Assessment and mitigation of the impacts of distributed generation on urban utilities

在托马斯·爱迪生发明了第一个商业上可行的灯泡之后，电力生产和消费的企业就像一条单行道。爱迪生的公司生产电力，并通过电缆分配网络将其出售给纽约的59个客户。从那时起，电力设施成倍增加，向客户传输和分配电力的互联网络也变得越来越复杂。为了确保电力供应的可靠性，已经制定了操作程序、法规和安全系统。这些系统现在正受到电力企业的两个相对新来者的挑战——可再生能源和分布式发电。例如，使用小型风力涡轮机和后院太阳能电池板，个人用户现在可以为自己的需要生产电力。他们也可以把多余的电力卖回给传统的公用事业公司。这种新方法有很多好处（如减少系统峰值负荷、提高可靠性和环境可持续性），但它也提出了挑战，其中包括如何将这些新能源整合到现有的网络中，如何保持它们的安全和可靠运行，如何调节它们以及如何预测供应（因为风能和太阳能受到意外天气变化的影响）。本研究计划将解决这些问题，并为公用事业和监管机构提供工具，以协助他们进行整合过程，并确保整体电力供应的可靠性。这项研究由电力和气象领域的四位杰出工程师和科学家领导。他们和他们的学生将使用现代研究工具，如数学建模、优化工具和数值天气预报，以应对这些新的挑战，并在它们成为问题之前发现积极的方法来应对它们。在艾伯塔省埃德蒙顿的EPCOR配电和输电公司的支持下，该项目将重点关注城市环境中规划和运行配电系统的具体挑战。

After Thomas Edison invented the first commercially viable light bulb, the enterprise of electrical power production and consumption was like a one-way street. Edison's company generated the electricity and sold it to 59 customers in New York, via a distribution network of electrical cables. Since then, electrical utilities have multiplied and the interconnected networks that transmit and distribute it to customers have become ever more complex. In order to insure the reliability of the electrical power supply, operating procedures, regulations and safety systems have been put in place. These systems are now being challenged by two relative newcomers to the electrical power enterprise - renewable energy and distributed generation. Using small wind turbines and backyard solar panels, for example, individual customers can now produce electrical power for their own needs. They can also sell excess power back to the traditional utilities. This new approach has numerous benefits (such as reducing system peak load, reliability improvements, and environmental sustainability), but it also presents challenges, among them how to integrate these new power sources into existing networks, how to keep them safe and operating reliably, how to regulate them and how to forecast the supply (since wind and solar power are subject to the unexpected changes of the weather). This research proposal will address these issues and provide utilities and regulators with tools to assist them with the integration process and assure the reliability of the overall electrical power supply. The research is led by four prominent engineers and scientists in the field of electrical power and meteorology. They and their students will use modern research tools such as mathematical modelling, optimization tools and numerical weather prediction in order to address these new challenges and discover proactive means to deal with them before they become a problem. Supported by EPCOR Distribution and Transmission of Edmonton, Alberta, this project will concentrate on specific challenges of planning and operating electricity distribution systems in urban environments.