Engineering Commons^™

Cost Minimizing Energy Management Control Scheme For Microgrids Considering Dynamic Electricity Prices, Levi T. Miller

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

As countries develop and technology improves, the world is using more energy than ever before. This fact along with several other political, social, and economic factors has resulted in simultaneous energy and climate crises. A partial solution to both problems is bringing clean energy sources of electricity closer to the customers who use that energy. A microgrid is a smaller version of the national electric grid where smaller electricity generators are networked with local consumers and controlled independently of the main grid. Because control of electricity sources and loads are transferred to local controllers, the flexibility with which they can …

Impacts Of High Renewable Power Grids On System Planning And Monitoring, Zhihao Jiang

Doctoral Dissertations

To achieve the goal of a carbon pollution-free electricity sector by 2035 proposed by Biden’s Administration, the U.S. power grids are expecting a dramatic transformation in the resource mix of electricity generation. This dissertation will present related research in several different aspects that will be largely affected by the clean energy transition.

The increasing size and complexity of the bulk power systems have made it more computationally burdensome to simulate the power system in full-size. As an alternative to traditional model-based methods, Chapter 2 proposes a measurement-based model reduction approach using system identification techniques. Chapter 3 presents a parameter fine-tuning …

Consensus-Based Active And Reactive Power Control And Management Of Microgrids, Shruti Singh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Microgrids incorporating distributed generation and renewable energy sources offer potential solutions to the energy crisis while modernizing traditional grids. Despite cost-effectiveness in some technologies, financial support remains crucial for expensive ones like PV, fuel cells, and storage technologies. Microgrids bring economic benefits, efficiency, reduced emissions, and improved power quality. Their success hinges on cost reductions in renewables, storage, reliability, and energy management systems, enabling operation both with and without the utility grid.

Economic Dispatch optimizes system costs, considering all constraints. Various methods tackle this problem, including quadratic convex functions, Lagrangian relaxation, and quadratic programming. For microgrids with distributed generators, seamless …

Achieving High Renewable Energy Integration In Smart Grids With Machine Learning, Yaze Li

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The integration of high levels of renewable energy into smart grids is crucial for achieving a sustainable and efficient energy infrastructure. However, this integration presents significant technical and operational challenges due to the intermittent nature and inherent uncertainty of renewable energy sources (RES). Therefore, the energy storage system (ESS) has always been bound to renewable energy, and its charge and discharge control has become an important part of the integration. The addition of RES and ESS comes with their complex control, communication, and monitor capabilities, which also makes the grid more vulnerable to attacks, brings new challenges to the cybersecurity. …

Power System Dynamic Control And Performance Improvement Based On Reinforcement Learning, Wei Gao

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the feasibility and effectiveness of using Reinforcement Learning (RL) techniques for power system dynamic control, particularly voltage and frequency control. The conventional control strategies used in power systems are complex and time-consuming due to the complicated high-order nonlinearities of the system. RL, which is a type of neural network-based technique, has shown promise in solving these complex problems by fitting any nonlinear system with the proper network structure.

The proposed RL algorithm, called Guided Surrogate Gradient-based Evolution Strategy (GSES) determines the weights of the policy (which generates the action for our control reference signal) without back-propagation process …

Evaluating The Impact Of Increased Cycling On Thermal Power Plants Due To Wind Energy Penetration In The Midwest: A Case Study, Joscelyne Larson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

One of the most significant shifts in the mix of U.S. electricity generation over the past few years has been the rapid expansion of renewable energy resources, especially solar and wind. However, fossil fuels are still necessary to fulfill the world’s energy requirements. Despite efforts to increase the use of renewable energy sources, these sources can be at times unreliable, causing countries around the world to continue to rely on base load units such as coal and natural gas. This decrease in fossil fuels and increase in renewable energy sources presents many complex issues in terms of power system planning, …