Real-time load-side control of electric power systems

Two trends are emerging from modern electric power systems: the growth of renewable (e.g., solar and wind) generation, and the integration of information technologies and advanced power electronics. The former introduces large, rapid, and random fluctuations in power supply, demand, frequency, and voltage, which become a major challenge for real-time operation of power systems. The latter creates a tremendous number of controllable intelligent endpoints such as smart buildings and appliances, electric vehicles, energy storage devices, and power electronic devices that can sense, compute, communicate, and actuate. Most of these endpoints are distributed on the load side of power systems, in contrast to traditional control resources such as centralized bulk generators. This thesis focuses on controlling power systems in real time, using these load side resources. Specifically, it studies two problems.

(1) Distributed load-side frequency control: We establish a mathematical framework to design distributed frequency control algorithms for flexible electric loads. In this framework, we formulate a category of optimization problems, called optimal load control (OLC), to incorporate the goals of frequency control, such as balancing power supply and demand, restoring frequency to its nominal value, restoring inter-area power flows, etc., in a way that minimizes total disutility for the loads to participate in frequency control by deviating from their nominal power usage. By exploiting distributed algorithms to solve OLC and analyzing convergence of these algorithms, we design distributed load-side controllers and prove stability of closed-loop power systems governed by these controllers. This general framework is adapted and applied to different types of power systems described by different models, or to achieve different levels of control goals under different operation scenarios. We first consider a dynamically coherent power system which can be equivalently modeled with a single synchronous machine. We then extend our framework to a multi-machine power network, where we consider primary and secondary frequency controls, linear and nonlinear power flow models, and the interactions between generator dynamics and load control.

(2) Two-timescale voltage control: The voltage of a power distribution system must be maintained closely around its nominal value in real time, even in the presence of highly volatile power supply or demand. For this purpose, we jointly control two types of reactive power sources: a capacitor operating at a slow timescale, and a power electronic device, such as a smart inverter or a D-STATCOM, operating at a fast timescale. Their control actions are solved from optimal power flow problems at two timescales. Specifically, the slow-timescale problem is a chance-constrained optimization, which minimizes power loss and regulates the voltage at the current time instant while limiting the probability of future voltage violations due to stochastic changes in power supply or demand. This control framework forms the basis of an optimal sizing problem, which determines the installation capacities of the control devices by minimizing the sum of power loss and capital cost. We develop computationally efficient heuristics to solve the optimal sizing problem and implement real-time control. Numerical experiments show that the proposed sizing and control schemes significantly improve the reliability of voltage control with a moderate increase in cost.

Investigation of hypervelocity impact phenomena using real-time concurrent diagnostics

Hypervelocity impact of meteoroids and orbital debris poses a serious and growing threat to spacecraft. To study hypervelocity impact phenomena, a comprehensive ensemble of real-time concurrently operated diagnostics has been developed and implemented in the Small Particle Hypervelocity Impact Range (SPHIR) facility. This suite of simultaneously operated instrumentation provides multiple complementary measurements that facilitate the characterization of many impact phenomena in a single experiment. The investigation of hypervelocity impact phenomena described in this work focuses on normal impacts of 1.8 mm nylon 6/6 cylinder projectiles and variable thickness aluminum targets. The SPHIR facility two-stage light-gas gun is capable of routinely launching 5.5 mg nylon impactors to speeds of 5 to 7 km/s. Refinement of legacy SPHIR operation procedures and the investigation of first-stage pressure have improved the velocity performance of the facility, resulting in an increase in average impact velocity of at least 0.57 km/s. Results for the perforation area indicate the considered range of target thicknesses represent multiple regimes describing the non-monotonic scaling of target perforation with decreasing target thickness. The laser side-lighting (LSL) system has been developed to provide ultra-high-speed shadowgraph images of the impact event. This novel optical technique is demonstrated to characterize the propagation velocity and two-dimensional optical density of impact-generated debris clouds. Additionally, a debris capture system is located behind the target during every experiment to provide complementary information regarding the trajectory distribution and penetration depth of individual debris particles. The utilization of a coherent, collimated illumination source in the LSL system facilitates the simultaneous measurement of impact phenomena with near-IR and UV-vis spectrograph systems. Comparison of LSL images to concurrent IR results indicates two distinctly different phenomena. A high-speed, pressure-dependent IR-emitting cloud is observed in experiments to expand at velocities much higher than the debris and ejecta phenomena observed using the LSL system. In double-plate target configurations, this phenomena is observed to interact with the rear-wall several micro-seconds before the subsequent arrival of the debris cloud. Additionally, dimensional analysis presented by Whitham for blast waves is shown to describe the pressure-dependent radial expansion of the observed IR-emitting phenomena. Although this work focuses on a single hypervelocity impact configuration, the diagnostic capabilities and techniques described can be used with a wide variety of impactors, materials, and geometries to investigate any number of engineering and scientific problems.