PhD ThesisIn the move towards ubiquitous information & communications technology, an
opportunity for further optimisation of the power system as a whole has arisen.
Nonetheless, the fast growth of intermittent generation concurrently with markets
deregulation is driving a need for timely algorithms that can derive value from these
new data sources. Type-2 fuzzy logic systems can offer approximate solutions to
these computationally hard tasks by expressing non-linear relationships in a more
flexible fashion. This thesis explores how type-2 fuzzy logic systems can provide
solutions to two of these challenging power system problems; short-term load
forecasting and voltage control in distribution networks. On one hand, time-series
forecasting is a key input for economic secure power systems as there are many tasks
that require a precise determination of the future short-term load (e.g. unit
commitment or security assessment among others), but also when dealing with
electricity as commodity. As a consequence, short-term load forecasting becomes
essential for energy stakeholders and any inaccuracy can be directly translated into
their financial performance. All these is reflected in current power systems literature
trends where a significant number of papers cover the subject. Extending the existing
literature, this work focuses in how these should be implemented from beginning to
end to bring to light their predictive performance. Following this research direction,
this thesis introduces a novel framework to automatically design type-2 fuzzy logic
systems. On the other hand, the low-carbon economy is pushing the grid status even
closer to its operational limits. Distribution networks are becoming active systems with
power flows and voltages defined not only by load, but also by generation. As
consequence, even if it is not yet absolutely clear how power systems will evolve in
the long-term, all plausible future scenarios claim for real-time algorithms that can
provide near optimal solutions to this challenging mixed-integer non-linear problem.
Aligned with research and industry efforts, this thesis introduces a scalable
implementation to tackle this task in divide-and-conquer fashio
