arXiv subjects

Gregor Verbic

Publications and source records attributed to Gregor Verbic.

28 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2017

A Framework for Frequency Stability Assessment of Future Power Systems: An Australian Case Study

The increasing penetration of non-synchronous renewable energy sources (NS-RES) alters the dynamic characteristic, and consequently, the frequency behaviour of a power system. To accurately identify these changing trends and address them in a systematic way, it is necessary to assess a large number of scenarios. Given this, we propose a frequency stability assessment framework based on a time-series approach that facilitates the analysis of a large number of future power system scenarios. We use this framework to assess the frequency stability of the Australian future power system by considering a large number of future scenarios and sensitivity of different parameters. By doing this, we identify a maximum non-synchronous instantaneous penetration range from the frequency stability point of view. Further, to reduce the detrimental impacts of high NS-RES penetration on system frequency stability, a dynamic inertia constraint is derived and incorporated in the market dispatch model. The results show that such a constraint guarantees frequency stability of the system for all credible contingencies. Also, we assess and quantify the contribution of synchronous condensers, synthetic inertia of wind farms and a governor-like response from de-loaded wind farms on system frequency stability. The results show that the last option is the most effective one.

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arXiv2017

Computationally Efficient Market Simulation Tool for Future Grid Scenario Analysis

The paper proposes a computationally efficient electricity market simulation tool (MST) suitable for future grid scenario analysis. The market model is based on a unit commitment (UC) problem and takes into account the uptake of emerging technologies, like demand response, battery storage, concentrated solar thermal generation, and HVDC transmission lines. To allow for a subsequent stability assessment, the MST requires an explicit representation of the number of online generation units, which affects powers system inertia and reactive power support capability. These requirements render a fullfledged UC model computationally intractable, so we propose unit clustering, rolling horizon approach, and constraint reduction to increase the computational efficiency. To showcase the capability of the proposed tool, we use a simplified model of the Australian National Electricity Market with different penetrations of renewable generation. The results show that the number of online units resulting from the proposed tool is very close to the binary UC run over a week-long horizon, which is confirmed by the loadability and inertia analysis. That confirms the validity of the approach for long term future grid studies, where one is more interested in finding weak points in the system rather than in a detailed analysis of individual operating conditions.

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arXiv2016

Fast Stability Scanning for Future Grid Scenario Analysis

Future grid scenario analysis requires a major departure from conventional power system planning, where only a handful of most critical conditions is typically analyzed. To capture the inter-seasonal variations in renewable generation of a future grid scenario necessitates the use of computationally intensive time-series analysis. In this paper, we propose a planning framework for fast stability scanning of future grid scenarios using a novel feature selection algorithm and a novel self-adaptive PSO-k-means clustering algorithm. To achieve the computational speed-up, the stability analysis is performed only on small number of representative cluster centroids instead of on the full set of operating conditions. As a case study, we perform small-signal stability and steady-state voltage stability scanning of a simplified model of the Australian National Electricity Market with significant penetration of renewable generation. The simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Compared to an exhaustive time series scanning, the proposed framework reduced the computational burden up to ten times, with an acceptable level of accuracy.

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arXiv2016

Exploring Wake Interaction for Frequency Control in Wind Farms

The increasing integration of wind generation is accompanied with a growing concern about secure and reliable power system operation. Due to the intermittent nature of wind, the base-load units need to cycle significantly more than they were designed for, resulting in reduced life cycle and increased costs. Therefore, it is becoming necessary for wind turbines to take part in frequency control, and reduce the need for additional ancillary services provided by conventional generators. In this paper, we propose an optimised operation strategy for the wind farms. In this strategy, we maximise the kinetic energy of wind turbines by an optimal combination of the rotor speed and the pitch angle. We exploit the wake interaction in a wind farm, and de-load some of the up-wind turbines. We show that the kinetic energy accumulated in the rotating masses of the WTs can be increased compared to the base case without compromising efficiency of the wind farm. In a specific system, we show that by implementing this strategy, and injecting the stored kinetic energy of the WTs' rotors into the system during a frequency dip, we can delay the system frequency nadir up to 30 s.

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arXiv2016

Tight LP Approximations for the Optimal Power Flow Problem

DC power flow approximations are ubiquitous in the electricity industry. However, these linear approximations fail to capture important physical aspects of power flow, such as the reactive power and voltage magnitude, which are crucial in many applications to ensure voltage stability and AC solution feasibility. This paper proposes two LP approximations of the AC optimal power flow problem, founded on tight polyhedral approximations of the SOC constraints, in the aim of retaining the good lower bounds of the SOCP relaxation and relishing the computational efficiency of LP solvers. The high accuracy of the two LP approximations is corroborated by rigorous computational evaluations on systems with up to 9241 buses and different operating conditions. The computational efficiency of the two proposed LP models is shown to be comparable to, if not better than, that of the SOCP models in most instances. This performance is ideal for MILP extensions of these LP models since MILP is computationally more efficient than MIQCP.

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arXiv2016

A Fast Distributed Algorithm for Large-Scale Demand Response Aggregation

A major challenge to implementing residential demand response is that of aligning the objectives of many households, each of which aims to minimize its payments and maximize its comfort level, while balancing this with the objectives of an aggregator that aims to minimize the cost of electricity purchased in a pooled wholesale market. This paper presents a fast distributed algorithm for aggregating a large number of households with a mixture of discrete and continuous energy levels. A distinctive feature of the method in this paper is that the nonconvex DR problem is decomposed in terms of households as opposed to devices, which allows incorporating more intricate couplings between energy storage devices, appliances and distributed energy resources. The proposed method is a fast distributed algorithm applied to the double smoothed dual function of the adopted DR model. The method is tested on systems with up to 2560 households, each with 10 devices on average. The proposed algorithm is designed to terminate in 60 iterations irrespective of system size, which can be ideal for an on-line version of this problem. Moreover, numerical results show that with minimal parameter tuning, the algorithm exhibits a very similar convergence behavior throughout the studied systems and converges to near-optimal solutions, which corroborates its scalability.

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arXiv2016

A Distributed Algorithm for Demand Response with Mixed-Integer Variables

This letter presents a fast distributed algorithm for aggregating a large number of households with mixed-integer variables and intricate couplings between devices. The proposed fast distributed gradient algorithm is applied to the double smoothed dual function of the adopted DR model. The results also show that, with minimal parameter adjustments, the convergence of the dual objective exhibits the same behavior irrespective of the system size.

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arXiv2015

An Iterative On-Line Mechanism for Demand-Side Aggregation

This paper considers a demand-side aggregation scheme specifically for large numbers of small loads, such as households and small and medium-sized businesses. We introduce a novel auction format, called a staggered clock-proxy auction (SCPA), for on-line scheduling of these loads. This is a two phase format, consisting of: a sequence of overlapping iterative ascending-price clock auctions, one for each time-slot over a finite decision horizon, and; a set of proxy auctions that begin at the termination of each individual clock auction, and which determine the final price and allocation for each time-slot. The overlapping design of the clock phases grant bidders the ability to effectively bid on inter-temporal bundles of electricity use, thereby focusing on the most relevant parts of the price-quantity space. Since electricity is a divisible good, the proxy auction uses demand-schedule bids, which the aggregator uses to compute a uniform-price partial competitive equilibrium for each time slot. We show that, under mild assumptions on the bidders' utilities functions, the proxy phase implements the Vickrey-Clarke-Groves outcome, which makes straightforward bidding in the proxy phase a Bayes-Nash equilibrium. Furthermore, we demonstrate the SCPA in a scenario comprised of household agents with three different utility function types, and show how the mechanism enables efficient on-line energy use scheduling.

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arXiv2015

Aggregated Demand Response Modelling for Future Grid Scenarios

With the increased penetration of intermittent renewable energy sources (RESs) in future grids (FGs), balancing between supply and demand will become more dependent on demand response (DR) and energy storage. Thus, FG feasibility studies will need to consider DR for modelling nett future demand. Against this backdrop, this paper proposes a demand model which integrates the aggregated effect of DR in a simplified representation of the effect of market/dispatch processes aiming at minimising the overall cost of supplying electrical energy. The conventional demand model in the optimisation formulation is augmented by including the aggregated effect of numerous users equipped with rooftop photovoltaic (PV)-storage systems. The proposed model is suited for system studies at higher voltage levels in which users are assumed to be price anticipators. As a case study, the effect of the demand model is studied on the load profile, balancing and loadability of the Australian National Electricity Market in 2020 with the increased penetration of RESs. The results are compared with the demand model in which users are assumed to be price takers.

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arXiv2014

Aggregated Demand Modelling Including Distributed Generation, Storage and Demand Response

It is anticipated that penetration of renewable energy sources (RESs) in power systems will increase further in the next decades mainly due to environmental issues. In the long term of several decades, which we refer to in terms of the future grid (FG), balancing between supply and demand will become dependent on demand actions including demand response (DR) and energy storage. So far, FG feasibility studies have not considered these new demand-side developments for modelling future demand. In Australia, installed rooftop photovoltaic (PV) generation has been increasing significantly in recent years, and this is increasingly influence the nett load profile for FG feasibility studies. This paper proposes an aggregate nett load or demand model to be used at higher voltage levels considering the effect of rooftop PV, energy storage and DR for FG scenarios, which is inspired by the smart home concept. The proposed model is formulated as an optimization problem aiming at minimizing the electricity cost. As a case study, the effect of the load model is studied on the load profile, balancing and loadability of the Australian National Electricity Market in 2020 with the increased penetration of wind and solar generation.

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