Assessment of smart grid technologies and changing loads on the electrical insulation condition of power system components

进入21世纪以来，随着电力需求的不断增长，电力行业面临着诸多挑战。公众对化石和核能发电的环境和安全风险的日益担忧，助长了这一需求。另一方面，提供高可靠性和低成本电力的清洁、低成本的水力发电站已经被开发。由小型太阳能和风能发电厂组成的分布式发电被认为是满足电力需求的最有前途的解决方案。 在过去，由闪电引起的瞬变以及因负荷变化或故障而引起的开关操作是过电压的主要原因。然而，随着可再生能源对电网渗透率的增加，现在大多数暂态是由于一次能源的性质造成的。此外，由于风速的变化，真空断路器(VCB)在与风电场相连的电网中频繁操作是很常见的。VCB的开关操作可能会导致瞬时过电压。因此，在大量使用可再生能源的地区，变压器和电缆附件等某些部件的故障率不断出现。 此外，电网终端用户现在不仅是电力消费者，而且在许多情况下还成为电力生产者，这使得电网更加复杂。由于为电动汽车充电所需的大量电力，电网压力进一步增加，预计在未来几年，电动汽车的电气化将给交通行业带来重大转变。由于绝缘故障可能导致停电，因此需要研究新技术和变化的负载对电网部件电气绝缘系统的影响。这项拟议的研究旨在通过研究电力绝缘系统的性能及其在未来电网中的完整性来弥合这一差距，未来电网中可再生能源和插电式电动汽车的普及将丰富电力绝缘系统，从开发合适的诊断和合成复合材料以建立可持续绝缘的角度出发。滑铁卢大学的高压实验室提供了必要的基础设施，如专门的电源和用于培训的诊断工具。这些HQP对加拿大的材料、设备和大型电力部件(如变压器)制造商、电力公用事业公司、当地配电公司、风力发电场开发商和Hydro One等大型网络至关重要。这项研究的知识和技术成果对加拿大未来电网的发展具有重要意义，应用研究将加强工程师的教学和培训，这将有助于加拿大电力系统设备制造商和加拿大咨询行业成为技术领先者。

From the beginning of 21st century, the electricity sectors are facing several challenges with the ever-growing demand in electricity. Fueling this demand is the growing public concern about environmental and safety risks of fossil and nuclear generations. On the other hand, clean, low-cost hydro generating sites that provide high reliability and low cost electricity have already been exploited. Distributed generation consisting of small scale solar and wind power plants has been considered to provide promising solutions to meet the power demands. In the past transients due to lightning, and switching operations with load changes or fault occurrences were the main causes of overvoltages. However, with increased penetration of renewable energy sources to the grid, the majority of transients are now due to the nature of the primary source of energy. In addition, the frequent operation of vacuum circuit breakers (VCBs) is common in grids connected to wind farms due to variation in wind speed. The switching operation, by VCBs can cause transient overvoltages. As such, in areas heavily loaded with renewable energy sources the failure rate experienced by certain components like transformers and cable accessories is being constantly experienced. Moreover, grid end-users are now not only consumers of electricity but, in many cases also becoming electricity producers, making the grid even more complex. Pressure on the grid has further increased due to the sizable amount of electricity required to charge electric vehicles, which in next few years, from electrification of vehicles is expected to bring a significant shift to the transportation industry. The impact of new technologies and changing loads on the electrical insulation system of power grid components needs to be investigated as insulation failure can lead to power outages. The proposed research aims to bridge this gap by studying the performance of the electrical insulation systems and their integrity in the future grid that is enriched with penetration of renewable energy sources and plug-in electric vehicles from the perspective of developing suitable diagnostics and synthesizing composite materials to build sustainable insulation. The University of Waterloo's HV Lab provides the required infrastructure, such as specialized power sources and diagnostic tools for training. These HQP are essential to Canadian manufacturers of materials, devices and large power components like transformers, and power utilities local distribution companies, wind farm developers and large networks like Hydro One. The knowledge and technology outcomes of this research are of significant importance to the development of the Canadian future grid, and the applied research will enhance the teaching and training of engineers that will contribute to Canadian manufacturers of power system equipment and Canadian consulting industries as technology leaders.