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This paper introduces a physically-intuitive notion of inter-area dynamics in systems comprising multiple interconnected energy conversion modules. The idea builds on an earlier general approach of setting their structural properties by modeling internal dynamics in stand-alone modules (components, areas) using the fundamental conservation laws between energy stored and generated, and then constraining explicitly their Tellegen's quantities (power and rate of change of power). In this paper we derive, by following the same principles, a transformed state-space model for a general nonlinear system. Using this model we show the existence of an area-level interaction variable, intVar, whose rate of change depends solely on the area internal power imbalance and is independent of the model complexity used for representing individual module dynamics in the area. Given these structural properties of stand-alone modules, we define in this paper for the first time an inter-area variable as the difference of power wave incident to tie-line from Area I and the power reflected into tie-lie from Area II. Notably, these power waves represent the interaction variables associated with the two respective interconnected areas. We illustrate these notions using a linearized case of two lossless inter-connected areas, and show the existence of a new inter-area mode when the areas get connected. We suggest that lessons learned in this paper open possibilities for computationally-efficient modeling and control of inter-area oscillations, and offer further the basis for modeling and control of dynamics in changing systems comprising faster energy conversion processes., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, 10th International Conference on Control, Decision and Information Technologies

The power interactions of any component in electric energy systems with the rest of the system happen naturally, as governed by the energy conservation principles. There may, however, occur instances when the rate at which power gets generated by one component through local energy conversion is not exactly the same as that absorbed by rest of the system. This is when instabilities get induced. To model and control such instabilities, this paper generalizes the notion of interaction variable used to characterize diverse system components in a unified manner. The same variable captures aggregate system-wide effects and sets reference points for multi-layered distributed output feedback control. It has a physical interpretation of instantaneous power and generalized reactive power. The higher layer design utilizes the interactive energy state-space model to derive intermediate reactive power control, which becomes a control command to the lower layer physical model. This command is implemented using either Feedback Linearizing Control (FBLC) or Sliding Mode Control (SMC), for which sufficient stability conditions are stated. This paper claims that the proposed design is fundamental to aligning dynamic interactions between components for stability and feasibility. Without loss of generality, we utilize a simple RLC circuit with a controllable voltage source for illustrations, which is a simplified representation of any controllable component in microgrids., Comment: Preprint submitted to Automatica (Revision 1)

In this paper, we consider the problem of controlling power consumption dynamics of residential heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) units so that they follow the grid-side power specifications. In order to do so, we design a novel dynamical energy controller which ensures regulation of the cumulative effects of power imbalances. For this, we derive a novel energy-based model that relates the HVAC physics-based dynamics to both real and reactive power balance at the point of interconnection with the grid. In contrast to several other approaches in the literature, we show that a limited number of HVAC units can meet the stringent performance metrics set by the ARPA-E/NODES program on following the frequency regulation signal, while maintaining consumer comfort. Theoretical and simulation-based model and control validation is provided by making use of real-world HVAC data., Comment: Preprint submitted to IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology

Large-scale integration of plug-in electric vehicles (PEV) in power systems can cause severe issues to the existing distribution system, such as branch congestions and significant voltage drops. As a consequence, smart charging strategies are crucial for the secure and reliable operation of the power system. This paper tries to achieve high penetration level of PEVs with the existing distribution system infrastructure by proposing a smart charging algorithm that can optimally utilize the distribution system capacity. Specifically, the paper proposes a max-weight PEV dispatch algorithm to control the PEV charging rates, subject to power system physical limits. The proposed max-weight PEV dispatch algorithm is proved to be throughput optimal under very mild assumptions on the stochastic dynamics in the system. This suggests that the costly distribution system infrastructure upgrade can be avoided, or failing that, at least successfully deferred. The proposed PEV dispatch algorithm is particularly attractive in integrating the renewable energy sources in the distribution system, by successfully absorbing their intermittency., Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures

This paper presents an information-theoretic approach to address the phasor measurement unit (PMU) placement problem in electric power systems. Different from the conventional 'topological observability' based approaches, this paper advocates a much more refined, information-theoretic criterion, namely the mutual information (MI) between the PMU measurements and the power system states. The proposed MI criterion can not only include the full system observability as a special case, but also can rigorously model the remaining uncertainties in the power system states with PMU measurements, so as to generate highly informative PMU configurations. Further, the MI criterion can facilitate robust PMU placement by explicitly modeling probabilistic PMU outages. We propose a greedy PMU placement algorithm, and show that it achieves an approximation ratio of (1-1/e) for any PMU placement budget. We further show that the performance is the best that one can achieve in practice, in the sense that it is NP-hard to achieve any approximation ratio beyond (1-1/e). Such performance guarantee makes the greedy algorithm very attractive in the practical scenario of multi-stage installations for utilities with limited budgets. Finally, simulation results demonstrate near-optimal performance of the proposed PMU placement algorithm., Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures

The concept of plug-in electric vehicles (PEV) are gaining increasing popularity in recent years, due to the growing societal awareness of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and gaining independence on foreign oil or petroleum. Large-scale deployment of PEVs currently faces many challenges. One particular concern is that the PEV charging can potentially cause significant impacts on the existing power distribution system, due to the increase in peak load. As such, this work tries to mitigate the impacts of PEV charging by proposing a decentralized smart PEV charging algorithm to minimize the distribution system load variance, so that a `flat' total load profile can be obtained. The charging algorithm is myopic, in that it controls the PEV charging processes in each time slot based entirely on the current power system states, without knowledge about future system dynamics. We provide theoretical guarantees on the asymptotic optimality of the proposed charging algorithm. Thus, compared to other forecast based smart charging approaches in the literature, the charging algorithm not only achieves optimality asymptotically in an on-line, and decentralized manner, but also is robust against various uncertainties in the power system, such as random PEV driving patterns and distributed generation (DG) with highly intermittent renewable energy sources., Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures