Collaborative Research: Planning for Uncertainty in Coupled Water-Power Distribution Networks

该项目的目标是开发在社区或城市的物理规模上联合运营市政饮用水和电力分配网络的方法。诸如水泵的耗电水网设备可以通过转移泵送负载来为电网提供灵活性。供水网络为电力网络提供的灵活性提高了电力网络的可靠性，进而提高了供水网络的可靠性。此外，电网运行灵活性的增加降低了运营成本，并可以帮助配电网更高地渗透可再生能源。该项目将为不确定条件下的耦合水电网络制定运营规划和实时控制策略，制定灵活的经济合同，评估网络对新的运营/控制策略和经济机制的适应能力，并更新这些新方法以保持或改善当前的适应能力水平。这项研究将有助于改善耦合水电系统的经济性，环境影响，可靠性和弹性。此外，该研究将通过与电力和水务合作伙伴的合作产生实际影响。该团队将向研究社区和从业人员传播他们的成果，开发课程材料，并为代表性不足的研究生和本科生提供多学科的研究经验。该项目将有助于优化，经济合同设计，弹性建模，电力系统和供水网络等领域。任务1将开发用于推进耦合水电网络建模和解决两个网络耦合运行中出现的具有挑战性的随机优化问题的最新方法。任务2将开发设计经济合同的方法，以确保水电公司的协调和客户的激励。任务3将推进对谁面临基础设施的灾害脆弱性的公平性的建模和分析。 虽然以前的工作制定了一个总体框架，用于衡量人口中基本服务损失的不公平性，但这还没有与详细的基础设施绩效模型相结合。本项目将建立这一关键联系，提高能力，以考虑旨在改善系统绩效的干预措施可能无意中产生的脆弱性方面的潜在不平等。这是至关重要的，以避免对弱势亚群体产生负面的，意想不到的后果。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

The goal of this project is to develop approaches for the joint operation of coupled municipal drinking water and electric power distribution networks at the physical scale of neighborhoods or cities. Electricity-consuming water network equipment such as water pumps can provide flexibility to electricity networks by shifting pumping load. Flexibility provided by the water network to the power network increases power network reliability, in turn increasing water network reliability. Further, increased flexibility in power network operation reduces operational costs and can help electric power distribution network incorporate higher penetrations of renewable energy resources. The project will develop operational planning and real-time control strategies for coupled water-power networks under uncertainty, develop economic contracts for flexibility, assess network resilience to new operational/control strategies and economic mechanisms, and update these new approaches to maintain or improve upon current levels of resilience. This research will help improve the economics, environmental impact, reliability, and resilience of coupled water-power systems. Further, the research will have practical impacts through collaboration with electric and water utility partners. The team will disseminate their results to the research community and practitioners, develop curriculum materials, and provide multidisciplinary research experiences for underrepresented graduate and undergraduate students.The project will contribute to the fields of optimization, economic contract design, resilience modeling, electric power systems, and water networks. Task 1 will develop approaches for advancing the state-of-the-art in coupled water-power network modeling and solving the challenging stochastic optimization problems that arise in the coupled operation of the two networks. Task 2 will develop approaches to design economic contracts to ensure coordination of the water and electric companies and incentivization of the customers. Task 3 will advance the modeling and analysis of equity in who faces infrastructure vulnerability from hazards. While previous work developed a general framework for measuring inequity in the loss of essential services across a population, this has not been integrated with detailed infrastructure performance models. This project will make this critical linkage, advancing the ability to consider potential inequities in vulnerability that may inadvertently arise from interventions intended to improve system performance. This is critical to avoid having negative, unintended consequences on vulnerable sub-populations.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.