Power systems must face new challenges in the current environment. The energy market liberalization and the increase in the loading level make the occurrence of instability phenomena leading to large blackouts more likely. Existing tools must be improved and new tools must be developed to avoid them. The aim of this thesis is the improvement of the voltage stability assessment efficiency. Two orientations are studied: the monitoring methods and the load modeling. The purpose of the monitoring methods is to evaluate the voltage stability using only measurements and without running simulations. The first approach considered is local. The parameters of the Thevenin equivalent seen from a load bus are assessed thanks to a stream of local voltage and current measurements. Several issues are investigated using measurements coming from complete time-domain simulations. The applicability of this approach is questioned. The second approach is global and uses measurements acquired by a Wide-Area Measurement System (WAMS). An original approach with a certain prediction capability is proposed, along with intuitive visualizations that allow to understand the deterioration process leading to the collapse. The load modeling quality is certainly the weak point of the voltage security assessment tools which run simulations to predict the stability of the power system depending on different evolutions. Appropriate load models with accurate parameters lead to a direct improvement of the prediction precision. An innovative procedure starting from data of long measurement campaigns is proposed to automatically evaluate the parameters of static and dynamic load models. Real measurements taken in the Belgian power system are used to validate this approach.

Until today the offshore wind power has grown in a steady pace and many new wind farms are being constructed around the globe. An important factor that is investigated today in the industry are the security of power supply to the equipment needed for controlling the offshore system during emergency situations. When a offshore wind farm is disconnected from the external grid and an emergency case occur the wind turbine generators lose their ability to transfer power and they are forced to be taken out of operation. As there are a number of loads in the wind turbines (navigation lights, sensor- and communication-apparatus, ventilation- and heating equipment etc.) they have a load demand which must be supplied in emergency mode. The German Transmission System operator (TSO) TenneT GmbH has set a requirement that the wind turbines is to be supplied by an auxiliary power supply (APS) in 12 hours and therefore there is need for a long-term auxiliary power supply system. This master thesis was assigned to investigate the most feasible APS-system. From the study of a number of different APS's one concept was chosen. This was the diesel gen-set solution placed on an offshore substation at sea. The system was modeled in the software DIgSILENT PowerFactory where a load flow analysis validated the calculated data and a study of the impact of  transients in the system was performed.

Renewable energy policies, such as the Renewable Portfolio Standard, arising from increasing environmental concerns have set very ambitious targets for wind power penetration in electric power systems throughout the world. In many cases, the geographical locations with good wind resources are not close to the main load centers. It becomes extremely important to assess adequate transmission facility to deliver wind power to the power grid. <p>Wind is a highly variable energy source, and therefore, transmission system planning for wind delivery is very different from conventional transmission planning. Most electric power utilities use a deterministic n-1 criterion in transmission system planning. Deterministic methods cannot recognize the random nature of wind variation that dictates the power generated from wind power sources. This thesis presents probabilistic method to evaluate the contribution of a wind power delivery system to the overall system reliability. The effects of site-specific wind regime, system load, transmission line unavailability, and redundancy on system reliability were studied using a basic system model. The developed method responds to the various system parameters and is capable of assessing the actual system risks. <p>Modern power system aims to provide reliable as well as cost effective power supply to its consumers. Reliability benefits, environmental benefits and operating cost savings from wind power integration should be compared with the associated investment costs in order to determine optimum transmission facility for wind power delivery. This thesis presents the reliability/cost techniques for determining appropriate transmission line capacity to connect a wind farm to a power grid. The effect of transmission system cost, line length, wind regime, wind penetration and customer interruption cost on the optimum transmission line sizing were studied using a basic system model. The methodology and results presented in this thesis should be useful in transmission system planning for delivering wind power to a power system.

In recent years, reliability evaluation of substation automation systems has received a significant attention from the research community. With the advent of the concept of smart grid, there is a growing trend to integrate more computation and communication technology into power systems. This thesis focuses on the reliability evaluation of modern substation automation systems. Such systems include both physical devices (current carrying) such as lines, circuit breakers, and transformers, as well as cyber devices (Ethernet switches, intelligent electronic devices, and cables) and belong to a broader class of cyber-physical systems. We assume that the substation utilizes IEC 61850 standard, which is a dominant standard for substation automation. Focusing on IEC 61850 standard, we discuss the failure modes and analyze their effects on the system. We utilize reliability block diagrams for analyzing the reliability of substation components (bay units) and then use the state space approach to study the effects at the substation level. Case study is based on an actual IEC 61850 substation automation system, with different network topologies consideration concluded. Our analysis provides a starting point for evaluating the reliability of the substation and the effects of substation failures to the rest of the power system. By using the state space methods, the steady state probability of each failure effects were calculated in different bay units. These probabilities can be further used in the modeling of the composite power system to analyze the loss of load probabilities.

<p>An on-line identifier using Functional Link Network (FLN) and Pole-shift (PS) controller for power system stabilizer (PSS) application are presented in this thesis. To have the satisfactory performance of the PSS controller, over a wide range of operating conditions, it is desirable to adapt PSS parameters in real time. Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) transform the inputs in a low-dimensional space to high-dimensional nonlinear hidden unit space and they have the ability to model the nonlinear characteristics of the power system. The ability of ANNs to learn makes them more suitable for use in adaptive control techniques.</p> <p>On-line identification obtains a mathematical model at each sampling period to track the dynamic behavior of the plant. The ANN identifier consisting of a Functional link Network (FLN) is used for identifying the model parameters. A FLN model eliminates the need of hidden layer while retaining the nonlinear mapping capability of the neural network by using enhanced inputs. This network may be conveniently used for function approximation with faster convergence rate and lesser computational load.</p> <p>The most commonly used Pole Assignment (PA) algorithm for adaptive control purposes assign the pole locations to fixed locations within the unit circle in the z-plane. It may not be optimum for different operating conditions. In this thesis, PS type of adaptive control algorithm is used. This algorithm, instead of assigning the closed-loop poles to fixed locations within the unit circle in the z-plane, this algorithm assumes that the pole characteristic polynomial of the closed-loop system has the same form as the pole characteristic of the open-loop system and shifts the open-loop poles radially towards the centre of the unit circle in the z-plane by a shifting factor &alpha; according to some rules. In this control algorithm, no coefficients need to be tuned manually, so manual parameter tuning (which is a drawback in conventional power system stabilizer) is minimized. The PS control algorithm uses the on-line updated ARMA parameters to calculate the new closed-loop poles of the system that are always inside the unit circle in the z-plane.</p> <p>Simulation studies on a single-machine infinite bus and on a multi-machine power system for various operating condition changes, verify the effectiveness of the combined model of FLN identifier and PS control in damping the local and multi-mode oscillations occurring in the system. Simulation studies prove that the APSSs have significant benefits over conventional PSSs: performance improvement and no requirement for parameter tuning.</p>

No description available.

No description available.

Simulators for power plants can be used for many different purposes, like training for operators or for adjusting control systems, where the main objective is to perform a realistic behaviour for different operating conditions of the power plant. Due to an increased amount of variable energy sources in the power system, the role of the operators has become more important. It can therefore be very valuable for the operators to try different operating conditions like island operation. The aim of this thesis is to model the power system of a general combined-cycle power plant simulator. The model should contain certain components and have a realistic behaviour but on the same time be simple enough to perform simulations in real time. The main requirements are to simulate cold start, normal operation, trip of generator, a controlled change-over to island operation and then resynchronisation. The modelling and simulations are executed in the modelling software Dymola, version 6.1. The interface for the simulator is built in the program LabView, but that is beyond the scope of this thesis. The results show a reasonable performance of the power system with most of the objectives fulfilled. The simulator is able to perform a start-up, normal load changes, trip of a generator, change-over to island operation as well as resynchronisation of the power plant to the external power grid. However, the results from the changing-over to island operation, as well as large load losses during island operation, show an unreasonable behaviour of the system regarding the voltage magnitude at that point. This is probably due to limitations in calculation capacity of Dymola, and the problem has been left to further improvements due to lack of time. There has also been a problem during the development of a variable speed regulated induction motor and it has not been possible to make it work due to lack of enough knowledge about how Dymola is performing the calculations. Also this problem has been left to further improvements due to lack of time.

Behovet av elektricitet blir allt viktigare i dagens samhälle. Runt om i världen finns än idag platser där tillgängligheten till det fasta elnätet är begränsad. Oftast är det platser som ligger avlägset och terrängen gör det ekonomiskt oförsvarbart att ansluta sig till det befintliga elnätet. Det kan vara platser som fjäll, öar och skogsområden. På dessa platser används ett fristående elsystem som står för elförsörjningen. Det allra vanligaste systemet är ett hybridsystem som använder sig av två eller flera energikällor vanligtvis en förnyelsebar och en kompletterande fossil energikälla. Examensarbetet som görs i samarbete med Arise Windpower AB går ut på att energieffektivisera och undersöka ett befintligt fristående elsystem som används som vindmätarutrustning, SODAR. Detta ska göras utifrån tre huvudaspekter, lågt underhåll, låg driftkostnad och hög driftsäkerhet. Projektgruppen har genomfört en omfattande energianalys på systemet för att se vart i systemet man kan göra energieffektiviseringar. För att komma fram till systemets brister och ge förslag på olika åtgärder har projektgruppen besökt objektet för att få en överblick hur systemet är kopplat och vilka komponenter som ingår. Systemets energiflöde har noggrant mätts upp med flera olika verktyg och sammanställts i tabeller och diagram för att få en tydlig bild över energiflödet. För att genomföra detta har solcellernas teoretiska årsgenerering beräknas utifrån ett webbaserat kalkyleringsprogram. Dieselgeneratorns totala drifttid loggas i systemet och den informationen har projektgruppen tagit del av för att sammanställa och beräkna den tillförda energin.SODAR är ett meteorologiskt instrument för att mäta vindhastigheter och vindens karakteristik. En högtalare sänder ut akustiska ljudpulser och en mottagare analyserar retursignalen. En dator behandlar sedan signalen och beräknar vindhastigheten. SODAR används främst inom vindkraftprojektering men även på flygplatser för att mäta turbulensgraden i luften. Meteorologer använder sig av denna mätutrustning för att förutspå kommande väderleksrapporter med hjälp av vind, temperatur samt ändringar i luftens kemiska sammansättning. Vid förstudien av ett vindkraftsprojekt placeras en SODAR ut på den tänkta platsen under minst ett år för att få så tillförlitliga mätvärden som möjligt. Mätutrustningen är enkel att flytta då hela systemet är inbyggt i en vanlig släpvagn. Resultatet från analysen visade en låg batteriverkningsgrad. Huvudslutsatsen för att energieffektivisera systemet är att kontrollera batteristatusen samt optimera laddningsförloppet. Detta kan göras genom att reglera laddningsspänningen beroende på omgivningstemperaturen. För att uppnå ett billigare energipris i systemet kan SODAR:n kompletteras med ett småskaligt vindkraftverk alternativt en bränslecell istället för dagens dieselgenerator.

<p>An on-line identifier using Functional Link Network (FLN) and Pole-shift (PS) controller for power system stabilizer (PSS) application are presented in this thesis. To have the satisfactory performance of the PSS controller, over a wide range of operating conditions, it is desirable to adapt PSS parameters in real time. Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) transform the inputs in a low-dimensional space to high-dimensional nonlinear hidden unit space and they have the ability to model the nonlinear characteristics of the power system. The ability of ANNs to learn makes them more suitable for use in adaptive control techniques.</p> <p>On-line identification obtains a mathematical model at each sampling period to track the dynamic behavior of the plant. The ANN identifier consisting of a Functional link Network (FLN) is used for identifying the model parameters. A FLN model eliminates the need of hidden layer while retaining the nonlinear mapping capability of the neural network by using enhanced inputs. This network may be conveniently used for function approximation with faster convergence rate and lesser computational load.</p> <p>The most commonly used Pole Assignment (PA) algorithm for adaptive control purposes assign the pole locations to fixed locations within the unit circle in the z-plane. It may not be optimum for different operating conditions. In this thesis, PS type of adaptive control algorithm is used. This algorithm, instead of assigning the closed-loop poles to fixed locations within the unit circle in the z-plane, this algorithm assumes that the pole characteristic polynomial of the closed-loop system has the same form as the pole characteristic of the open-loop system and shifts the open-loop poles radially towards the centre of the unit circle in the z-plane by a shifting factor &alpha; according to some rules. In this control algorithm, no coefficients need to be tuned manually, so manual parameter tuning (which is a drawback in conventional power system stabilizer) is minimized. The PS control algorithm uses the on-line updated ARMA parameters to calculate the new closed-loop poles of the system that are always inside the unit circle in the z-plane.</p> <p>Simulation studies on a single-machine infinite bus and on a multi-machine power system for various operating condition changes, verify the effectiveness of the combined model of FLN identifier and PS control in damping the local and multi-mode oscillations occurring in the system. Simulation studies prove that the APSSs have significant benefits over conventional PSSs: performance improvement and no requirement for parameter tuning.</p>