Power and Energy Commons^™

Smart Charging Strategies For Electric Vehicle Charging Stations, Zeinab Moghaddam

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Although the concept of transportation electrification holds enormous prospects in addressing the global environmental pollution problem, consumer concerns over the limited availability of charging stations and long charging/waiting times are major contributors to the slow uptake of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) in many countries. To address the consumer concerns, many countries have undertaken projects to deploy a network of both fast and slow charging stations, commonly known as electric vehicle charging networks.

While a large electric vehicle charging network will certainly be helpful in addressing PEV owners' concerns, the full potential of this network cannot be realised without the implementation …

Analyzing The Efficiency Of Horizontal Photovoltaic Cells In Various Climate Regions, Parker A. Hines, Torrey J. Wagner, Clay M. Koschnick, Steven J. Schuldt

Faculty Publications

This research presents the development of linear regression models to predict horizontal photovoltaic power output. We collected a dataset from 14 global Department of Defense (DoD) installations over a timeframe of one year using an experimental apparatus, resulting in 24,179 usable data points. We developed a linear model to predict power output, which incorporated site-specific weather and geographical characteristics, along with Köppen-Geiger climate classifications in order to determine the effect of adding climate to the model. After performing a Wald test between the full model and a reduced model without Köppen-Geiger climate variables, it was determined that including Köppen-Geiger climate …

Aggregation Of Electric Water Heaters For Peak Shifting And Frequency Response Services, Thomas Leighton Clarke

Dissertations and Theses

The increased penetration of renewable energy sources poses new challenges for grid stability. The stochastic and uncontrollable generation of solar and wind power cannot be adjusted to match the load profile, and the transition away from traditional synchronous generators is reducing the grid capacity to arrest and recover from frequency disturbances.

Additionally, the distributed nature of many renewable energy sources makes centralized control of generation more complicated. The traditional power system paradigm balances the supply and demand of electricity on the grid by regulating generation. As this becomes more difficult, one alternative is to adjust the load instead. This is …

Smart Management Strategies Of Utility-Scale Energy Storage Systems In Power Networks, Choton Kanti Das

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Power systems are presently experiencing a period of rapid change driven by various interrelated issues, e.g., integration of renewables, demand management, power congestion, power quality requirements, and frequency regulation. Although the deployment of Energy Storage Systems (ESSs) has been shown to provide effective solutions to many of these issues, misplacement or non-optimal sizing of these systems can adversely affect network performance. This present research has revealed some novel working strategies for optimal allocation and sizing of utility-scale ESSs to address some important issues of power networks at both distribution and transmission levels. The optimization strategies employed for ESS placement and …

Weight Controlled Electric Skateboard, Zachary Barram, Carson Bertozzi, Vishnu Dodballapur

Computer Engineering

Technology and the way that humans interact is becoming more vital and omnipresent with every passing day. However, human interface device designers suffer from the increasingly popular “designed for me or people like me” syndrome. This design philosophy inherently limits accessibility and usability of technology to those like the designer. This places severe limits of usability to those who are not fully able as well as leaves non-traditional human interface devices unexplored. This project set out to explore a previously uncharted human interface device, on an electric skateboard, and compare it send user experience with industry leading human interface devices.

Gold Tree Solar Farm - Machine Learning To Predict Solar Power Generation, Jonathon T. Scott

Computer Science and Software Engineering

Solar energy causes a strain on the electrical grid because of the uncontrollable nature of the factors that affect power generation. Utilities are often required to balance solar generation facilities to meet consumer demand, which often includes the costly process of activating/deactivating a fossil fuel facility. Therefore, there is considerable interest in increasing the accuracy and the granularity of solar power generation predictions in order to reduce the cost of grid management. This project aims to evaluate how sky imaging technology may contribute to the accuracy of those predictions.

Heat: Hydraulic And Electric Animation Team, Tyler J. Couvrette, Michael J. Cain, Sara T. Novell, Dexter K. Yanagisawa

Mechanical Engineering

Each New Years’ Day, the Cal Poly Rose Float presents a flower-covered float to the world at the Tournament of Roses parade. This floral display, paired with moving mechanical animations, shows off Cal Poly to the world. This project strove to keep Cal Poly on the cutting edge of technology both in parade floats, and in engineering, by creating a completely electric-powered animation system.

To accomplish this, a group of students set out to make the fully electric animation system that can power both the hydraulic and electric mechanisms on the Float. This was accomplished through months of planning and …

Smart Dc Wall Outlet Design With Improved Load Voltage Detection, Patrick Donovon Granieri

Master's Theses

A standard home in the United States has access to the 120V AC power grid for use with home appliances. Many electronics used at home are powered by a DC power supply, which loses energy in the conversion from AC power. The DC House project avoids any conversion between AC and DC by storing energy in batteries as DC power and supplying it directly to DC appliances. While AC systems feature a standardized output voltage, no such standard exists for DC systems. The Smart DC Wall Outlet solves this by automatically adjusting its output voltage to meet any required DC …

Waved: A Coreless Axial Flux Pm Motor For Drive Systems With Constant Power Operation, Narges Taran, Vandana Rallabandi, Dan M. Ionel

Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky Faculty Publications

In this paper, a two-phase coreless AFPM machine with wave winding, 2-stators, and 3-rotors for traction applications is studied. A highly general optimization method, employing 3D FEA as the computational engine is employed. Number of poles in addition to other geometrical variables are included as independent optimization variables. A method for extending the speed range by rotating one of the stator discs with respect to the other at constant power operation is proposed. An inverter configuration including Si and wide band gap devices is proposed to be employed in conjunction with the machine under study. The study includes a comparison …

Modeling And Control Of A Multiport Converter Based Ev Charging Station With Pv And Battery, Yibin Zhang, Jiangbiao He, Dan M. Ionel

Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky Faculty Publications

As an environmental friendly vehicle, the increasing number of electrical vehicles (EVs) leads to a pressing need of widely distributed charging stations, especially due to the limited on-board battery capacity. However, fast charging stations, especially super-fast charging stations may stress power grid with potential overload at peaking time, sudden power gap and voltage sag. This paper discusses the detailed modeling of a multiport converter based EV charging station integrated with PV power generation, and battery energy storage system, by using ANSYS TwinBuilder. In this paper, the control scheme and combination of PV power generation, EV charging station, and battery energy …

Electric Aircraft System Co-Simulation Including Body, Propeller, Propulsion, And Energy Storage Models, Damien Lawhorn, Vandana Rallabandi, Dan M. Ionel

Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky Faculty Publications

This paper discusses the multi physics modeling of an electric aircraft with distributed electric propulsion. Mathematical models for the aircraft body, propellers, propulsive motors, power electronics inverters, and batteries are developed. Two types of models are proposed for the power electronics inverters and electric machines, namely, average models which allow study of the aircraft performance under a specified mission profile, and detailed switching models used for transient examination. A new simulation framework was developed to allow communication between these two types of models so that losses and thermal stresses in the power electronics converters can be estimated especially during takeoff, …

Apollo Photovoltaic Overview And Assessment, Andrew S. Hollis, James P. Tran, Andes Le, Regita Soetandar

Electrical Engineering

This senior project aims to take the various data sheets provided to us by PIVVIR Solar, the organization in charge of Apollo photovoltaic power plant, and perform an overall assessment as well as condensing the information into a more digestible and concise document. Currently, the documents provided to us by PIVVIR Solar are scattered and disorganized. Our goal is to take what we understand about photovoltaic power plants and combine it with the Apollo plant’s datasheets and summarize everything into one focused document that more readers can understand.

Dc-Dc Buck-Boost Converter For Energy Harvesting From Exercise Equipment, David T. Bolla

Electrical Engineering

This senior project helps harvest the excess energy that exercise equipment generates. Sustainable energy acts as the main target for this project, and it attempts this through reusing the energy created when exercising on elliptical machines. An elliptical machine outputs voltages between approximately 5V and 60V, and a micro-inverter requires an input voltage of about 36V. This DC-DC converter takes the variable output voltage of an elliptical machine and brings it to approximately 36V. Re-purposing the excess energy an elliptical user creates for the grid provides a sustainable alternative to dissipating the energy as heat. This project, along with other …

Cal Poly Ee 518 Electric Power Protection Laboratory, Richard Terre, Vincent Tham, Austin Kurth

Electrical Engineering

Facing a rapidly-changing power industry, the electrical engineering department at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo proposed Advanced Power Systems Initiatives to better prepare its students for entering the power industry. These initiatives call for the creation of a new laboratory curriculum that utilizes microprocessor-based relays to reinforce the fundamental concepts of power system protection.

The electric power protection laboratory (EPPL) senior project is the validation of lab manuals written for the planned EE-518 power system protections laboratory looking to be offered in Spring 2020 alongside the current lecture class under the same designation. This report evaluates the lab manual, verifies …

Spread Spectrum Buck Converter, Summer Elise Rutherford, Kyle Brandon Halloran, Brian Taylor Arbiv

Electrical Engineering

Electromagnetic interference (EMI) is an issue prevalent to DC-DC converters. When a system doesn’t effectively filter out external noise or signals, these signals can cause disturbances to the system at large. The switching technology of DC-DC converters (PWM in particular), lends the system susceptible to EMI because there is a prevalent peaks at the switching frequency, meaning any external signals will not be effectively attenuated at this frequency. This can cause significant issues at the input bus of the DC-DC converters because this bus is likely the input of a multitude of devices; the EMI susceptibility caused by switching technology …

Pv Hybrid Inverter And Bess, Jacob Sussex, William Dresser, Owen Mckenzie, Jonathan Wharton, Derek Seaman

Electrical Engineering

The storage of energy from renewable sources such as photovoltaic based systems is a growing market, with 36 MWh of storage installed in Q1 of 2018. A report from EnergySage earlier this year states that in 2017, 74% of residential solar owners were also interested in energy storage systems. Mainstream systems like Tesla’s Powerwall are competing with other lithium-ion based storage systems from a wide number of providers on the market today. Short term and long term data collection on a system like this could be useful in designing future systems which perform better than the current market offerings. This …

Multiple Input, Single Output Dc-Dc Conversion Stage For Dc House, Jason Baltierrez

Master's Theses

n this thesis project, a proposed architecture for the multiple input, single output conversion stage for the DC House was designed, simulated, and tested. This architecture allows for multiple different input sources to be used to create a single higher power output source. The design uses a DC-DC boost converter with a parallelable output which has been demonstrated to allow increased total output power as a function of the number of input sources available. The parallelable output has been shown to distribute load amongst the input sources relatively closely to optimize the system. This approach is also desirable since it …

Cp Ewheel, Garrett Maxon, Adam Berg, Logan Griffith, Jacob Butler, Alexander Evans

Electrical Engineering

With an increasing demand for environmentally friendly transportation options, the bike market is larger than ever. According to bikeleague.org, from 2005 to 2013, the number of commuters using bikes has grown by 62%, and continues to rise. Regardless, commute time remains a barrier for many prospective users. Traditional bikes are useful in scenarios where the user only needs to travel a short distance. Electric bikes allow individuals to travel to farther destinations quicker, and with less effort. However, most electric bikes are rather expensive, typically ranging in price from one thousand to ten thousand dollars. Additionally, because the bike, motor, …

Dc To Dc Usb-C Charger, Nikki Gmerek, Kenneth Nguyen, Uriel Serna

Electrical Engineering

The DC House USB-C Charger will convert the 48V input from the DC house, found on the Cal Poly campus, to 3 USB-C outputs: 5V, 12V, and 24 volts. The converter will deliver a total of 185 Watts out across all 3 outputs, with an efficiency greater than 82% at full load. The USB-C ports will be used to connect to compatible phones, laptops or any other device for charging/powering purposes. The goal of this project is to develop the most efficient and safe converter to deliver power to multiple outputs using USB-C, for items as small as a cell …

Dc House Smart Pathway Lighting System, Benjamin H. Tan, Rafael Santiago, Brendan Schoemehl

Electrical Engineering

The Student Experimental Farm (SEF) is a two-acre site where students are able to create projects and experiments. It is also the location of the DC House project, a house with electricity provided by DC power as opposed to the traditional AC power. The motive of the DC house project is to provide affordable and renewable electricity for people living in remote areas where ac power grids are not available. Currently, the SEF does not have any lighting, so students would have to work in the dark after the sun sets. By creating a smart lighting system for the pathway …

Dc-Dc Converter For Electric Vehicle, Jason Y. Zhou, Nicholas James Mah

Electrical Engineering

In this work, a DC-DC converter is designed for an electric vehicle. The DC-DC converter is designed to provide 500W with a 200-400V input and a 12-15V adjustable output. Electric vehicle sales are beginning to increase in popularity and the need for DC-DC converters to siphon power from the tractive system is not yet fully satisfied, especially for single-seater class vehicles. Additionally, improving performance in efficiency without sacrificing wide input voltage range can benefit future DC-DC converter designs. In the end, a forward active clamp DC-DC converter is designed and tested. Additionally, spreadsheet calculators, LTSpice simulations, and Matlab scripts were …

Directional Comparison Bus Protection Using Superimposed Partial Operating Current Characteristics, Bishwas Baral

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Various directional comparison bus protection methods including widely used superimposed directional element method need to have both voltages and currents from all feeders connected to the zone of protection to find the direction of current for detecting a bus fault or a line fault. The purpose of the thesis is to present a new technique for directional comparison bus protection to discriminate a bus fault from line fault and normal condition. The new technique, which is implementing superimposed directional element method to modify partial operating current characteristics (POC) method to superimposed POC (SPOC) method, does not use voltages from feeders, …

Operation And Planning Of Data Centers In Electricity Networks, Ali Vafamehr

Electrical Engineering Theses and Dissertations

Cloud computing provides unique opportunities for the various sectors of the economy such as the automotive industry, education, finance, and governmental entities. In-house IT infrastructures vary in quality and can often be outdated and ineffective. As an alternative, cloud computing is a popular IT model which allows various businesses to “outsource” the IT infrastructure to a more efficient model. Businesses are opting to use cloud computing in order to eliminate the capital expenses of traditional IT systems and reduce the around-the-clock expert manpower required to operate on-site IT infrastructures. Relying on cloud services gives businesses the flexibility to access a …

Symmetry And Dopant Diffusion In Inverted Nanopyramid Arrays For Thin Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells, Seok Jun Han

Chemical and Biological Engineering ETDs

In this dissertation, we enhance the efficiency of thin flexible monocrystalline silicon solar cells by breaking symmetry in light trapping nanostructures and improving homogeneity in dopant concentration profile. These thin cells are potentially less expensive than conventional thick silicon cells by using less silicon material and making the cells more convenient to be handled when supported on polymer films. Moreover, these cells are widely applicable due to their flexibility and lightweight. However, for high efficiencies, these cells require effective light trapping and charge collection. We achieve these in cells based on 14-mm-thick free-standing silicon films with light-trapping arrays of nanopyramidal …

Anonymous And Efficient Message Authentication Scheme For Smart Grid, Libing Wu, Jing Wang, Sherali Zeadally, Debiao He

Information Science Faculty Publications

Smart grid has emerged as the next-generation electricity grid with power flow optimization and high power quality. Smart grid technologies have attracted the attention of industry and academia in the last few years. However, the tradeoff between security and efficiency remains a challenge in the practical deployment of the smart grid. Most recently, Li et al. proposed a lightweight message authentication scheme with user anonymity and claimed that their scheme is provably secure. But we found that their scheme fails to achieve mutual authentication and mitigate some typical attacks (e.g., impersonation attack, denial of service attack) in the smart grid …

Optimal And Efficient Decision-Making For Power System Expansion Planning, Mahdi Mehrtash

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

A typical power system consists of three major sectors: generation, transmission, and distribution. Due to ever increasing electricity consumption and aging of the existing components, generation, transmission, and distribution systems and equipment must be analyzed frequently and if needed be replaced and/or expanded timely. By definition, the process of power system expansion planning aims to decide on new as well as upgrading existing system components in order to adequately satisfy the load for a foreseen future.

In this dissertation, multiple economically optimal and computationally efficient methods are proposed for expanding power generation, transmission, and distribution systems. First, a computationally efficient …

Very Low Power Cockcroft-Walton Voltage Multiplier For Rf Energy Harvesting Applications, Trace Langdon

Electrical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

A device was required that could harvest the electromagnetic energy present in ambient radio frequency (RF) signals. A part of this device must convert the AC RF signal received by the antenna into a DC signal that can be used in an embedded application. Since the RF signal amplitude is small, it must first be amplified and rectified to become a usable signal. The Cockcroft-Walton voltage multiplier is a subsystem of the design which ideally converts a 100 mV AC signal coming from the antenna to a 350 mV DC signal. The output of the voltage multiplier is used to …

Modeling Solder Ball Array Interconnects For Power Module Optimization, Paul Swearingen

Electrical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

PowerSynth is a software platform that can co-optimize power modules utilizing a 2D topology and wire bond interconnects. The novel 3D architectures being proposed at the University of Arkansas utilize solder ball interconnects instead of wire bonds. Therefore, they currently cannot be optimized using PowerSynth. This paper examines methods to accurately model the parasitic inductance of solder balls and ball grid arrays so they may be implemented into software for optimization. Proposed mathematical models are validated against ANSYS Electromagnetics Suite simulations. A comparison of the simulated data shows that mathematical models are well suited for implementation into optimization software platforms. …

Exploring The Electrical Properties Of Twisted Bilayer Graphene, William Shannon

Senior Theses

Two-dimensional materials exhibit properties unlike anything else seen in conventional substances. Electrons in these materials are confined to move only in the plane. In order to explore the effects of these materials, we have built apparatus and refined procedures with which to create two-dimensional structures. Two-dimensional devices have been made using exfoliated graphene and placed on gold contacts. Their topography has been observed using Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) confirming samples with monolayer, bilayer, and twisted bilayer structure. Relative work functions of each have been measured using Kelvin Probe Force Microscopy (KPFM) showing that twisted bilayer graphene has a surface potential …

Public Utilities' Disaster Response And Management Plans: An Evaluation Of National Grid And New York State Electric & Gas, Taylor N. Vishion

Public Administration Master’s Projects

Societal dependence on electricity has rapidly increased as technological advancement has occurred, thus requiring electric utilities to advance their emergency response and repair procedures. Disaster management and response is a relatively new field for electric utilities, and despite the adoption of the Incident Command System created by FEMA, there are still opportunities for all utilities to improve. This project aims to assess the disaster response and management procedures of National Grid U.S. and NYSEG and identify opportunities for improvement. This study interviewed emergency management professionals experienced with electric utilities and found both National Grid U.S. and NYSEG can improve in …