Seminar Details
2013-09-23 (14.00) : Modelling and Control for So-Called Smart Grids
At Euler building
Organized by Mathematical Engineering
Speaker :
Iven Mareels (University of Melbourne)
Abstract :
In today's power grid, the power generators are localised, and the consumers are distributed. In such circumstances the low voltage part of the electricity distribution grid poses as a mere disturbance on the grid. Consequently it is only poorly monitored. Moreover, in this scenario, electricity demand is king, and supply follows demand as there is no significant electrical energy storage.
Recent trends change this classic picture. Distributed power generation is becoming more attractive and is well suited to renewable sources like wind and PV. Also embedded generation, like co-generation is becoming economically attractive. Also, new loads such as electric vehicles pose significant challenges. Moreover, with climate change, the heating/cooling loads on the grid are becoming more variable and peakier.
Also, from a measurement and control point of view, it is now feasible to measure the electric power flow in near real time across an entire distribution network.
We argue that this conflux of technologies enables a new approach to resolve the demand-supply matching problem across the electricity grid. In our scenario we advocate a win-win-win. Consumers benefit from lower unit prices. Producers benefit from a better return on investment because of larger sales, and a greater utilisation of the available assets. Importantly, the environment wins by wasting less energy and integrating more renewable energy sources in the energy mix.
The main idea is that in a smart grid environment, demand and supply can be matched in energy terms rather than power terms. Indeed, by exploiting the significant energy storage in the end-user devices (fridges, air conditioned homes, freezers, batteries),
a new regime of power management is enabled.
To this end, we revisit the modeling and control of a low voltage distribution network, and in particular pose the problem of electric vehicle charging as a receding horizon control problem for a spatially distributed collection of cars, subject to the network's operational limits. Realistic models, validated against operational data (for local networks in Australia) will be presented. Our modelling tool, called POSSIM, is open software, maintained by our team, see http://www.possim.org/. In this context, we discuss the potential for adaptive model identification, centralised control options as well as decentralised and consensus based control options. Some early results on the potential penetration of electric vehicles in a managed smart grid environment are also presented.
The work as discussed is based on an Australian Research Council sponsored project "Integrating Electric Vehicles into a Smart Grid" at the University of Melbourne, School of Engineering, executed by Prof Iven Mareels, Prof Doreen Thomas, A/Prof Marcus Brazil, Dr Tansu Alpcan, Dr Julian de Hoog and PhD students Valentin Muenzel and Derek Jayasuriya; and involves collaboration with IBM's Smart Grid efforts around the nPlug idea introduced by Dr Shivkumar Kalyanaraman, a variant of which will be briefly discussed in this talk.