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

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

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.