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Description
This thesis provides a cost to benefit analysis of the proposed next generation of distribution systems- the Future Renewable Electric Energy Distribution Management (FREEDM) system. With the increasing penetration of renewable energy sources onto the grid, it becomes necessary to have an infrastructure that allows for easy integration of these

This thesis provides a cost to benefit analysis of the proposed next generation of distribution systems- the Future Renewable Electric Energy Distribution Management (FREEDM) system. With the increasing penetration of renewable energy sources onto the grid, it becomes necessary to have an infrastructure that allows for easy integration of these resources coupled with features like enhanced reliability of the system and fast pro-tection from faults. The Solid State Transformer (SST) and the Fault Isolation Device (FID) make for the core of the FREEDM system and have huge investment costs.

Some key features of the FREEDM system include improved power flow control, compact design and unity power factor operation. Customers may observe a reduction in the electricity bill by a certain fraction for using renewable sources of generation. There is also a possibility of huge subsidies given to encourage use of renewable energy. This thesis is an attempt to quantify the benefits offered by the FREEDM system in monetary terms and to calculate the time in years required to gain a return on investments made. The elevated cost of FIDs needs to be justified by the advantages they offer. The result of different rates of interest and how they influence the payback period is also studied. The payback periods calculated are observed for viability. A comparison is made between the active power losses on a certain distribution feeder that makes use of distribution level magnetic transformers versus one that makes use of SSTs. The reduction in the annual active power losses in the case of the feeder using SSTs is translated onto annual savings in terms of cost when compared to the conventional case with magnetic transformers. Since the FREEDM system encourages operation at unity power factor, the need for installing capacitor banks for improving the power factor is eliminated and this re-flects in savings in terms of cost. The FREEDM system offers enhanced reliability when compared to a conventional system. The payback periods observed support the concept of introducing the FREEDM system.
ContributorsRaman, Apurva (Author) / Heydt, Gerald (Thesis advisor) / Karady, George G. (Committee member) / Ayyanar, Raja (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
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Description
Underground transmission cables in power systems are less likely to experience electrical faults, however, resulting outage times are much greater in the event that a failure does occur. Unlike overhead lines, underground cables are not self-healing from flashover events. The faulted section must be located and repaired before the line

Underground transmission cables in power systems are less likely to experience electrical faults, however, resulting outage times are much greater in the event that a failure does occur. Unlike overhead lines, underground cables are not self-healing from flashover events. The faulted section must be located and repaired before the line can be put back into service. Since this will often require excavation of the underground duct bank, the procedure to repair the faulted section is both costly and time consuming. These added complications are the prime motivators for developing accurate and reliable ratings for underground cable circuits.

This work will review the methods by which power ratings, or ampacity, for underground cables are determined and then evaluate those ratings by making comparison with measured data taken from an underground 69 kV cable, which is part of the Salt River Project (SRP) power subtransmission system. The process of acquiring, installing, and commissioning the temperature monitoring system is covered in detail as well. The collected data are also used to evaluate typical assumptions made when determining underground cable ratings such as cable hot-spot location and ambient temperatures.

Analysis results show that the commonly made assumption that the deepest portion of an underground power cable installation will be the hot-spot location does not always hold true. It is shown that distributed cable temperature measurements can be used to locate the proper line segment to be used for cable ampacity calculations.
ContributorsStowers, Travis (Author) / Tylavsky, Daniel (Thesis advisor) / Karady, George G. (Committee member) / Holbert, Keith E. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
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Description
Electric substation physical plans are developed with consideration given to lightning protection. To develop these plans utility design engineers use various methods. This thesis focuses on developing a computer program for two methods/models for substation shielding against direct lightning strokes. The first method is being used currently in the industry

Electric substation physical plans are developed with consideration given to lightning protection. To develop these plans utility design engineers use various methods. This thesis focuses on developing a computer program for two methods/models for substation shielding against direct lightning strokes. The first method is being used currently in the industry to protect the substation structures. The second model is a new and more physics based approach towards lightning phenomenon. Both the methods consider only direct lightning strikes that can hit the substation equipment. Hence, the travelling waves, indirect strokes or over-voltage arriving at the substation equipment are not considered. The Electro-Geometric method (EGM) based Rolling Sphere Method (RSM) is used to develop first part of the program. The aim of the program is to design the protection system for the substation equipment quickly and error free. The protection system uses lightning masts and/or shield wires to protect the station equipment. These are grounded solidly with low impedance to earth. The MATLAB based program gives a two dimensional visual representation of the zone of protection and therefore helps utility engineers to position shielding system. As this program is converted further into an executable file, it can be used on any computer to produce the results without need of any other software. The second part of the thesis focuses on developing the MATLAB code for protection of substation equipment using the Rizk model which is not used as of now for shielding system design in industry. Using more physics based model, simulation of downward lightning leader and connecting upward leader is shown.

Finally both the methods are compared. This includes consideration of a 220 kV substation layout arrangement. The equipment are protected using shielding masts and the comparison is made in terms of number of the protective equipment needed. It is found that the classical rolling sphere model gives more conservative results than the physics based model. Hence the results shows that it is possible to use present methods and still protect the equipment sufficiently.
ContributorsMarathe, Vinit (Author) / Karady, George G. (Thesis advisor) / Ayyanar, Raja (Committee member) / Holbert, Keith E. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
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Description
Present distribution infrastructure is designed mainly for uni-directional power flow with well-controlled generation. An increase in the inverter-interfaced photovoltaic (PV) systems requires a thorough re-examination of the design, operation, protection and control of distribution systems. In order to understand the impact of high penetration of PV generation, this work conducts

Present distribution infrastructure is designed mainly for uni-directional power flow with well-controlled generation. An increase in the inverter-interfaced photovoltaic (PV) systems requires a thorough re-examination of the design, operation, protection and control of distribution systems. In order to understand the impact of high penetration of PV generation, this work conducts an automated and detailed modeling of a power distribution system. The simulation results of the modeled distribution feeder have been verified with the field measurements.

Based on the feeder model, this work studies the impact of the PV systems on voltage profiles under various scenarios, including reallocation of the PV systems, reactive power support from the PV inverters, and settings of the load-tap changing transformers in coordination with the PV penetration. Design recommendations have been made based on the simulation results to improve the voltage profiles in the feeder studied.

To carry out dynamic studies related to high penetration of PV systems, this work proposes a differential algebraic equation (DAE) based dynamic modeling and analysis method. Different controllers including inverter current controllers, anti-islanding controllers and droop controllers, are designed and tested in large systems. The method extends the capability of the distribution system analysis tools, to help conduct dynamic analyses in large unbalanced distribution systems.

Another main contribution of this work is related to the investigation of the PV impacts on the feeder protection coordination. Various protection coordination types, including fuse-fuse, recloser-fuse, relay-fuse and relay-recloser have been studied. The analyses provide a better understanding of the relay and recloser settings under different configurations of the PV interconnection transformers, PV penetration levels, and fault types.

A decision tree and fuzzy logic based fault location identification process has also been proposed in this work. The process is composed of the off-line training of the decision tree, and the on-line analysis of the fault events. Fault current contribution from the PV systems, as well as the variation of the fault resistance have been taken into consideration. Two actual fault cases with the event data recorded were used to examine the effectiveness of the fault identification process.
ContributorsTang, Yingying (Author) / Ayyanar, Raja (Thesis advisor) / Karady, George G. (Committee member) / Heydt, Gerald (Committee member) / Vittal, Vijay (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
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Description
The standard optimal power flow (OPF) problem is an economic dispatch (ED) problem combined with transmission constraints, which are based on a static topology. However, topology control (TC) has been proposed in the past as a corrective mechanism to relieve overloads and voltage violations. Even though the benefits of TC

The standard optimal power flow (OPF) problem is an economic dispatch (ED) problem combined with transmission constraints, which are based on a static topology. However, topology control (TC) has been proposed in the past as a corrective mechanism to relieve overloads and voltage violations. Even though the benefits of TC are presented by several research works in the past, the computational complexity associated with TC has been a major deterrent to its implementation. The proposed work develops heuristics for TC and investigates its potential to improve the computational time for TC for various applications. The objective is to develop computationally light methods to harness the flexibility of the grid to derive maximum benefits to the system in terms of reliability. One of the goals of this research is to develop a tool that will be capable of providing TC actions in a minimal time-frame, which can be readily adopted by the industry for real-time corrective applications.

A DC based heuristic, i.e., a greedy algorithm, is developed and applied to improve the computational time for the TC problem while still maintaining the ability to find quality solutions. In the greedy algorithm, an expression is derived, which indicates the impact on the objective for a marginal change in the state of a transmission line. This expression is used to generate a priority list with potential candidate lines for switching, which may provide huge improvements to the system. The advantage of this method is that it is a fast heuristic as compared to using mixed integer programming (MIP) approach.

Alternatively, AC based heuristics are developed for TC problem and tested on actual data from PJM, ERCOT and TVA. AC based N-1 contingency analysis is performed to identify the contingencies that cause network violations. Simple proximity based heuristics are developed and the fast decoupled power flow is solved iteratively to identify the top five TC actions, which provide reduction in violations. Time domain simulations are performed to ensure that the TC actions do not cause system instability. Simulation results show significant reductions in violations in the system by the application of the TC heuristics.
ContributorsBalasubramanian, Pranavamoorthy (Author) / Hedman, Kory W (Thesis advisor) / Vittal, Vijay (Committee member) / Ayyanar, Raja (Committee member) / Sankar, Lalitha (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
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Description
With the growing importance of underground power systems and the need for greater reliability of the power supply, cable monitoring and accurate fault location detection has become an increasingly important issue. The presence of inherent random fluctuations in power system signals can be used to extract valuable information about the

With the growing importance of underground power systems and the need for greater reliability of the power supply, cable monitoring and accurate fault location detection has become an increasingly important issue. The presence of inherent random fluctuations in power system signals can be used to extract valuable information about the condition of system equipment. One such component is the power cable, which is the primary focus of this research.

This thesis investigates a unique methodology that allows online monitoring of an underground power cable. The methodology analyzes conventional power signals in the frequency domain to monitor the condition of a power cable.

First, the proposed approach is analyzed theoretically with the help of mathematical computations. Frequency domain analysis techniques are then used to compute the power spectral density (PSD) of the system signals. The importance of inherent noise in the system, a key requirement of this methodology, is also explained. The behavior of resonant frequencies, which are unique to every system, are then analyzed under different system conditions with the help of mathematical expressions.

Another important aspect of this methodology is its ability to accurately estimate cable fault location. The process is online and hence does not require the system to be disconnected from the grid. A single line to ground fault case is considered and the trend followed by the resonant frequencies for different fault positions is observed.

The approach is initially explained using theoretical calculations followed by simulations in MATLAB/Simulink. The validity of this technique is proved by comparing the results obtained from theory and simulation to actual measurement data.
ContributorsGovindarajan, Sudarshan (Author) / Holbert, Keith E. (Thesis advisor) / Heydt, Gerald (Committee member) / Karady, George G. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
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Description
This work presents research on practices in the day-ahead electric energy market, including replication practices and reliability coordinators used by some market operators to demonstrate the impact these practices have on market outcomes. The practice of constraint relaxations similar to those an Independent System Operator (ISO) might perform in day-ahead

This work presents research on practices in the day-ahead electric energy market, including replication practices and reliability coordinators used by some market operators to demonstrate the impact these practices have on market outcomes. The practice of constraint relaxations similar to those an Independent System Operator (ISO) might perform in day-ahead market models is implemented. The benefits of these practices are well understood by the industry; however, the implications these practices have on market outcomes and system security have not been thoroughly investigated. By solving a day-ahead market model with and without select constraint relaxations and comparing the resulting market outcomes and possible effects on system security, the effect of these constraint relaxation practices is demonstrated.

Proposed market solutions are often infeasible because constraint relaxation practices and approximations that are incorporated into market models. Therefore, the dispatch solution must be corrected to ensure its feasibility. The practice of correcting the proposed dispatch solution after the market is solved is known as out-of-market corrections (OMCs), defined as any action an operator takes that modifies a proposed day-ahead dispatch solution to ensure operating and reliability requirements. The way in which OMCs affect market outcomes is illustrated through the use of different corrective procedures. The objective of the work presented is to demonstrate the implications of these industry practices and assess the impact these practices have on market outcomes.
ContributorsAl-Abdullah, Yousef Mohammad (Author) / Hedman, Kory W (Thesis advisor) / Vittal, Vijay (Thesis advisor) / Heydt, Gerald T (Committee member) / Sankar, Lalitha (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
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Description
For a (N+1)-bus power system, possibly 2N solutions exists. One of these solutions

is known as the high-voltage (HV) solution or operable solution. The rest of the solutions

are the low-voltage (LV), or large-angle, solutions.

In this report, a recently developed non-iterative algorithm for solving the power-

flow (PF) problem using the holomorphic embedding

For a (N+1)-bus power system, possibly 2N solutions exists. One of these solutions

is known as the high-voltage (HV) solution or operable solution. The rest of the solutions

are the low-voltage (LV), or large-angle, solutions.

In this report, a recently developed non-iterative algorithm for solving the power-

flow (PF) problem using the holomorphic embedding (HE) method is shown as

being capable of finding the HV solution, while avoiding converging to LV solutions

nearby which is a drawback to all other iterative solutions. The HE method provides a

novel non-iterative procedure to solve the PF problems by eliminating the

non-convergence and initial-estimate dependency issues appeared in the traditional

iterative methods. The detailed implementation of the HE method is discussed in the

report.

While published work focuses mainly on finding the HV PF solution, modified

holomorphically embedded formulations are proposed in this report to find the

LV/large-angle solutions of the PF problem. It is theoretically proven that the proposed

method is guaranteed to find a total number of 2N solutions to the PF problem

and if no solution exists, the algorithm is guaranteed to indicate such by the oscillations

in the maximal analytic continuation of the coefficients of the voltage power series

obtained.

After presenting the derivation of the LV/large-angle formulations for both PQ

and PV buses, numerical tests on the five-, seven- and 14-bus systems are conducted

to find all the solutions of the system of nonlinear PF equations for those systems using

the proposed HE method.

After completing the derivation to find all the PF solutions using the HE method, it

is shown that the proposed HE method can be used to find only the of interest PF solutions

(i.e. type-1 PF solutions with one positive real-part eigenvalue in the Jacobian

matrix), with a proper algorithm developed. The closet unstable equilibrium point

(UEP), one of the type-1 UEP’s, can be obtained by the proposed HE method with

limited dynamic models included.

The numerical performance as well as the robustness of the proposed HE method is

investigated and presented by implementing the algorithm on the problematic cases and

large-scale power system.
ContributorsMine, Yō (Author) / Tylavsky, Daniel (Thesis advisor) / Armbruster, Dieter (Committee member) / Holbert, Keith E. (Committee member) / Sankar, Lalitha (Committee member) / Vittal, Vijay (Committee member) / Undrill, John (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
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Description
A nonlinear dynamic model for a passively cooled small modular reactor (SMR) is developed. The nuclear steam supply system (NSSS) model includes representations for reactor core, steam generator, pressurizer, hot leg riser and downcomer. The reactor core is modeled with the combination of: (1) neutronics, using point kinetics equations for

A nonlinear dynamic model for a passively cooled small modular reactor (SMR) is developed. The nuclear steam supply system (NSSS) model includes representations for reactor core, steam generator, pressurizer, hot leg riser and downcomer. The reactor core is modeled with the combination of: (1) neutronics, using point kinetics equations for reactor power and a single combined neutron group, and (2) thermal-hydraulics, describing the heat transfer from fuel to coolant by an overall heat transfer resistance and single-phase natural circulation. For the helical-coil once-through steam generator, a single tube depiction with time-varying boundaries and three regions, i.e., subcooled, boiling, and superheated, is adopted. The pressurizer model is developed based upon the conservation of fluid mass, volume, and energy. Hot leg riser and downcomer are treated as first-order lags. The NSSS model is incorporated with a turbine model which permits observing the power with given steam flow, pressure, and enthalpy as input. The overall nonlinear system is implemented in the Simulink dynamic environment. Simulations for typical perturbations, e.g., control rod withdrawal and increase in steam demand, are run. A detailed analysis of the results show that the steady-state values for full power are in good agreement with design data and the model is capable of predicting the dynamics of the SMR. Finally, steady-state control programs for reactor power and pressurizer pressure are also implemented and their effect on the important system variables are discussed.
ContributorsArda, Samet Egemen (Author) / Holbert, Keith E. (Thesis advisor) / Undrill, John (Committee member) / Tylavsky, Daniel (Committee member) / Karady, George G. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
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Description
Due to the increasing trend of electricity price for the future and the price reduction of solar electronics price led by the policy stimulus and the technological improvement, the residential distribution solar photovoltaic (PV) system’s market is prosperous. Excess energy can be sold back to the grid, however peak demand

Due to the increasing trend of electricity price for the future and the price reduction of solar electronics price led by the policy stimulus and the technological improvement, the residential distribution solar photovoltaic (PV) system’s market is prosperous. Excess energy can be sold back to the grid, however peak demand of a residential customer typically occurs in late afternoon/early evening when PV systems are not a productive. The solar PV system can provide residential customers sufficient energy during the daytime, even the exceeding energy can be sold back to the grid especially during the day with good sunlight, however, the peak demand of a regular family always appears during late afternoon and early evening which are not productive time for PV system. In this case, the PV customers only need the grid energy when other customers also need it the most. Because of the lower contribution of PV systems during times of peak demand, utilities are beginning to adjust rate structures to better align the bills paid by PV customers with the cost to the utility to serve those customers. Different rate structures include higher fixed charges, higher on-peak electricity prices, on-peak demand charges, or prices based on avoided costs. The demand charge and the on-peak energy charge significantly reduced the savings brought by the PV system. This will result in a longer the customer’s payback period. Eventually PV customers are not saving a lot in their electricity bill compare to those customers who do not own a PV system.



A battery system is a promising technology that can improve monthly bill savings since a battery can store the solar energy and the off-peak grid energy and release it later during the on-peak hours. Sponsored by Salt River Project (SRP), a smart home model consists 1.35 kW PV panels, a 7.76 kWh lithium-ion battery and an adjustable resistive load bank was built on the roof of Engineering Research Center (ERC) building. For analysis, data was scaled up by 6/1.35 times to simulate a real residential PV setup. The testing data had been continuously recorded for more than one year (Aug.2014 - Oct.2015) and a battery charging strategy was developed based on those data. The work of this thesis deals with the idea of this charging strategy and the economic benefits this charging strategy can bring to the PV customers. Part of this research work has been wrote into a conference paper which is accepted by IEEE PES General Meeting 2016. A new and larger system has been installed on the roof with 6 kW PV modules and 6 kW output integrated electronics. This project will go on and the method come up by this thesis will be tested.
ContributorsWang, Xin'an (Author) / Karady, George G. (Thesis advisor) / Smedley, Grant (Committee member) / Qin, Jiangchao (Committee member) / Ayyanar, Raja (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016