Recent years have seen a growing tendency that a large number of generators are connected to the electricity distribution networks, including renewables such as solar photovoltaics, wind turbines and biomass-fired power plants. Meanwhile, on the demand side, there are also some new types of electric loads being connected at increasing rates, with the most important of them being the electric vehicles (EVs). Uncertainties both from generation and consumption of electricity mentioned above are thereby being introduced, making the management of the system more challenging. With the proportion of electric vehicle ownership rapidly increasing, uncontrolled charging of large populations may bring about power system issues such as increased peak demand and voltage variations, while at the same time the cost of electricity generation, as well as the resulting Greenhouse Gases (GHG) emissions, will also rise. The work reported in this PhD Thesis aims to provide solutions to the three significant challenges related to EV integration, namely voltage regulation, generation cost minimisation and GHG emissions reduction. A novel, high-resolution, bottom-up probabilistic EV charging demand model was developed, that uses data from the UK Time Use Survey and the National Travel Survey to synthesise realistic EV charging time series based on user activity patterns. Coupled with manufacturers' data for representative EV models, the developed probabilistic model converts single user activity profiles into electrical demand, which can then be aggregated to simulate larger numbers at a neighbourhood, city or regional level. The EV charging demand model has been integrated into a domestic electrical demand model previously developed by researchers in our group at the University of Edinburgh. The integrated model is used to show how demand management can be used to assist voltage regulation in the distribution system. The node voltage sensitivity method is used to optimise the planning of EV charging based on the influence that every EV charger has on the network depending on their point of connection. The model and the charging strategy were tested on a realistic "highly urban" low voltage network and the results obtained show that voltage fluctuation due to the high percentage of EV ownership (and charging) can be significantly and maintained within the statutory range during a full 24-hour cycle of operation. The developed model is also used to assess the generation cost as well as the environmental impact, in terms of GHG emissions, as a result of EV charging, and an optimisation algorithm has been developed that in combination with domestic demand management, minimises the incurred costs and GHG emissions. The obtained results indicate that although the increased population of EVs in distribution networks will stress the system and have adverse economic and environmental effects, these may be minimised with careful off-line planning.

This diploma thesis focuces on a analysis of business process, which controls storage and on solution suggestions which is written down in the analysis part. This thesis was made in a medium-sized business in which this draft will help for better control over storage prcess and inventory.

A microgrid is a subnetwork of power system that consists of a group of distributed energy sources and loads. It is designed to integrate distributed generation, loads, energy storage devices, converters, and monitoring and protection devices. Generally, a successful microgrid could run both in island mode (off-grid) and in grid-connected mode (on-grid), being able to convert between two modes at any time. With continuous development of the power system, distributed renewable generation unit accounts for an increasing proportion, since microgrid could effectively connect these generation units to the main grid, thereby improving the energy efficiency and the energy structure. Microgrid is increasingly playing an important role in the power system. This thesis focuses on reducing the cost of microgrids through economic operation, including both static and dynamic economic operations. Three cases are tested based on these two methods. Also, each case will include four situations including one without ESS and three situations with 2MWh ESS, 3MWh ESS, 4MWh ESS, respectively.

Uppsatsen beskriver arbetet och undersökning för hur deduplicering i filsystemet ZFS påverkar effektförbrukningen. En större mängd redundant data förekommer i centraliserade lagringssystem som förser virtualiserade servrar med lagringsutrymme. Deduplicering kan för den typen av lagringsmiljö eliminera redundant data och ger en stor besparing av lagringsutrymme. Frågan som undersökningen avsåg att besvara var hur ett lagringssystem påverkas av det extra arbete som det innebär att deduplicera data i realtid.Metoden för att undersöka problemet var att utföra fem experiment med olika typer av scenarion. Varje scenario innebar att filer kopierades till ett lagringssystem med eller utan deduplicering för att senare kunna analysera skillnaden. Dessutom varierades mängden deduplicerbar data under experimenten vilket skulle visa om belastningen på hårddiskarna förändrades.Resultatet av experimenten visar att deduplicering ökar effektförbrukning och processorbelastning medan antalet I/O-operationer minskar. Analysen av resultatet visar att med en stigande andel deduplicerbar data som skrivs till hårddiskarna så stiger också effektförbrukning och processorbelastning. / This report describes the process and outcome of the research on how the power consumption is affected by deduplication in a ZFS file system. A large amount of redundant data exists in centralized storage systems that provide virtualized servers with storage space. Deduplication can be used to eliminate redundant data and give an improved utilization of available space in this kind of storage environment. The question that the study sought to answer was how a storage systems power consumption is affected by the extra workload deduplication introduces.The method used to investigate the problem was to perform five experiments with different types of scenarios. The difference in each scenario was that the data was written to a storage system with or without deduplication to later analyze the difference. Each scenario had a varied amount deduplicatable data during the experiments which would show if the load on disks changed.The results show that deduplication increases the power consumption and CPU load while the I/O-operations decrease. The analysis of the result shows that increasing the deduplicatable data also increases the power consumption and CPU load.

The Swedish island of Gotland , situated about 100 km from mainland Sweden in the Baltic Sea, represents a power system with a high wind power penetration. The island is connected to the mainland Sweden exclusively via two HVDC cables that provide the only source of active power and frequency control. The two cables can operate in different configurations, i.e. import or export power from or to mainland. However, in order to ensure the N-1 criterion, one of the cables currently always must import power from the mainland. This means that the available power exporting capacity is limited to the rated power of one of the cables. Therefore, in the case of having a fault on the exporting HVDC cable during low load demand and high wind power production, the power system will suffer from high active power transients that will increase the frequency above the acceptable threshold. Consequently, the protection system will trip the over-frequency relays, triggering cascading outages on the island that might eventually lead to blackout if the problem is not addressed correctly. Thus, increasing the renewable energy production on Gotland is currently considered as a risk that will increase the probability of instable over-frequency contingencies. This has led the local grid operator to cap the installed wind power capacity to its current level. Therefore, the ability to preserve the stability of the power system during islanded operations until the HVDC cables fault is cleared or the emergency reserves are online is essential for the growth of installed wind power capacity. The main objective of the thesis is to examine the capability of a centralized energy storage along with or without wind curtailment. The ESS is tested for maintaining the frequency stability during the unintentional islanding through dynamic studies using the software PSS/E. The results show that an ESS prevents frequency instabilities and provide frequency response during HVDC cables fault albeit of the absence of any form of rotating inertia. The results show that for today’s 185 MW of installed wind power capacity, an energy storage of 50 MW power capacity will reduce over-frequency instabilities in the case of HVDC cables fault from 13% to 1%. The analysis finds that the power capacity of the energy storage depends on the exported power from the HVDC cables at the instant of fault, which eventually relates to the installed wind power capacity. finally, the study shows that using wind power curtailment will significantly decrease the energy capacity of the energy storage.

The aim of the diploma thesis was optimization of the warehouse system according to suitability for use in assortment in a selected production company focusing on material and information flows, decay processes, warehouse technology, logistic costs and relevant logistics indicators. The partial objective was to determine the critical factors in terms of management and operation in the warehouse of the selected manufacturing enterprise.

L’intégration croissante de la Génération Distribuée basée sur des sources d’énergies renouvelables présente de nouveaux défis pour le réseau électrique centralisé actuel. Le micro-réseau est une des alternatives envisagées afin d’augmenter le taux de pénétration d’énergie renouvelable et d’améliorer la qualité de l’énergie. La stabilité d’un micro-réseau est fortement sensible aux variations de puissance venant des sources d’énergie ou des charges. Dans ce contexte, un système de stockage d’énergie joue un rôle essentiel et doit satisfaire deux conditions : disposer d’une capacité de stockage importante pour adapter la production à la demande et être capable de fournir rapidement une puissance instantanée suffisante pour pallier les problèmes de qualité d’énergie. L’objectif principal de cette thèse est de concevoir et valider expérimentalement un système de conversion de puissance et l’algorithme de contrôle associé pour la gestion du stockage dans un micro-réseau afin de satisfaire les deux conditions. Suite à l’analyse de différentes technologies de stockage, on peut conclure qu’il n’y a pas de système de stockage capable de satisfaire les conditions d’énergie et de puissance en même temps. Par conséquent, l’association d’un supercondensateur et d’une batterie Redox au Vanadium dans un Système de Stockage Hybride est utilisée pour satisfaire les conditions mentionnées. Le travail de recherche est axé sur la gestion du flux d’énergie et de puissance du Système de Stockage Hybride proposé à l’aide d’un système de conversion de puissance innovant et son algorithme de commande. Un convertisseur multi-niveaux 3LNPC a été choisi pour commander en même temps les deux systèmes de stockage, en raison de faibles pertes de puissance et de distorsions harmoniques réduites en comparaison avec d’autres topologies existantes. Un algorithme de commande capable d’exploiter les limites de fonctionnement du convertisseur sur toute sa plage de fonctionnement a été conçu afin de satisfaire de manière optimale les critères spécifiés. Le fonctionnement du système de conversion et la stratégie de commande proposée ont été validés d’abord en simulation et ensuite expérimentalement en utilisant le micro-réseau installé à l’ESTIA. / The increasing penetration of Distributed Generation systems based on Renewable Energy Sources is introducing new challenges in the current centralised electric grid. The microgrid is one of the alternatives that is being analysed in order to increase the penetration level of renewable energy sources in electrical grids and improve the power quality. The microgrid stability is highly sensitive to power variations coming from the energy sources or loads. In this context, an energy storage system is essential and it must satisfy two criteria: to have a high storage capacity to adapt the generation to the demand and to be able to supply fast power variations to overcome the power quality problems that may arise. The main objective of this thesis has been to design a power conversion system and the associated control algorithm for a storage system management in order to satisfy the defined requirements, as well as to experimentally validate the proposed solution. After an analysis of different storage system technologies, it can be concluded that there is not any storage system capable of offering the energy and power requirements at the same time. Consequently, the association of a SuperCapacitor bank and a Vanadium Redox Battery is used to satisfy the mentioned requirements. This thesis has been focused on the power and energy flow management of the proposed Hybrid Energy Storage System through an innovative power conversion system and its control method. A Three-Level Neutral Point Clamped converter has been used to control at the same time the two storage systems, due to the reduced power losses and harmonic distortion compared to other existing topologies. A control algorithm that uses the operational limits of the converter in its entire operation range has been designed in order to allow selecting the best operation point according to the specified criteria. The operation of the power conversion system and the proposed control method have been first validated in simulations and then experimentally using the microgrid installed in ESTIA.

The performance of hard disks has become increasingly important as the volume of data storage increases. At the bottom level of large-scale storage networks is the hard disk. Despite the importance of hard drives in a storage network, it is often difficult to analyze the performance of hard disks due to the sheer size of the datasets seen by hard disks. Additionally, hard drive workloads can have several multi-dimensional characteristics, such as access time, queue depth and block-address space. The result is that hard drive workloads are extremely diverse and large, making extracting meaningful information from hard drive workloads very difficult. This is one reason why there are several inefficiencies in storage networks. In this paper, we develop a tool that assists in communicating valuable insights into these datasets, resulting in an approach that utilizes parallel coordinates to model data storage workloads captured with bus analyzers. Users are presented with an effective visualization of workload captures with this implementation, along with methods to interact with and manipulate the model in order to more clearly analyze the lowest level of their storage systems. Design decisions regarding the feature set of this tool are based on the analysis needs of domain experts and feedback from a conducted user study. Results from our user study evaluations demonstrate the efficacy of our tool to observe valuable insights, which can potentially assist in future storage system design and deployment decisions. Using this tool, domain experts were able to model storage system datasets with various features to manipulate the visualization to make observations and discoveries, such as detecting logical block address banding and observe various dataset trends which were not readily noticeable using conventional analysis methods.

The diploma thesis deals with the problem of storage capacities of server discs in the allowance organization of Brno City Museum. The organization has long-lasting troubles with insufficient capacity of these discs. The aim of this thesis is to analyse the current state and to propose a suitable solution on the basis of the results of this analysis. Further, the suggested measures should be applied as well.

Bakgrund: För att företag ska kunna tillgodose kundernas efterfrågan har de oftast ett färdigvarulager med produkter för att snabbt kunna leverera till kunder. Det blir därmed viktigt för företagen att maximera lagret och dess utformning. Användningen av lagret bör ske på ett sådant sätt att lagerhållningskostnaderna och lagerhanteringskostnaderna minimeras.  Syfte: Syftet med detta examensarbete är att göra en nulägesbeskrivning på Beds by Scapa över hur färdigvarulagret för bäddmadrasser och huvudgavlar är uppbyggt samt identifiera utmaningar och se om det finns möjligheter till förbättringar kring lagerhantering. Metod: Denna studie utgår från en kvalitativ och kvantitativ forskningsmetod. Då studien utgår från teoretisk förförståelse kommer kritisk realism tillämpas. Studien är en fallstudie där empirisk material är inhämtat från observationer och intervjuer som har varit både ostrukturerade och semistrukturerade. När det gäller kvantitativa forskningsmetoden har data från affärssystemet inhämtats och mätningar utförts.  Slutsats: Studien har genom en nulägesanalys identifierat utmaningar och förbättringsförslag som existerar för sektionerna bäddmadrasser och huvudgavlar. Två olika alternativ har presenterats och det första innebär att använda ABC-kategorisering och det andra innebär att förbättra familjegruppsindelningen som redan används. / Background: In order for companies to meet customer demand, they usually have a finished goods inventory of products to quickly deliver to customers. It thus becomes important for companies to maximize the stock and its design layout. The use of the warehouse should be done in such a way that the storage costs and handling costs are minimized. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to present a current status report of how Beds by Scapas finished inventory of bed mattresses and headboards is constructed within the warehouse, and to identify if there are any challenges and see if there are opportunities for improvements in inventory management. Method: This study is based on a qualitative and quantitative research method. Since the study is based on theoretical understanding, critical realism will be applied. The study is a case study in which empirical material is obtained from observations and interviews that have been both unstructured and semi-structured. When it comes to the quantitative method, data has been collected from the ERP system and measurements has been carried out.  Conclusion: The study has identified a challenge and improvement suggestions that exist for the bed mattresses and headboard sections through a current situation analysis. Two different alternatives have been presented where the first alternative is to use ABC-categorization and the second alternative is to improve the family grouping that is already in place.