proposed characterization and clustering process, involving more than 100000 wind speed data values. All analyses have been implemented using open-source R-software. From the results, at least four different vertical wind speed patterns are identified to characterize properly over 90% of the collected wind speed data along the day. Therefore, alternative analytical function criteria should be subsequently proposed for vertical wind speed characterization purposes.The authors are grateful for the financial support from the Spanish Ministry of the Economy and Competitiveness and the European Union —ENE2016-78214-C2-2-R—and the Spanish Education, Culture and Sport Ministry —FPU16/042

Analysis of tumor infiltrating CD4+ and CD8+ CDR3 sequences reveals shared features putatively associated to the anti-tumor immune response

T cell receptor; Breast cancer; Tumor-infiltrating lymphocytesReceptor de células T; Cáncer de mama; Linfocitos infiltrantes de tumoresReceptor de cèl·lules T; Càncer de mama; Limfòcits infiltrants de tumorsIntroduction: Tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) have predictive and prognostic value in breast cancer (BC) and exert a protective function against tumor growth, indicating that it is susceptible to treatment using adoptive cell transfer of TILs or T cell receptor (TCR)-based therapies. TCR can be used to identify naturally tumor-reactive T cells, but little is known about the differences in the TCR repertoires of CD4+ and CD8+ TILs. Methods: TCR high-throughput sequencing was performed using TILs derived from the initial cultures of 11 BC biopsies and expanded and sorted CD4+ and CD8+ TILs as well as using PBMCs from healthy donors expanded and sorted using the same methodology. Results: Physicochemical TCR differences between T cell subsets were observed, as CD4+ TILs presented larger N(D)Nnt TRB sequences and with a higher usage of positively charged residues, although only the latest was also observed in peripheral T cells from healthy individuals. Moreover, in CD4+ TILs, a more restricted TCR repertoire with a higher abundance of similar sequences containing certain amino acid motifs was observed. Discussion: Some differences between CD4+ and CD8+ TCRs were intrinsic to T cell subsets as can also be observed in peripheral T cells from healthy individuals, while other were only found in TILs samples and therefore may be tumor-driven. Notably, the higher similarity among CD4+ TCRs suggests a higher TCR promiscuity in this subset.This project was funded by Roche Farma, S.A. grant SP181123001, and by the Contigo Contra el Cáncer de la Mujer Foundation (#BREASTILs Project, “Functional Study of TILs from breast cancer patients: an approach to personalized medicine”). Roche Farma, S.A. funder was not involved in the study design, collection, analysis, interpretation of data, writing of this article, or decision to submit it for publication

LuxR402 of Novosphingobium sp. HR1a regulates the correct configuration of cell envelopes

Although there is some evidence to suggest that LuxR-solo proteins participate in inter-species or even inter-kingdom communication, most of the LuxR-solo protein functions are unknown. We have characterized the LuxR402 regulator of Novosphingobium sp. HR1a, a bacterial strain with the ability to establish high numbers in the plant rhizosphere and able to degrade a wide range of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. LuxR402 controls the aggregation state of the bacterial culture; cultures of a mutant strain lacking this regulator flocculate in less than 3 h without agitation. We have demonstrated that the bacterial surface of the mutant is highly hydrophobic and that the mutant cells assimilate sugars slower than the wild-type. The flocculation mechanism has been demonstrated to be involved in the survival of the strain under unfavorable conditions; the luxR402 gene is repressed and produces flocculation in the presence of salicylate, a substrate that, although being assimilated by Novosphingobium, is toxic to cells at high concentrations. The flocculation of cultures in industrial setups has mainly been achieved through the addition of chemicals; these studies open up the possibility of controlling the flocculation by regulating the level of expression of the luxR402 gene

Increasing the use of public bicycles: efficiency and demand

Millions of people travel every day by car in cities around the world, with daily mobility being one of the main contributors to CO2 emissions. Bicycle-sharing systems are a mobility alternative to cars that may help to reduce CO2 and GHG emissions. We analyze a public bike-sharing service (BIZI, in Zaragoza, Spain, May 2008–August 2019, 24 million uses), from the perspective of both efficiency and demand profiles, to determine whether the use of bicycles in the city can be increased. We study the evolution of the use of the BIZI service, showing that efficiency increased rapidly at first and reached an optimum value after the first two years. Using regression models, we characterize the groups that use this service the most and relate bicycle demand to factors such as weather conditions, number of bike lanes, and service extensions. Our analysis allows us to characterize the demand for BIZI as being subject, primarily, to weather conditions. This factor may reduce or boost the demand for this kind of service, which may help bike-sharing firms to decide on possible locations

Rainfall timing and runoff: The influence of the criterion for rain event separation

Rain is not uniform in time and space in semiarid areas and its distribution is very important for the runoff process. Hydrological studies usually divide rainfall into events. However, defining rain events is complicated, and rain characteristics vary depending on how the events are delimited. Choosing a minimum inter-event time (MIT) is a commonly used criterion. Our hypothesis is that there will be an optimal MIT that explains the maximum part of the variance of the runoff, with time to runoff used as a surrogate. The objective is to establish a procedure in order to decide upon this optimal MIT. We developed regressions between time to runoff (T0) and three descriptive variables of rain. Our results show that the optimum MIT is 1 hour, which seems to be the minimum period of time required for water in larger macropores to drain and sufficiently modify the effect of antecedent soil moisture on the runoff generation process. Rain events are classified into three significantly different groups: (1) large and intense rains, (2) light rains on wet soil, and (3) light rains on dry soil. Intense rains produce most of the runoff, but there were significant differences between small events in the runoff generated. Of rain events, 63.75% are single-tip events, and many could be dew

Fundamentos del trabajo con el mapa como método en el proceso de enseñanza- aprendizaje de la geografía

El siguiente artículo tiene el propósito de revelar el resultado de un estudio crítico referente al trabajo con el mapa como método en el proceso de enseñanza–aprendizaje de la Geografía en Cuba y las concepciones generales acerca de su utilización desde una profunda revisión bibliográfica y otros métodos de investigaciónThe following article has the purpose of revealing the result of a critical study regarding the work with the map as a method in the teaching-learning process of Geography in Cuba and the general conceptions about its use from a deep bibliographical revision and others Research Method