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A new smooth model is proposed in this paper to eliminate the non-differentiability of several types of limits in power flow models. The proposed smooth model accurately represents power system static models with limits as a continuously differentiable function. Analytic results are developed to show that each solution of the proposed smooth model is arbitrarily close to a solution of the corresponding original power flow model with limits. The proposed smooth model includes a wide range of devices with physical limits, such as generators, transformers, HVDCs, phase shifters, and shunts. In addition, it is shown that every generic static bifurcation in the original model is transformed into a saddle-node bifurcation in the smoothed model. Hence, the search for bifurcations in voltage stability assessment can be greatly simplified. Several numerical studies of the proposed smooth model on a 9241-bus power system and on a 13659-bus power system have shown promising results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Time-domain indirect methods based on Lyapunov stability theory and linear matrix inequality techniques (LMIs) have been applied for delay-dependent stability analysis of large-scale load frequency control (LFC) schemes. This paper aims to enhance the numerical tractability of large-scale LMIs by exploiting the special characteristics of the LFC loops. First, in the typical LFC model, only a few delayed states that are directly influenced by transmission delays are distinguished from other normal system states. Hence, an improved reconstruction model is formed, based on which the delay-dependent stability condition is established with the decreased order of the LMIs and decision variables. Then, to further improve the numerical tractability of the developed stability criterion, all weighting matrices required in the augmented Lyapunov functional are enforced to have structural restrictions by proposing an extended symmetry-exploiting technique. Case studies show that the method proposed in this paper significantly improves the calculation efficiency of stability criterion established for multi-area power systems at the cost of only a minor reduction in computational accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, an approximate aggregated impedance model (AAIM) of a grid-connected wind farm with multiple wind turbine generators (WTGs) for the small-signal stability study is derived. The derivation is conducted under the condition that the WTGs inside the wind farm are of the same type and from the same manufacturer. The AAIM derived can be seen as the impedance model (IM) of a grid-connected aggregated WTG. The IM of the aggregated WTG is the weighted average of the IMs of the individual WTGs in the wind farm and hence is simple to be built. The reactance of the line connecting the aggregated WTG to the external AC grid is the maximum eigenvalue of the network reactance matrix of the grid-connected wind farm. In addition, the derivation justifies the representation of a wind farm by an aggregated WTG in the IM-based small-signal stability analysis. Finally, two example grid-connected wind farms are used to evaluate and demonstrate the effectiveness of the AAIM proposed in the small-signal stability analysis. It is also shown that the computational burden of the stability analysis of a large-scale wind farm could be effectively reduced when the AAIM is used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deep learning (DL) techniques have shown promising performance for designing data-driven power system transient stability assessment (TSA) models. However, due to the deep structure of the DL, the resulting model is always a black-box and hard to explain, which hinders its practical adoption by the industry. This paper proposes an interpretable DL-based TSA model to balance the TSA accuracy and transparency. The proposed method combines the strong nonlinear modelling capability of a deep neural network and the interpretability of a decision tree (DT). Through regularizing DL-based model with the average DT path length in the training process, the proposed interpretable DL-based TSA method can visually explain the TSA decision-making process. Simulation results have shown that the proposed method can deliver highly accurate TSA results and interpretable TSA decision-making rules, which can be used for designing preventive control actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emergency frequency control is one of the most critical approaches to maintain power system stability after major disturbances. With the increasing number of grid-connected renewable energy sources, existing model-based methods of frequency control are facing up with challenges of computational speed and scalability for large-scale systems. In this paper, the emergency frequency control problem is formulated as a Markov Decision Process and solved through a novel distributional deep reinforcement learning (DRL) method, namely the distributional soft actor critic (DSAC) method. Compared with other reinforcement learning methods that only estimate the mean value, the proposed DSAC model estimates the distribution of value function over returns. This advancement can lead to more insights and knowledge for the agent, with the benefit of a much faster and more stable learning process, and the improved frequency control performance. The simulation results on IEEE 39-bus and IEEE 118-bus systems demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of proposed models, as well as the advantage compared to other state-of-the-art DRL algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new method for the stability assessment of inverter-based microgrids is presented in this paper. Directly determining stability boundaries by searching the multidimensional space of inverters’ droop gains is a computationally prohibitive task. Instead, we build a certified stability region by utilizing a generalized Laplacian matrix eigenvalues, which are a measure of proximity to stability boundary. We establish an upper threshold for the eigenvalues that determines the stability boundary of the entire system and demonstrate that this value depends only on the network’s R/X ratio but does not depend on the grid topology. We also provide a conservative upper threshold of the eigenvalues that are universal for any systems within a reasonable range of R/X ratios. We then construct approximate certified stability regions representing convex sets in the multidimensional space of droop gains that could be utilized for gains optimization. We show how the certified stability region can be maximized by properly choosing droop gains, and we provide closed-form analytic expressions for the certified stability regions. The computational complexity of our method is almost independent of the number of inverters. The proposed methodology has been tested using IEEE 123 node test system with 10 inverters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fast development of renewable energies leads to an increase in the power electronics penetration in transmission systems. This is particularly true if one considers a 100% renewable energies power system, where wind and solar photovoltaic energies, which make most of the renewable energies connections today, are connected to the grid through power electronics converters. Because power electronics-based generators and synchronous machines-based generators have very different dynamic behaviours, some approximations usually used to run transient simulations of transmission systems might not be optimal for future grids. The systematic use of the phasor approximation applied to the power lines, implemented in most of the Transient Simulation Programs, is indeed not relevant any more. To avoid the use of Electromagnetic Transient simulations, that are resource-demanding and time-consuming, this paper presents a novel Model Order Reduction technique for large grids with a high penetration of power electronic devices. Compared to the classical phasor approximation, this event-based state residualization approximation allows accurate transient simulations and at the same time an optimal reduction of the number of the system’s state variables depending on the observed variables, the considered events and the tolerated approximation error. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A rapid deployment of renewable generation has led to significant reduction in the rotational system inertia and damping, thus making frequency control in power systems more challenging. This paper proposes a novel control scheme based on Model Predictive Control (MPC) for converter-interfaced generators operating in a grid-forming mode, with the goal of exploiting their fast response capabilities to provide fast frequency control service to the system. The controller manipulates converter power injections to limit the frequency nadir and rate-of-change-of-frequency after a disturbance. Both centralized and decentralized MPC approaches are considered and compared in terms of performance and practical implementation. Special attention is given to the decentralized controller by generating an explicit MPC solution to enhance computational efficiency and reduce hardware requirements. Simulation results obtained from a detailed dynamic model of the IEEE 39-bus system demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Machine learning approaches have exhibited high potential in power system transient stability assessment (TSA), yet their initial preparation stages of stability knowledge base generation (SKBG) based on time-domain simulations often undergo high computational costs. In fact, how to ease the heavy computational burden of SKBG without sacrificing the reliability is still a significant challenge. To address this problem, this paper develops a semi-supervised ensemble learning (SSEL) framework for reliable SKBG acceleration, without additional need for computing hardware upgrading. In particular, it performs detailed simulations for a minority of cases and fast simulations for the majority ones to reduce the total computation time. Considering the absence of stability status information of those fast simulated cases, an SSEL scheme is systematically designed to reliably label their stability status. Before implementing SSEL, two concise feature descriptors are first introduced to efficiently extract transient features from multiplex system trajectories. Then, all the cases are characterized in a unified feature space, whereby a series of semi-supervised support vector machines are trained in randomly formed subspaces. Afterward, these single machines are systematically combined to derive an enhanced SSEL model, which is able to make reliable and robust labeling decisions. Further, a backtrace strategy is carefully devised for SSEL, so as to maintain the high reliability of SKBG. Test results on the IEEE 39-bus system and the realistic GD Power Grid in South China illustrate the excellent performances of the proposed framework on SKBG acceleration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate models of power plants play an important role in maintaining the reliable and secure grid operations. In this paper, we propose a synchrophasor measurement-based generator parameter calibration method by a novel deep learning method with high computational efficiency. An elementary effects-based approach is developed to identify the critical parameters from a nonlinear system with much better performance than the widely used trajectory sensitivity-based method. Then, synchrophasor measurement-based conditional variational autoencoder is developed to estimate the parameters’ posterior distributions even in the presence of a high-dimensional case with eighteen critical parameters to be calibrated. The effectiveness of the proposed method is validated for a hydro generator with a very detailed model. The results show that the proposed approach can accurately and efficiently estimate the generator parameters’ posterior distributions even when the parameters true values are not in support of the prior distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a novel approach to dynamic phasor-based transient stability simulation. The proposed method is based on the modified nodal analysis (MNA) approach to circuit simulation, which is used to construct continuous differential-algebraic equations (DAEs). The proposed method makes use of the stamp technique, which makes it possible to construct a general purpose MNA-based simulator. Stamp-based models for common power system components are derived in this work. A new MNA-based synchronous machine model is presented, which represents machines as nonlinear inductances instead of subtransient equivalents. The resultant continuous DAEs are numerically solved using the general purpose variable step and variable order library IDA. Simulation results from the IEEE 68 bus test system, a real 400 bus power system, and the IEEE 39 bus test system with an embedded HVdc transmission system demonstrate that the proposed method is suitable for large ac networks with power electronic devices. The results demonstrate good agreement between the proposed method and electromagnetic transient (EMT) simulation. The results also demonstrate that the proposed method is fast and scalable with CPU times that are up to 200 times faster than EMT simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With continuing advances in high-performance parallel computing platforms, parallel algorithms have become powerful tools for development of faster than real-time power system dynamic simulations. In particular, it has been demonstrated in recent years that parallel-in-time (Parareal) algorithms have the potential to achieve such an ambitious goal. The selection of a fast and reasonably accurate coarse operator of the Parareal algorithm is crucial for its effective utilization and performance. This paper examines semi-analytical solution (SAS) methods as the coarse operators of the Parareal algorithm and explores performance of the SAS methods to the standard numerical time integration methods. Two promising time-power series-based SAS methods were considered; Adomian decomposition method and Homotopy analysis method with a windowing approach for improving the convergence. Numerical performance case studies on 10-generator 39-bus system and 327-generator 2383-bus system were performed for these coarse operators over different disturbances, evaluating the number of Parareal iterations, computational time, and stability of convergence. All the coarse operators tested with different scenarios have converged to the same corresponding true solution (if they are convergent) and the SAS methods provide comparable computational speed, while having more stable convergence to the true solution in many cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In transient stability simulators such as PSS/E, the bus frequency is estimated using a window of (positive-sequence) phasor angle measurements. A digital filter is often used to account for the filtering effect in actual measurement devices and to eliminate sudden changes during frequency computations. Although transient stability simulators label the filtered angle derivative as the “frequency,” the frequency provided by such programs does not match actual measurements reported by phasor measurement units (PMUs), which makes it difficult to gauge the validity of studies (e.g., wide-area event detection and control applications) that are based on such simulations. In this paper, we implement a frequency computation method directly using positive phasor angles provided by simulators. The proposed method is tested on two systems extensively and validated against the measurements of an actual PMU. The improved frequency measurements closely match PMU responses. Cross-validation results also suggest the method may be used for other systems without conducting full time-domain simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the modeling of some protective relays commonly used in generation and transmission systems, and their integration in three-phase RMS dynamic simulation tool. The three-phase models of the network and the power apparatuses, utilizing phase frame representation, enlarges the possibility to better represent the protection systems, since the relays involving ground and neutral circuitry can be modeled. The network can be modeled with a node-breaker topology representation, facilitating the integration of protecting relays and the switchgear. The relay modeling framework can also be used in positive-sequence RMS dynamic simulation tools with few adjustments in the measured quantities. Simulation results in realistic small and large-scale systems showing the performance of the proposed relay modeling framework and a comparison with an EMT tool are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerical simulation is the key technique for large-scale power system analysis. Redistribution of global renewable power via international interconnections requires new simulation tools to study the interconnected systems with different nominal frequencies as a whole. This paper introduces an open-source simulation toolkit for electrical power systems (STEPS) hosted at Github. Its kernel is coded in C++ with major functions of power flow and electro-mechanical dynamic simulation. Flexible options are provided and configurable to improve power flow solution and dynamic simulation. Common devices and models are supported in STEPS for AC/DC hybrid system studies. The study of interconnected systems with different nominal frequencies is supported in STEPS for research of international interconnection. Application program interfaces are provided and wrapped with Python to enable high-level interfaces for general applications. STEPS is thread-safe, and parallel computation is supported in both kernel-level and task-level parallelization to accelerate simulation. It is portable and works on Windows and GNU/Linux platforms. Cases from small to large-scale systems are thoroughly tested to validate the toolkit with commercial packages as benchmarks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increased penetration of wind power introduces more operational changes of critical corridors and the traditional time-consuming transient stability constrained total transfer capability (TTC) operational planning is unable to meet the real-time monitoring need. This paper develops a more computationally efficient approach to address that challenge via the analytical deep learning-based surrogate model. The key idea is to resort to deep learning for developing a computationally cheap surrogate model to replace the original time-consuming differential-algebraic constraints related to TTC. However, the deep learning-based surrogate model introduces implicit rules that are difficult to handle in the optimization process. To this end, we derive the Jacobian and Hessian matrices of the implicit surrogate models and finally transfer them into an analytical formulation that can be easily solved by the interior point method. Surrogate modeling and problem reformulation allow us to achieve significantly improved computational efficiency and the yielded solutions can be used for operational planning. Numerical results carried out on the modified IEEE 39-bus and 68-bus systems demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method in dealing with complicated TTC constraints while balancing the computational efficiency and accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]