CAREER: Computational toolbox for improved security of power systems

电网正在经历可能是过去50年来最具变革性的转变。清洁但间歇性(零星)可再生发电的引入给电力系统运行带来了前所未有的不确定性。与此同时，社会变得越来越依赖可靠的电力供应，对停电越来越敏感。保持电力系统的安全性，即其承受最可能的扰动的能力是一个极具挑战性的计算问题。运营商必须对数百万种情况进行快速筛选，并为其中最危险的情况准备应急计划。该项目的主要目标是开发新一代计算技术，以便能够快速识别确保系统弹性的安全运行条件。这一目标是通过有针对性地改进和调整现代优化和非线性分析技术来实现的，以适应电力行业面临的具体挑战。后者包括但不限于：估计在间歇性风力发电存在的情况下运行所需的备用水平，确定最危险的线路故障情况，设计最有效的补救行动计划。研究活动将与教育和外联工作紧密结合在一起。来自少数族裔的本科生和高中生将参加小组研究和教育活动。将开发一套以电网为灵感的简单谜题，帮助孩子们和广大受众解释当今电力行业面临的技术权衡和决定。最后，将开发一个新的EDX电力系统交互式问题入门课程，以帮助为电力行业培养未来的工程技术人员。项目研究部分的技术方法基于在参数空间中构建安全运行区域的思想，在该区域中，解决方案确保存在并满足运行约束。这些“证书”形式上是可行性集的内部近似，可以通过各种技术构建，其中最一般的依赖于平方和方法。该项目将探索电力系统运行和安全评估中出现的数学问题的可能表现形式。开发的数学工具将自然地解决的具体问题包括：不超过限值的计算、交流潮流模型的N-1和N-2意外事件的筛选、补救措施的验证、在存在分布式无功控制的情况下电压稳定裕度的评估。将构建一个证书层次结构，涵盖保守性-复杂性权衡曲线及其在标准IEEE测试用例上演示的有效性。这些代码的实现将链接到最流行的学术分析包，并在公共领域的开源许可下发布。

The power grid is undergoing probably the most transformative transition in the last 50 years. Introduction of clean, but intermittent (sporadic) renewable generation introduces an unprecedented level of uncertainty in power system operation. At the same time, the society becomes more and more dependent on reliable supply of power and more sensitive to power outages. Maintaining power system security i.e. its ability to withstand most probable disturbances is an extremely challenging computational problem. Millions of scenarios have to be fast screened by operators and contingency plans prepared for the most dangerous of them. The key objective of this project is to develop a new generation of computational techniques that would allow fast identification of safe operating conditions that ensure system resiliency. This goal is achieved by targeted advancement and adaptation of the modern optimization and nonlinear analysis techniques to specific challenges faced by the power industry. The latter include but are not limited to: estimation of the reserve levels necessary for operation in the presence of intermittent wind power, identification of the most dangerous line failure scenarios, design of the most effective remedial action plans. The research activities will be tightly interwoven with educational and outreach efforts. Undergraduate and high-school students from underrepresented minorities will be engaged in the group research and educational activities. A set of simple power-grid inspired puzzles will be developed that will help explaining the kids and the broad audience the technical trade-offs and decisions that the power industry faces today. Finally, a new EdX introductory class on power systems with interactive problems will be developed to help in educating the future engineering workforce for power industry.The technical approach of the research part of the project is based on the idea of constructing safe operation regions in parameter space where the solution is guaranteed to exist and satisfy operational constraints. These "certificates" are formally an inner approximation of the feasibility set and can be constructed via a variety of techniques with the most general relying on Sum-of-Squares approaches. The project will explore possible representations of the mathematical problems appearing in the context of power system operations and security assessment. Specific problems that will be naturally addressed with the developed mathematical tools include computation of do-not-exceed limits, screening of N-1 and N-2 contingencies for AC power flow model, verification of the remedial actions, assessment of voltage stability margins in the presence of distributed reactive power control. A hierarchy of certificates will be constructed covering the conservativeness - complexity trade-off curve and their effectiveness demonstrated on standard IEEE testcases. The implementations of the codes will be linked to the mostpopular academic analysis packages and release under open source license in public domain.