CAREER:Toward a Self-Managing and Efficient Power Grid enabled by Corrective Power Flow Control and Distributed Grid Management

现有的电网是为这样一种情况而建的，即由可调度的散装发电厂在少数地点注入电力，以供应僵硬的负荷。它是为重复出现的潮流模式而设计的，具有有限的控制能力，其运行方式符合N-1安全性确定性公式的要求。由此产生的对电网运行的约束导致对可用输电容量的低效和保守使用，并导致以经济上次优的方式调度发电。为了能够过渡到高效、可持续的电力供应系统，未来的输电电网需要能够适应由可变的可再生发电和灵活的需求引起的日益变化的潮流。这还包括根据安全定义运行电网，该定义反映了系统安全的概率性质，以确保安全水平和发电成本之间的合理权衡。一个配备了无处不在的潮流控制的电网，能够将电力重新路由到传输能力可用的地方，构成了实现这些目标的基础。然而，相关控制变量数量的增加也显著增加了电网运行的复杂性，这是传统的集中式电网管理方法难以甚至不可能处理的。智能优点：在该方案中，提出了一种全新的输电电网管理方法，使无处不在的潮流控制成为现实。设计了一种基于分解理论的分布式电网管理方案，该方案考虑了潮流控制装置所提供的校正(即事故后)动作能力。利用正常状态和事故情况之间的解耦以及停电在空间上的有限影响，推导出计算高效的算法。其目的是最大限度地减少基于风险的安全指数，其中使用意外事件的概率及其后果的严重程度来定义系统安全水平。为了保持现有的集中式发电调度市场结构，引入了位置安全影响因子(LSIF)。这些因素为运营商提供了发电重新调度对安全影响的衡量标准。因此，本文的研究提供了将电网转变为灵活资产的方法，实现了电网自主管理的愿景。可用的输电资产以非保守但安全的方式使用，以适应经济上最优的发电调度，实现安全和成本之间的理想平衡。广泛的影响：拟议的项目为电网管理提供了一个全新的视角。它有望产生显著的计算改进，这是在电力系统中最大限度地利用无处不在的潮流控制所必需的。应用拟议的概念有望大幅减少可再生发电，削减发电总成本，加快发展和采用潮流控制，并整合可再生发电。因此，电网变成了推动者，而不是通往可持续电力能源未来的障碍。此外，分布式系统操作的发展将对其他类型的大型系统有用。这项拟议的研究将由研究生和本科生进行，其结果将被整合到本科和研究生课程中。作为IEEE女性工程(WIE)匹兹堡分部的主席和CMU女生暑期工程体验项目的讲师，PI将利用这项研究作为激励K12学生和女性选择电力系统工程作为他们的学习领域。这不仅有助于增加工程学领域的少数族裔人数，还有助于培养学生在一个最大挑战之一是劳动力老龄化的行业中为未来做准备。

The existing electric power grid was built for a situation in which power was injected at a few locations by dispatchable bulk power plants to supply inflexible loads. It was designed for reoccurring power flow patterns, has limited control capabilities and is operated such as to fulfill the requirement given by the deterministic formulation of N-1 security. The resulting constraints imposed on grid operations lead to an inefficient and conservative usage of the available transmission capacities and cause generation to be dispatched in an economically suboptimal way. To enable the transition to an efficient sustainable electric energy supply system, the transmission grid of the future needs to be able to adjust to the increasingly varying power flows caused by variable renewable generation and flexible demand. This also includes operating the grid according to a definition of security which reflects the probabilistic nature of system security to ensure a reasonable trade-off between the level of security and generation cost. A grid equipped with ubiquitous power flow control capable of rerouting power to where transmission capacity is available forms the basis to achieve these goals. However, the associated increase in the number of control variables also significantly increases the complexity of operating the power grid which is difficult or even impossible to handle with the traditional centralized grid management approach.Intellectual Merit: In this proposal, a fundamentally new approach for managing the transmission grid is proposed enabling a future in which ubiquitous power flow control has become a reality. A distributed grid management scheme based on decomposition theory is devised which takes into account the capability for corrective, i.e. post-contingency, actions provided by power flow control devices. Advantage is taken of the decoupling between normal state and contingency cases and of the spatially limited influence of outages to derive computationally efficient algorithms. The objective is to minimize a risk-based security index in which probabilities of contingencies and the severity of their consequences are used to define the level of system security. To preserve the existing centralized market structure for generation dispatch, Locational Security Impact Factors (LSIF) are newly introduced. These factors provide the operator with a measure of influence of a generation redispatch on security. Hence, the proposed research provides the methods to transform the power grid into a flexible asset and realizes the vision of a self-managing grid. The available transmission assets are used in a non-conservative yet secure way to accommodate an economically optimal generation dispatch achieving the desired trade-off between security and cost.Broader Impact: The proposed project offers a completely new view on power grid management. It is expected to yield significant computational improvements which are needed to make optimal usage of ubiquitous power flow control in the electric power system. Applying the proposed concepts promises substantial reductions in renewable generation curtailment and overall cost of generation expediting the development and adoption of power flow control and integration of renewable generation. Hence, the power grid is turned into an enabler rather than being an obstacle on the path towards a sustainable electric energy future. Furthermore, the developments in distributed system operation will be useful across other types of large-scale systems. The proposed research will be carried out by graduate and undergraduate students and the results will be integrated into undergraduate and graduate courses. As the chair of the IEEE Women in Engineering (WIE) Pittsburgh section and an instructor in the Summer Engineering Experience for Girls program at CMU, the PI will use this research as motivation for K12 students and women to choose power systems engineering as their field of study. This not only contributes to increasing the number of minorities in engineering but also to training students for a future in an industry for which one of the biggest challenges is the aging workforce.