AURA-NMS: Autonomous Regional Active Network Management System

电在日常生活中是如此根深蒂固，以至于当它不可用时，许多基本的和简单的快乐就会停止工作。找到更好地管理配电系统故障的方法是提高向客户提供的供电质量的关键途径。社会还面临着能源来源的选择，我们需要找到方法来消除小规模可再生能源发电连接的技术障碍，而不会造成巨大的成本损失。这两项任务都很困难的原因是（i）配电系统的低压部分被设计用于简单操作而没有主动控制，以及（ii）配电系统非常大，并且总体中央控制是不现实的。解决方案还受到大量现有设备的限制，这些设备只有很长的使用寿命，而且过早更换成本太高。该项目将探索一种逐渐从现有中央控制室（半自动和半手动）下放控制权限的方法，并使用位于每个变电站的控制器/决策者点对点网络。控制器可以打开和关闭远程控制开关，以将负载重新分配到网络的不同部分，并采取各种电压校正措施。有一个强烈的需要，通信，以获得反馈信息，并允许一个控制器，只有部分视图的系统，以合作，找到一个最佳的一组采取的行动，在故障的情况下，一个超出公差的电压或发电机，其输出受到网络约束。该项目具有挑战性，因为它需要集成分布式控制，决策，网络分析和通信方面的研究。为此，我们组建了一个由7所大学和3家电力行业主要国际公司组成的团队。

Electricity is so deeply ingrained in everyday life that when it is not available many things, essential and simply pleasurable, cease working. Finding ways to better manage faults in electricity distribution systems is a key way of improving the quality of supply offered to customers. Society also faces choices about its sources of energy and we need to find ways to remove technical barriers to the connection of small scale renewable generation without large cost penalties. The reasons that both of these tasks are difficult are (i) that the low voltage part of the distribution system was designed for simple operation without active control and (ii) the distribution system is very large and overall central control is not realistic. Solutions are also constrained by the large amount of existing equipment that is only part way through a long service life and is too expensive to replace prematurely. This project will explore a means to gradually devolving control authority from the existing central control room (which is semi-automated and semi-manual) and use a peer-to-peer network of controllers/decision-makers placed at each substation. The controllers can open and close remotely controlled switches to reallocate loads to different parts of the network and take various voltage correction actions. There is a strong need for communication to obtain feedback information and to allow a controller with only a partial view of the system to cooperate in finding an optimal set of actions to take in the event of a fault, an out-of-tolerance voltage or a generator whose output is being limited by network constraints. The project is challenging because it requires integration of research in distributed control, decision making, network analysis and communications. For this reason we have assembled a team drawn from 7 universities and 3 major international companies in the power industry.