ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes most of the ASU Theses and Dissertations from 2011 to present. ASU Theses and Dissertations are available in downloadable PDF format; however, a small percentage of items are under embargo. Information about the dissertations/theses includes degree information, committee members, an abstract, supporting data or media.
In addition to the electronic theses found in the ASU Digital Repository, ASU Theses and Dissertations can be found in the ASU Library Catalog.
Dissertations and Theses granted by Arizona State University are archived and made available through a joint effort of the ASU Graduate College and the ASU Libraries. For more information or questions about this collection contact or visit the Digital Repository ETD Library Guide or contact the ASU Graduate College at gradformat@asu.edu.
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- Creators: Vittal, Vijay
Description
Distributed energy resources have experienced dramatic growth and are beginning to support a significant amount of customer loads. Power electronic converters are the primary interface between the grid and the distributed energy resources/storage and offer several advantages including fast control, flexibility and high efficiency. The efficiency and the power density by volume are important performance metrics of a power converter. Compact and high efficiency power converter is beneficial to the cost-effectiveness of the converter interfaced generations. In this thesis, a soft-switching technique is proposed to reduce the size of passive components in a grid-connected converter while maintaining a high power conversion efficiency. The dynamic impact of the grid-connected converters on the power system is causing concerns as the penetration level of the converter interfaced generation increases, necessitating a detailed dynamic analysis. The unbalanced nature of distribution systems makes the conventional transient stability simulation based on positive sequence components unsuitable for this purpose. Methods suitable for the dynamic simulation of grid-connected converters in large scale unbalanced and single-phase systems are presented in this thesis to provide an effective way to study the dynamic interactions between the grid and the converters. Dynamic-link library (DLL) of converter dynamic models are developed by which converter dynamic simulations can be easily conducted in OpenDSS. To extend the converter controls testing beyond pure simulation, real-time simulation can be utilized where partial realistic scenarios can be created by including realistic components in the simulation loop. In this work, a multi-platform, real-time simulation testbed including actual digital controller platforms, communication networks and inverters has been developed for validating the microgrid concepts and implementations. A hierarchical converted based microgrid control scheme is proposed which enables the islanded microgrid operation with 100% penetration level of converter interfaced generation. Impact of the load side dynamic modeling on the converter response is also discussed in this thesis.
ContributorsYu, Ziwei (Author) / Ayyanar, Raja (Thesis advisor) / Vittal, Vijay (Committee member) / Qin, Jiangchao (Committee member) / Weng, Yang (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
This dissertation presents innovative techniques to develop performance-based models and complete transient models of induction motor drive systems with vector controls in electro-magnetic transient (EMT) and positive sequence transient stability (PSTS) simulation programs. The performance-based model is implemented by obtaining the characteristic transfer functions of perturbed active and reactive power consumptions with respect to frequency and voltage perturbations. This level of linearized performance-based model is suitable for the investigation of the damping of small-magnitude low-frequency oscillations. The complete transient model is proposed by decomposing the motor, converter and control models into d-q axes components and developing a compatible electrical interface to the positive-sequence network in the PSTS simulators. The complete transient drive model is primarily used to examine the system response subject to transient voltage depression considering increasing penetration of converter-driven motor loads.
For developing the performance-based model, modulations are performed on the supply side of the full drive system to procure magnitude and phase responses of active and reactive powers with respect to the supply voltage and frequency for a range of discrete frequency points. The prediction error minimization (PEM) technique is utilized to generate the curve-fitted transfer functions and corresponding bode plots. For developing the complete drive model in the PSTS simulation program, a positive-sequence voltage source is defined properly as the interface of the model to the external system. The dc-link of the drive converter is implemented by employing the average model of the PWM converter, and is utilized to integrate the line-side rectifier and machine-side inverter.
Numerical simulation is then conducted on sample test systems, synthesized with suitable characteristics to examine performance of the developed models. The simulation results reveal that with growing amount of drive loads being distributed in the system, the small-signal stability of the system is improved in terms of the desirable damping effects on the low-frequency system oscillations of voltage and frequency. The transient stability of the system is also enhanced with regard to the stable active power and reactive power controls of the loads, and the appropriate VAr support capability provided by the drive loads during a contingency.
For developing the performance-based model, modulations are performed on the supply side of the full drive system to procure magnitude and phase responses of active and reactive powers with respect to the supply voltage and frequency for a range of discrete frequency points. The prediction error minimization (PEM) technique is utilized to generate the curve-fitted transfer functions and corresponding bode plots. For developing the complete drive model in the PSTS simulation program, a positive-sequence voltage source is defined properly as the interface of the model to the external system. The dc-link of the drive converter is implemented by employing the average model of the PWM converter, and is utilized to integrate the line-side rectifier and machine-side inverter.
Numerical simulation is then conducted on sample test systems, synthesized with suitable characteristics to examine performance of the developed models. The simulation results reveal that with growing amount of drive loads being distributed in the system, the small-signal stability of the system is improved in terms of the desirable damping effects on the low-frequency system oscillations of voltage and frequency. The transient stability of the system is also enhanced with regard to the stable active power and reactive power controls of the loads, and the appropriate VAr support capability provided by the drive loads during a contingency.
ContributorsLiu, Yuan (Author) / Vittal, Vijay (Thesis advisor) / Undrill, John (Committee member) / Ayyanar, Raja (Committee member) / Qin, Jiangchao (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
The past decades have seen a significant shift in the expectations and requirements re-lated to power system analysis tools. Investigations into major power grid disturbances have suggested the need for more comprehensive assessment methods. Accordingly, sig-nificant research in recent years has focused on the development of better power system models and efficient techniques for analyzing power system operability. The work done in this report focusses on two such topics
1. Analysis of load model parameter uncertainty and sensitivity based pa-rameter estimation for power system studies
2. A systematic approach to n-1-1 analysis for power system security as-sessment
To assess the effect of load model parameter uncertainty, a trajectory sensitivity based approach is proposed in this work. Trajectory sensitivity analysis provides a sys-tematic approach to study the impact of parameter uncertainty on power system re-sponse to disturbances. Furthermore, the non-smooth nature of the composite load model presents some additional challenges to sensitivity analysis in a realistic power system. Accordingly, the impact of the non-smooth nature of load models on the sensitivity analysis is addressed in this work. The study was performed using the Western Electrici-ty Coordinating Council (WECC) system model. To address the issue of load model pa-rameter estimation, a sensitivity based load model parameter estimation technique is presented in this work. A detailed discussion on utilizing sensitivities to improve the ac-curacy and efficiency of the parameter estimation process is also presented in this work.
Cascading outages can have a catastrophic impact on power systems. As such, the NERC transmission planning (TPL) standards requires utilities to plan for n¬-1-1 out-ages. However, such analyses can be computationally burdensome for any realistic pow-er system owing to the staggering number of possible n-1-1 contingencies. To address this problem, the report proposes a systematic approach to analyze n-1-1 contingencies in a computationally tractable manner for power system security assessment. The pro-posed approach addresses both static and dynamic security assessment. The proposed methods have been tested on the WECC system.
1. Analysis of load model parameter uncertainty and sensitivity based pa-rameter estimation for power system studies
2. A systematic approach to n-1-1 analysis for power system security as-sessment
To assess the effect of load model parameter uncertainty, a trajectory sensitivity based approach is proposed in this work. Trajectory sensitivity analysis provides a sys-tematic approach to study the impact of parameter uncertainty on power system re-sponse to disturbances. Furthermore, the non-smooth nature of the composite load model presents some additional challenges to sensitivity analysis in a realistic power system. Accordingly, the impact of the non-smooth nature of load models on the sensitivity analysis is addressed in this work. The study was performed using the Western Electrici-ty Coordinating Council (WECC) system model. To address the issue of load model pa-rameter estimation, a sensitivity based load model parameter estimation technique is presented in this work. A detailed discussion on utilizing sensitivities to improve the ac-curacy and efficiency of the parameter estimation process is also presented in this work.
Cascading outages can have a catastrophic impact on power systems. As such, the NERC transmission planning (TPL) standards requires utilities to plan for n¬-1-1 out-ages. However, such analyses can be computationally burdensome for any realistic pow-er system owing to the staggering number of possible n-1-1 contingencies. To address this problem, the report proposes a systematic approach to analyze n-1-1 contingencies in a computationally tractable manner for power system security assessment. The pro-posed approach addresses both static and dynamic security assessment. The proposed methods have been tested on the WECC system.
ContributorsMitra, Parag (Author) / Vittal, Vijay (Thesis advisor) / Heydt, Gerald T (Committee member) / Ayyanar, Raja (Committee member) / Qin, Jiangchao (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
Alternate sources of energy such as wind, solar photovoltaic and fuel cells are coupled to the power grid with the help of solid state converters. Continued deregulation of the power sector coupled with favorable government incentives has resulted in the rapid growth of renewable energy sources connected to the distribution system at a voltage level of 34.5kV or below. Of late, many utilities are also investing in these alternate sources of energy with the point of interconnection with the power grid being at the transmission level. These converter interfaced generation along with their associated control have the ability to provide the advantage of fast control of frequency, voltage, active, and reactive power. However, their ability to provide stability in a large system is yet to be investigated in detail. This is the primary objective of this research.
In the future, along with an increase in the percentage of converter interfaced renewable energy sources connected to the transmission network, there exists a possibility of even connecting synchronous machines to the grid through converters. Thus, all sources of energy can be expected to be coupled to the grid through converters. The control and operation of such a grid will be unlike anything that has been encountered till now. In this dissertation, the operation and behavior of such a grid will be investigated. The first step in such an analysis will be to build an accurate and simple mathematical model to represent the corresponding components in commercial software. Once this bridge has been crossed, conventional machines will be replaced with their solid state interfaced counterparts in a phased manner. At each stage, attention will be devoted to the control of these sources and also on the stability performance of the large power system.
This dissertation addresses various concerns regarding the control and operation of a futuristic power grid. In addition, this dissertation also aims to address the issue of whether a requirement may arise to redefine operational reliability criteria based on the results obtained.
In the future, along with an increase in the percentage of converter interfaced renewable energy sources connected to the transmission network, there exists a possibility of even connecting synchronous machines to the grid through converters. Thus, all sources of energy can be expected to be coupled to the grid through converters. The control and operation of such a grid will be unlike anything that has been encountered till now. In this dissertation, the operation and behavior of such a grid will be investigated. The first step in such an analysis will be to build an accurate and simple mathematical model to represent the corresponding components in commercial software. Once this bridge has been crossed, conventional machines will be replaced with their solid state interfaced counterparts in a phased manner. At each stage, attention will be devoted to the control of these sources and also on the stability performance of the large power system.
This dissertation addresses various concerns regarding the control and operation of a futuristic power grid. In addition, this dissertation also aims to address the issue of whether a requirement may arise to redefine operational reliability criteria based on the results obtained.
ContributorsRamasubramanian, Deepak (Author) / Vittal, Vijay (Thesis advisor) / Undrill, John (Committee member) / Ayyanar, Raja (Committee member) / Qin, Jiangchao (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
This research develops decision support mechanisms for power system operation and planning practices. Contemporary industry practices rely on deterministic approaches to approximate system conditions and handle growing uncertainties from renewable resources. The primary purpose of this research is to identify soft spots of the contemporary industry practices and propose innovative algorithms, methodologies, and tools to improve economics and reliability in power systems.
First, this dissertation focuses on transmission thermal constraint relaxation practices. Most system operators employ constraint relaxation practices, which allow certain constraints to be relaxed for penalty prices, in their market models. A proper selection of penalty prices is imperative due to the influence that penalty prices have on generation scheduling and market settlements. However, penalty prices are primarily decided today based on stakeholder negotiations or system operator’s judgments. There is little to no methodology or engineered approach around the determination of these penalty prices. This work proposes new methods that determine the penalty prices for thermal constraint relaxations based on the impact overloading can have on the residual life of the line. This study evaluates the effectiveness of the proposed methods in the short-term operational planning and long-term transmission expansion planning studies.
The second part of this dissertation investigates an advanced methodology to handle uncertainties associated with high penetration of renewable resources, which poses new challenges to power system reliability and calls attention to include stochastic modeling within resource scheduling applications. However, the inclusion of stochastic modeling within mathematical programs has been a challenge due to computational complexities. Moreover, market design issues due to the stochastic market environment make it more challenging. Given the importance of reliable and affordable electric power, such a challenge to advance existing deterministic resource scheduling applications is critical. This ongoing and joint research attempts to overcome these hurdles by developing a stochastic look-ahead commitment tool, which is a stand-alone advisory tool. This dissertation contributes to the derivation of a mathematical formulation for the extensive form two-stage stochastic programming model, the utilization of Progressive Hedging decomposition algorithm, and the initial implementation of the Progressive Hedging subproblem along with various heuristic strategies to enhance the computational performance.
First, this dissertation focuses on transmission thermal constraint relaxation practices. Most system operators employ constraint relaxation practices, which allow certain constraints to be relaxed for penalty prices, in their market models. A proper selection of penalty prices is imperative due to the influence that penalty prices have on generation scheduling and market settlements. However, penalty prices are primarily decided today based on stakeholder negotiations or system operator’s judgments. There is little to no methodology or engineered approach around the determination of these penalty prices. This work proposes new methods that determine the penalty prices for thermal constraint relaxations based on the impact overloading can have on the residual life of the line. This study evaluates the effectiveness of the proposed methods in the short-term operational planning and long-term transmission expansion planning studies.
The second part of this dissertation investigates an advanced methodology to handle uncertainties associated with high penetration of renewable resources, which poses new challenges to power system reliability and calls attention to include stochastic modeling within resource scheduling applications. However, the inclusion of stochastic modeling within mathematical programs has been a challenge due to computational complexities. Moreover, market design issues due to the stochastic market environment make it more challenging. Given the importance of reliable and affordable electric power, such a challenge to advance existing deterministic resource scheduling applications is critical. This ongoing and joint research attempts to overcome these hurdles by developing a stochastic look-ahead commitment tool, which is a stand-alone advisory tool. This dissertation contributes to the derivation of a mathematical formulation for the extensive form two-stage stochastic programming model, the utilization of Progressive Hedging decomposition algorithm, and the initial implementation of the Progressive Hedging subproblem along with various heuristic strategies to enhance the computational performance.
ContributorsKwon, Jonghwan (Author) / Hedman, Kory Walter (Thesis advisor) / Heydt, Gerald (Committee member) / Vittal, Vijay (Committee member) / Qin, Jiangchao (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
After a major disturbance, the power system response is highly dependent on protection schemes and system dynamics. Improving power systems situational awareness requires proper and simultaneous modeling of both protection schemes and dynamic characteristics in power systems analysis tools. Historical information and ex-post analysis of blackouts reaffirm the critical role of protective devices in cascading events, thereby confirming the necessity to represent protective functions in transient stability studies. This dissertation is aimed at studying the importance of representing protective relays in power system dynamic studies. Although modeling all of the protective relays within transient stability studies may result in a better estimation of system behavior, representing, updating, and maintaining the protection system data becomes an insurmountable task. Inappropriate or outdated representation of the relays may result in incorrect assessment of the system behavior. This dissertation presents a systematic method to determine essential relays to be modeled in transient stability studies. The desired approach should identify protective relays that are critical for various operating conditions and contingencies. The results of the transient stability studies confirm that modeling only the identified critical protective relays is sufficient to capture system behavior for various operating conditions and precludes the need to model all of the protective relays. Moreover, this dissertation proposes a method that can be implemented to determine the appropriate location of out-of-step blocking relays. During unstable power swings, a generator or group of generators may accelerate or decelerate leading to voltage depression at the electrical center along with generator tripping. This voltage depression may cause protective relay mis-operation and unintentional separation of the system. In order to avoid unintentional islanding, the potentially mis-operating relays should be blocked from tripping with the use of out-of-step blocking schemes. Blocking these mis-operating relays, combined with an appropriate islanding scheme, help avoid a system wide collapse. The proposed method is tested on data from the Western Electricity Coordinating Council. A triple line outage of the California-Oregon Intertie is studied. The results show that the proposed method is able to successfully identify proper locations of out-of-step blocking scheme.
ContributorsHedman, Mojdeh Khorsand (Author) / Vittal, Vijay (Thesis advisor) / Ayyanar, Raja (Committee member) / Pal, Anamitra (Committee member) / Qin, Jiangchao (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
In the recent past, due to regulatory hurdles and the inability to expand transmission systems, the bulk power system is increasingly being operated close to its limits. Among the various phenomenon encountered, static voltage stability has received increased attention among electric utilities. One approach to investigate static voltage stability is to run a set of power flow simulations and derive the voltage stability limit based on the analysis of power flow results. Power flow problems are formulated as a set of nonlinear algebraic equations usually solved by iterative methods. The most commonly used method is the Newton-Raphson method. However, at the static voltage stability limit, the Jacobian becomes singular. Hence, the power flow solution may fail to converge close to the true limit.
To carefully examine the limitations of conventional power flow software packages in determining voltage stability limits, two lines of research are pursued in this study. The first line of the research is to investigate the capability of different power flow solution techniques, such as conventional power flow and non-iterative power flow techniques to obtain the voltage collapse point. The software packages used in this study include Newton-based methods contained in PSSE, PSLF, PSAT, PowerWorld, VSAT and a non-iterative technique known as the holomorphic embedding method (HEM).
The second line is to investigate the impact of the available control options and solution parameter settings that can be utilized to obtain solutions closer to the voltage collapse point. Such as the starting point, generator reactive power limits, shunt device control modes, area interchange control, and other such parameters.
To carefully examine the limitations of conventional power flow software packages in determining voltage stability limits, two lines of research are pursued in this study. The first line of the research is to investigate the capability of different power flow solution techniques, such as conventional power flow and non-iterative power flow techniques to obtain the voltage collapse point. The software packages used in this study include Newton-based methods contained in PSSE, PSLF, PSAT, PowerWorld, VSAT and a non-iterative technique known as the holomorphic embedding method (HEM).
The second line is to investigate the impact of the available control options and solution parameter settings that can be utilized to obtain solutions closer to the voltage collapse point. Such as the starting point, generator reactive power limits, shunt device control modes, area interchange control, and other such parameters.
ContributorsYi, Weili (Author) / Vittal, Vijay (Thesis advisor) / Tylavsky, Daniel (Thesis advisor) / Qin, Jiangchao (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
The flexibility in power system networks is not fully modeled in existing real-time contingency analysis (RTCA) and real-time security-constrained economic dispatch (RT SCED) applications. Thus, corrective transmission switching (CTS) is proposed in this dissertation to enable RTCA and RT SCED to take advantage of the flexibility in the transmission system in a practical way.
RTCA is first conducted to identify critical contingencies that may cause violations. Then, for each critical contingency, CTS is performed to determine the beneficial switching actions that can reduce post-contingency violations. To reduce computational burden, fast heuristic algorithms are proposed to generate candidate switching lists. Numerical simulations performed on three large-scale realistic power systems (TVA, ERCOT, and PJM) demonstrate that CTS can significantly reduce post-contingency violations. Parallel computing can further reduce the solution time.
RT SCED is to eliminate the actual overloads and potential post-contingency overloads identified by RTCA. Procedure-A, which is consistent with existing industry practices, is proposed to connect RTCA and RT SCED. As CTS can reduce post-contingency violations, higher branch limits, referred to as pseudo limits, may be available for some contingency-case network constraints. Thus, Procedure-B is proposed to take advantage of the reliability benefits provided by CTS. With the proposed Procedure-B, CTS can be modeled in RT SCED implicitly through the proposed pseudo limits for contingency-case network constraints, which requires no change to existing RT SCED tools. Numerical simulations demonstrate that the proposed Procedure-A can effectively eliminate the flow violations reported by RTCA and that the proposed Procedure-B can reduce most of the congestion cost with consideration of CTS.
The system status may be inaccurately estimated due to false data injection (FDI) cyber-attacks, which may mislead operators to adjust the system improperly and cause network violations. Thus, a two-stage FDI detection (FDID) approach, along with several metrics and an alert system, is proposed in this dissertation to detect FDI attacks. The first stage is to determine whether the system is under attack and the second stage would identify the target branch. Numerical simulations demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed two-stage FDID approach.
RTCA is first conducted to identify critical contingencies that may cause violations. Then, for each critical contingency, CTS is performed to determine the beneficial switching actions that can reduce post-contingency violations. To reduce computational burden, fast heuristic algorithms are proposed to generate candidate switching lists. Numerical simulations performed on three large-scale realistic power systems (TVA, ERCOT, and PJM) demonstrate that CTS can significantly reduce post-contingency violations. Parallel computing can further reduce the solution time.
RT SCED is to eliminate the actual overloads and potential post-contingency overloads identified by RTCA. Procedure-A, which is consistent with existing industry practices, is proposed to connect RTCA and RT SCED. As CTS can reduce post-contingency violations, higher branch limits, referred to as pseudo limits, may be available for some contingency-case network constraints. Thus, Procedure-B is proposed to take advantage of the reliability benefits provided by CTS. With the proposed Procedure-B, CTS can be modeled in RT SCED implicitly through the proposed pseudo limits for contingency-case network constraints, which requires no change to existing RT SCED tools. Numerical simulations demonstrate that the proposed Procedure-A can effectively eliminate the flow violations reported by RTCA and that the proposed Procedure-B can reduce most of the congestion cost with consideration of CTS.
The system status may be inaccurately estimated due to false data injection (FDI) cyber-attacks, which may mislead operators to adjust the system improperly and cause network violations. Thus, a two-stage FDI detection (FDID) approach, along with several metrics and an alert system, is proposed in this dissertation to detect FDI attacks. The first stage is to determine whether the system is under attack and the second stage would identify the target branch. Numerical simulations demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed two-stage FDID approach.
ContributorsLi, Xingpeng (Author) / Hedman, Kory (Thesis advisor) / Heydt, Gerald (Committee member) / Vittal, Vijay (Committee member) / Qin, Jiangchao (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017