Power systems are considered as one of the largest and most complex systems made by mankind. With the current trend toward the increase of the participation of renewable energy sources and distributed generation, the energy grids are becoming even more complex. The concept of smart grid aims to electrical networks in which generation, consume and energy storage can be controlled with the aim of maximizing efficiency in the electricity production. The fulfilment of this objective requires new control schemes in order not only to improve efficiency, but also ensure stability of the entire network and the scalability of the solutions.
The control of large-scale dynamical systems is one of the biggest challenges facing control engineers today. Large-scale systems are common in applications such as chemical process control, highway control and air traffic control, among others. The size and complexity of such systems does not allow to use both analysis and synthesis tools from the classical and centralized control literature. In order to manage the complexity and the amount of computation required to analyse and control a large-scale system, designers are often forced to break down the whole problem into smaller subproblems towards solving such subproblems separately, and then to combine their solutions in order to get a global result for the original task. However, resultant subproblems are not independent. Some coordination or modification of their solutions might be necessary in order to consider the interrelationships among the constitutive subsystems, always keeping in mind the goal of reaching the best control performance.
The objective of this Individual Research Project is to investigate, propose and design alternative topologies and control schemes from a non-centralised perspective for distributed power generation systems with the aim of getting smaller subsystems and coordinating their management via supervisory techniques based on optimisation of global criteria.
Tasks
- Exploring techniques for partitioning the entire system in order to avoid performance degradation when uncertainties and disturbances are taken into account.
- Studying and evaluating the use of alternative topologies and control schemes for large-scale complex energy grids from a non-centralised perspective.
- Designing supervisory techniques based on optimisation of global criteria for the management and control of non-centralised energy networks
Expected Results
- A set of control methodologies for control of large-scale complex energy grids taking into account the interaction between the control strategies and the dynamic partitioning approaches.
- A generic software tool for analysing and designing the closed loop topology for a test grid.
Early Stage Researcher:
Supervisor:
Carlos Ocampo-Martínez
Host institution:
