The object of this research is to optimize the overall power system performance using FACTS devices. Particularly, it is intended to improve the reliability, and the performance of the power system considering steady state operating condition as well as the system subjected to small and large disturbances. The methodology proposed to achieve this goal corresponds to an enhanced particle swarm optimizer (Enhanced-PSO) that is proven in this work to have several advantages, in terms of accuracy and computational effort, as compared with other existing methods. Once the performance of the Enhanced PSO is verified, a multi-stage PSO-based optimization framework is proposed for optimizing the power system reliability (N-1 contingency criterion). The algorithm finds optimal settings for present infrastructure (generator outputs, transformers tap ratios and capacitor banks settings) as well as optimal control references for distributed static series compensators (DSSC) and optimal locations, sizes and control settings for static compensator (STATCOM) units. Finally, a two-stage optimization algorithm is proposed to improve the power system performance in steady state conditions and when small and large perturbations are applied to the system. In this case, the algorithm provides optimal control references for DSSC modules, optimal location and sizes for capacitor banks, and optimal location, sizes and control parameters for STATCOM units (internal and external controllers), so that the loadability and the damping of the system are maximized at minimum cost. Simulation results throughout this research show a significant improvement of the power system reliability and performance after the system is optimized.

abstract: The standard optimal power flow (OPF) problem is an economic dispatch (ED) problem combined with transmission constraints, which are based on a static topology. However, topology control (TC) has been proposed in the past as a corrective mechanism to relieve overloads and voltage violations. Even though the benefits of TC are presented by several research works in the past, the computational complexity associated with TC has been a major deterrent to its implementation. The proposed work develops heuristics for TC and investigates its potential to improve the computational time for TC for various applications. The objective is to develop computationally light methods to harness the flexibility of the grid to derive maximum benefits to the system in terms of reliability. One of the goals of this research is to develop a tool that will be capable of providing TC actions in a minimal time-frame, which can be readily adopted by the industry for real-time corrective applications. A DC based heuristic, i.e., a greedy algorithm, is developed and applied to improve the computational time for the TC problem while still maintaining the ability to find quality solutions. In the greedy algorithm, an expression is derived, which indicates the impact on the objective for a marginal change in the state of a transmission line. This expression is used to generate a priority list with potential candidate lines for switching, which may provide huge improvements to the system. The advantage of this method is that it is a fast heuristic as compared to using mixed integer programming (MIP) approach. Alternatively, AC based heuristics are developed for TC problem and tested on actual data from PJM, ERCOT and TVA. AC based N-1 contingency analysis is performed to identify the contingencies that cause network violations. Simple proximity based heuristics are developed and the fast decoupled power flow is solved iteratively to identify the top five TC actions, which provide reduction in violations. Time domain simulations are performed to ensure that the TC actions do not cause system instability. Simulation results show significant reductions in violations in the system by the application of the TC heuristics. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Electrical Engineering 2016

L'analyse des tolérances des mécanismes a pour but d'évaluer la qualité du produit lors de sa phase de conception. La technique consiste à déterminer si, dans une production de grandes séries, le taux de rebuts des mécanismes défaillants est acceptable. Deux conditions doivent être vérifiées: une condition d'assemblage et une condition fonctionnelle. La méthode existante se base sur le couplage de la simulation de Monte Carlo avec un algorithme d'optimisation qui est très couteuse en temps de calcul. L'objectif des travaux de thèse est de développer des méthodes plus efficaces basées sur des approches probabilistes. Dans un premier temps, il est proposé une linéarisation des équations non linéaires du modèle de comportement afin de simplifier l'étape faisant appel à l'algorithme d'optimisation. Une étude de l'impact de cette opération sur la qualité de la probabilité est menée. Afin de minimiser l'erreur d'approximation, deux procédures itératives pour traiter le problème d'assemblage sont proposées. Ils permettent de calculer la probabilité de défaillance d'assemblage de façon précise en un temps de calcul réduit. En outre, les travaux de thèse ont permis le développement d'une nouvelle méthode de résolution basée sur la méthode de fiabilité système FORM (First Order Reliability Method) système. Cette méthode permet de traiter uniquement le problème fonctionnel. Elle a nécessité la mise au point d'une nouvelle formulation du problème d'analyse des tolérances sous forme système. La formulation décompose le mécanisme hyperstatique en plusieurs configurations isostatiques, le but étant de considérer les configurations dominantes menant à une situation de défaillance. La méthode proposée permet un gain de temps considérable en permettant d'obtenir un résultat en quelques minutes, y compris pour atteindre des faibles probabilités. / Tolerance analysis of mechanism aims at evaluating product quality during its design stage. Technique consists in computing a defect probability of mechanisms in large series production. An assembly condition and a functional condition are checked. Current method mixes a Monte Carlo simulation and an optimization algorithm which is too much time consuming. The objective of this thesis is to develop new efficient method based on probabilistic approach to deal with the tolerance analysis of overconstrained mechanism. First, a linearization procedure is proposed to simplify the optimization algorithm step. The impact of such a procedure on the probability accuracy is studied. To overcome this issue, iterative procedures are proposed to deal with the assembly problem. They enable to compute accurate defect probabilities in a reduced computing time. Besides, a new resolution method based on the system reliability method FORM (First Order Reliability Method) for systems was developed for the functional problem. In order to apply this method, a new system formulation of the tolerance analysis problem is elaborated. Formulation splits up the overconstrained mechanism into several isoconstrained configurations. The goal is to consider only the main configurations which lead to a failure situation. The proposed method greatly reduces the computing time allowing getting result within minutes. Low probabilities can also be reached and the order of magnitude does not influence the computing time.

In our society, private and industrial activities increasingly rest on the implicit assumption that electricity is available at any time and at an affordable price. Even if operational data and feedback from the electrical sector is very positive, a residual risk of blackout or undesired load shedding in critical zones remains. The occurrence of such a situation is likely to entail major direct and indirect economical consequences, as observed in recent blackouts. Assessing this residual risk and identifying scenarios likely to lead to these feared situations is crucial to control and optimally reduce this risk of blackout or major system disturbance. The objective of this PhD thesis is to develop a methodology able to reveal scenarios leading to a blackout or a major system disturbance and to estimate their frequencies and their consequences with a satisfactory accuracy.<p><p>A blackout is a collapse of the electrical grid on a large area, leading to a power cutoff, and is due to a cascading failure. Such a cascade is composed of two phases: a slow cascade, starting with the occurrence of an initiating event and displaying characteristic times between successive events from minutes to hours, and a fast cascade, displaying characteristic times between successive events from milliseconds to tens of seconds. In cascading failures, there is a strong coupling between events: the loss of an element increases the stress on other elements and, hence, the probability to have another failure. It appears that probabilistic methods proposed previously do not consider correctly these dependencies between failures, mainly because the two very different phases are analyzed with the same model. Thus, there is a need to develop a conceptually satisfying probabilistic approach, able to take into account all kinds of dependencies, by using different models for the slow and the fast cascades. This is the aim of this PhD thesis.<p><p>This work first focuses on the level-I which is the analysis of the slow cascade progression up to the transition to the fast cascade. We propose to adapt dynamic reliability, an integrated approach of Probabilistic Risk Analysis (PRA) developed initially for the nuclear sector, to the case of transmission power systems. This methodology will account for the double interaction between power system dynamics and state transitions of the grid elements. This PhD thesis also introduces the development of the level-II to analyze the fast cascade, up to the transition towards an operational state with load shedding or a blackout. The proposed method is applied to two test systems. Results show that thermal effects can play an important role in cascading failures, during the first phase. They also show that the level-II analysis after the level-I is necessary to have an estimation of the loss of supplied power that a scenario can lead to: two types of level-I scenarios with a similar frequency can induce very different risks (in terms of loss of supplied power) and blackout frequencies. The level-III, i.e. the restoration process analysis, is however needed to have an estimation of the risk in terms of loss of supplied energy. This PhD thesis also presents several perspectives to improve the approach in order to scale up applications to real grids.<p> / Doctorat en Sciences de l'ingénieur / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

The master´s thesis deals with the design of medium voltage power line protection and the calculation of reliability indicators. First, it deals with the possibilities of power system operation. Subsequently, it divides the networks according to the grounding of the transformer node and the switching elements and devices occurring in the MV distribution network are mentioned. It presents the basic classification of power line protection and its use, especially it focuses on overhead and cable MV power lines. It also discusses the reliability of the power supply and lists the basic reliability indicators and their possible calculation. The practical part describes the changes in the considered area of the distribution network, where the reconstruction of the power line VN872 and a new way of powering the village Drnholec will take place. The impact of this change on the reliability of the supplied energy is also calculated. Furthermore, the protection of the power line is designed and the correctness of its setting is then verified on the model in the PSS Sincal software.

This diploma thesis is a part of a project of two students. The aim of the project is to design safer electronics for the unstable balancing vehicle HUMMER and implementation of advanced diagnostics and fault detection. In the first part of the project we analysed the original vehicle using the FMEA analyse and created a new concept of the vehicle. The second part of the project describes a new hardware. I designed and tested the power electronics, control unit and supplies. The outputs of the work are prototypes which allow testing a new concept.

Maintaining and operating manual main distribution frames is labour-intensive. As a result, Automated Main Distribution Frames (AMDFs) have been developed to alleviate the task of maintaining subscriber loops. Commercial AMDFs are currently employed in telephone exchanges in some parts of the world. However, the most significant factors limiting their widespread adoption are costeffective scalability and reliability. Therefore, an impelling incentive is provided to create a simulation framework in order to explore typical implementations and scenarios. Such a framework will allow the evaluation and optimisation of a design in terms of both internal and external redundancies. One of the approaches to improve system performance, such as system reliability, is to allocate the optimal redundancy to all or some components in a system. Redundancy at the system or component levels can be implemented in one of two schemes: parallel redundancy or standby redundancy. It is also possible to mix these schemes for various components. Moreover, the redundant elements may or may not be of the same type. If all the redundant elements are of different types, the redundancy optimisation model is implemented with component mixing. Conversely, if all the redundant components are identical, the model is implemented without component mixing. The developed framework can be used both to develop new AMDF architectures and to evaluate existing AMDF architectures in terms of expected lifetimes, reliability and service availability. Two simulation models are presented. The first simulation model is concerned with optimising central office equipment within a telephone exchange and entails an environment of clients utilising services. Currently, such a model does not exist. The second model is a mathematical model incorporating stochastic simulation and a hybrid intelligent evolutionary algorithm to solve redundancy allocation problems. For the first model, the optimal partitioning of the model is determined to speed up the simulation run efficiently. For the second model, the hybrid intelligent algorithm is used to solve the redundancy allocation problem under various constraints. Finally, a candidate concept design of an AMDF is presented and evaluated with both simulation models. / Dissertation (MEng)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / gm2014 / Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering / unrestricted

Die Veranstaltung widmete sich mit der Borverdünnung in Druckwasserreaktoren bzw. mit der Verstopfung der Sumpfansaugsiebe durch freigesetztes Isolationsmaterial schwerpunktmäßig zwei Themen der Reaktorsicherheit, die auch in aktuellen Aufsichtsverfahren eine Rolle spielen. Eingebettet in den internationalen Kontext wollten die Veranstalter die sicherheitstechnische Bedeutung dieser Themen für die deutschen Anlagen beleuchten und die Auswirkungen auf die zu erbringenden Sicherheitsnachweise und den Anlagenbetrieb darstellen. Dabei kamen Gutachter, Vertreter der Forschung, Hersteller und Betreiber gleichermaßen zu Wort. Der Fachtag sollte den Teilnehmern aber insbesondere vermitteln, welche Beiträge die privat und öffentlich finanzierte Reaktorsicherheitsforschung zur Aufklärung der jeweiligen Ereignisabläufe und ihrer sicherheitstechnischen Bedeutung geleistet hat. In diesem Forschungskontext spielen, auch international, die Methoden der so genannten Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) eine zunehmende Rolle. Deshalb widmete sich eine Sitzung den Grundlagen, Möglichkeiten und Grenzen von CFD-Methoden. Dabei wurden u.a. Anwendungen zur Borvermischung und zum Verhalten von Mineralwolle im Sumpf präsentiert.

This paper describes the failure detection system of an electro-hydraulic actuator with dual modular redundancy based on a hybrid twin TM concept. Hybrid twin TM is a combination of virtual twin that operates in parallel with the actuator and represents its ideal behaviour, and a digital twin that identifies possible failures using the sensor readings residuals. Simulation-based system reliability analysis helps to generate a dataset for training the digital twin using machine learning algorithms. A systematic failure detection approach based on decision trees and the process of analysing the quality of the result is described.

I detta examensarbete har en tillförlitlighetsmetod tagits fram som väger samman kostnadspåverkande faktorer för investeringar och underhåll i eldistributionssystem med kostnader förknippade med avbrott. Syftet med metoden är att möjliggöra för nätplanerare och projektörer att jämföra olika investeringsalternativ för att kunna kostnadseffektivisera investeringarna i eldistributionssystem. Med tillförlitlighetsanalys kan den förväntade avbrottstiden i systemets uttagspunkter beräknas. Kopplas en kostnad till den förväntade avbrottstiden i uttagspunkterna kan den förväntade avbrottskostnaden för distributionssystemet beräknas.   Syftet med simuleringarna har varit att undersöka om det går att minimera den totala kostnaden, investeringskostnader samt förväntade avbrottskostnad, genom slumpvisa investeringar i systemets ledningssektioner. Simuleringarna har genomförts på ett fiktivt mindre system. Systemet möjliggör analys av resultaten, men är ändå tillräckligt komplext för att påvisa problematik som kan uppstå. Simuleringarna visar att den framtagna metoden är robust och fungerar på önskat vis. Det visade sig också att simuleringstiden, även med ett stort antal slumpvisa investeringstillfällen, är kort vilket gör att modellen även kan användas för mer komplexa nät. / This MSc project develops a method that combines factors that affect the investment and maintenance costs in electrical power systems with costs associated with outage. This gives the system planner an opportunity to compare different alternatives for investments to receive a low total cost. Using system reliability analysis the outage time for the load points in the system can be decided. If the expected outage time is associated with a cost, it is possible to calculate the expected outage cost for the system.   The purpose of the simulations has been to examine if it is possible to minimize the total cost by doing randomized investments on power lines in the system. The simulations are carried out on a fictional, small system. Because of the specific design, it is easy to analyze results but also complex enough to show problems that can occur in the system. The simulations show that the model is robust and the expected results were accomplished. The simulations also showed that, even for a large amount of events, the time for the simulation is short. This shows that the model is suitable also for larger systems.