Distributed Dynamic Security Control in Next-Generation Electrical Power Systems

Ensuring secure and reliable operation of complex energy systems represents one of the most essential tasks for the well-functioning of modern industrial societies. The unprecedented pace at which the operating environments have changed during the last decade highlights the need for fundamental reconsideration of adopted practices in almost all parts of the industry. In this context, one of the most critical aspects represents the way how the increased levels of uncertainty related to large-scale integration of intermittent renewable energy sources would affect the definition, evaluation, and provision of system security in highly integrated structures near real time. The existing approaches for modeling, optimization, and control of electrical power systems mainly consist in solutions relying on assumptions that are increasingly questioned by the industry itself. For example, profound changes develop through the dramatic rise of renewable power generation and the advances in communication technology. In order to account for the expected technical challenges and also to respond to changing regulatory paradigms, the present project aims at the creation of a dedicated set of novel system-theoretic computational methods towards distributed security assessment and enhancement of power systems. Taking into account predictions regarding the future availability of fast communication and in addition relying on a specialized descriptor format managing the set of differential- algebraic equations, the proposed methods form a scalable and adaptive framework called DistDSA. The latter is to be suitable for deployment in vertically and horizontally integrated heterogeneous power systems and their operation near real time. Thanks to a computational stage of structure-preserving model order reduction, DistDSA for the first time optimizes short-term electromechanical system dynamics online and in a distributed way in their pure and approximated forms. The methods are designed to reflect the call for a multilateral provision of system security in electrical power systems of the next generation.

Principal Investigators:

Prof. Dr. Volker Mehrmann
Prof. Dr. Kai Strunz