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This paper presents a novel hierarchical cooperative control strategy to solve the problems of unbalanced State of Charge (SoC), unreasonable load current sharing, and unstable bus voltage for battery storage system (BSS) in islanded DC microgrid. In the communication layer, a neighbor-to-neighbor communication network architecture is constructed in which each battery storage unit (BSU) only communicates information with neighboring nodes, and a multi-agent consensus algorithm is used to iteratively estimate the relevant average global variables. In the main control layer, the droop coefficient is dynamically adjusted by constructing a fast SoC convergence function to ensure that the load current is reasonably distributed based on the rated capacity of each BSU. In the secondary control layer, a virtual voltage drop equalization controller and an average bus voltage compensation controller are designed to eliminate the impact of line impedance mismatch and compensate the average bus voltage. Furthermore, an optimized factor is designed to accelerate the later stage of SoC convergence. Finally, a DC microgrid experimental platform based on StarSim HIL is built, and the results demonstrate that the proposed strategy can achieve the control objectives of fast SoC balance, proportional load current sharing, and bus voltage stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we develop a data-driven framework for controlling distributed energy resources (DERs) in a balanced radial power distribution system with the objective of regulating voltages across the whole system. The objective is to determine optimal DER power injections that minimize the voltage excursions outside a desirable voltage range without knowing a complete model of the power distribution system. To this end, we approximate the nonlinear relationship between the voltage magnitudes and the power injections by a linear model. The parameters of this linear model—referred to as the voltage sensitivities—can be computed using information on the network topology and the line parameters, the values of which will be estimated. Assuming the knowledge of feasible network topology configurations and distribution line resistance-to-reactance ratios, we propose a framework for identifying the true network topology configuration and the corresponding line parameters using only a few measurements of voltage magnitudes and power injections. Utilizing the estimated voltage sensitivities, the optimal DER power injections can be readily determined by solving a convex optimization problem. Due to its data-driven nature, the proposed framework is intrinsically adaptive to changes in system conditions such as unknown topology reconfiguration. The effectiveness of the proposed framework is validated via numerical simulations on the IEEE 123-bus distribution test feeder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a new control strategy for voltage source converter based Multi-Terminal High Voltage Direct Current (MTDC) systems. The proposed control approach ensures accurate power sharing between the droop-controlled converter stations. By communicating the power-sharing index between neighboring converters, the proposed approach achieves exact droop control operation independent of the DC system topology and line parameters. The pilot voltage droop based controller, which is an alternative communication-based approach for achieving precise power sharing, was used as a base case for comparison. Modal analysis is carried out to reveal the sensitivity of the system's eigenvalues to the changes in control parameters (e.g., power droop gain, proportional integral gains of the proposed controller) and the latencies in the communication. It is demonstrated that the proposed strategy remains in the stable operation even when excessive latencies are encountered in the communication. Nonlinear simulations are conducted in the MATLAB/Simulink environment in four- and five-terminal MTDC grids, validating the capability of the proposed controller to achieve the desirable performance under various operational conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of photovoltaic (PV) technology, more utility-scale PV systems are being integrated into rural areas where abundant and low-cost land is available. In these areas, step-voltage regulators (SVRs) with an open-delta configuration are widely used for voltage regulation. However, since SVRs were initially designed for tackling slow and smooth load variations, frequent PV output fluctuations can cause excessive tap changes. Moreover, rural communication facilities are normally expensive and underdeveloped, so only limited parameters are recorded with low resolution and reliability. Thus, much needed tap information cannot be properly monitored in a cost-effective way. In contrast, a downstream load center or utility-scale PV site is commonly well equipped with modern sensors and data acquisition systems, which provide the possibility for tap evaluation. Therefore, this paper proposes a new remote tap position estimation approach to accurately assess the upstream tap positions of open-delta SVRs from downstream measurements. Furthermore, the proposed approach is firmly validated through field testing under the support of the local utility and PV plant owner. This novel method not only enables reliable tap position monitoring with high precision for utilities to research PV–SVR interaction, but also provides valuable information to PV owners for correctly analyzing downstream voltage performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several hierarchical centralized control schemes for either rotor angle or voltage stability improvement have been proposed in the literature. They all rely on exchanging information between different subsystems of a large-scale power system. By contrast, in this paper, we propose a hierarchical decentralized control scheme to enhance a unified manner rotor angle and voltage stability while using metered values collected within each subsystem, without any exchange of information between subsystems. Specifically, weakly coupled coherent areas of a power system are first determined. Then, secondary control agents are implemented in each of them to detect and damp rotor angle and voltage instabilities using local synchrophasor measurements. Decentralized control laws based on Lyapunov theory are implemented on FACTS devices for achieving global rotor angle asymptotic stability. Finally, a tertiary voltage control agent provides reference settings to the secondary voltage agents and takes control actions in case the latter fail to damp voltage instabilities. We show that the proposed scheme minimizes the communication bandwidth requirement while exhibiting a system-wide situational awareness. Simulations carried out on the IEEE 118-bus system demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed hierarchical decentralized control method. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper summarizes an instability monitoring and protection method based on local identification of global voltage instability (LIVES) and applies it to an IEEE test system for voltage stability and security assessment. The identification method (LIVES-alarm) is tested with both detailed and Quasi-Steady-State simulation tools, and two protection schemes, based respectively on reverse Load Tap Changer operation (LIVES-restore) and firm load shedding, are evaluated and compared using the unstable scenario provided with the test system. The effect of load sensitivity to voltage is also investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper proposes a two-level voltage controller for large-scale power systems. The aim of the controller is to maintain a near-optimal voltage profile in the transmission network by coordinating discrete reactive power (var) control devices in the system. The controller is targeted for implementation in electric power transmission utility companies where most of the voltage controls are coordinated by switching of discrete var devices such as shunt capacitor and reactor banks and transformer banks load tap changers (LTCs). By effectively dividing the controller responsibilities between local substation controls and a central coordinator at control center level, the design is aimed at voltage control of large-scale power systems. At local level, the substation controllers maintain their respective substation bus voltages by local power-flow-like computations using mostly local PMU measurements. The central coordinator computes and provides the voltage set-points to the substation controllers and also coordinates by enabling or disabling the local controllers as needed. The controller is being designed towards prototype implementation in Southern California Edison (SCE), starting with local controllers at specific substations in the first stage. It is tested on real-time dynamic models and large-scale power-flow simulations of SCE transmission network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a decentralized adaptive emergency control scheme against power system voltage instability. Decentralized control architecture is proposed by segregating the system into several local areas or zones based on the concept of electrical distance. Intelligent agents are assigned in each area to monitor the bus voltages and generator reactive powers to detect any threat of voltage collapse and to actuate countermeasures. A novel performance index has been formulated based on the load voltage and generator reactive power violations to identify the severity of disturbance and the risk of system emergency in each area. The coordination of the timing of the countermeasures among the agents is achieved through the formulation of the integral of the performance index. The simplicity and the adaptive nature of the proposed control scheme to provide countermeasures against any disturbance make it useful for real-time application. The robustness of the proposed approach has been validated through several case studies using the New England 39-bus test system and a more realistic Nordic32 test system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Converter control is an important aspect of voltage-source-converter high-voltage dc (VSC-HVDC) based multi-terminal dc grids. Variants of power drooped against dc voltage control have previously been proposed for this purpose. However, there is at this time no clear methodology available on how to select the size of the droop constants for distributing a power mismatch, following, e.g., a converter trip, on several converters. This paper proposes a methodology for establishing droop constants for a variant of power drooped against dc voltage called pilot voltage droop control. The methodology is derived from the basic control laws in a straight forward fashion and the accuracy is exemplified by time domain simulations in Digsilent's Powerfactory platform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a time-varying stochastic technique to assess conservation voltage reduction (CVR) effects based on load modeling. A time-varying exponential load model is developed to represent voltage dependences of loads. The recursive least square (RLS) method is applied to identify model parameters in a recursive way. CVR factors can be calculated using the identified model parameters. The time-varying stochastic model for CVR effects can then be constructed by the Kolmogorov-Smirnov (K-S) test. The proposed CVR assessment method is applied to one-year measurement data from a utility company. The calculated CVR factors are verified by a Euclidian distance-based comparison method. Stochastic models of CVR effects in each time window are constructed. Compared with previous efforts on assessing CVR effects, the proposed method does not require control groups or assumptions of linear relationships between the load and its impact factors. The probabilistic nature of CVR effects is also fully considered. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]