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Description
The high penetration of photovoltaic (PV) both at the utility and at the distribu-tion levels, has raised concerns about the reliability of grid-tied inverters of PV power systems. Inverters are generally considered as the weak link in PV power systems. The lack of a dedicated qualification/reliability standard for PV inverters

The high penetration of photovoltaic (PV) both at the utility and at the distribu-tion levels, has raised concerns about the reliability of grid-tied inverters of PV power systems. Inverters are generally considered as the weak link in PV power systems. The lack of a dedicated qualification/reliability standard for PV inverters is a main barrier in realizing higher level of confidence in reliability. Development of a well-accepted design qualification standard specifically for PV inverters will help pave the way for significant improvement in reliability and performance of inverters across the entire industry. The existing standards for PV inverters such as UL 1741 and IEC 62109-1 primarily focus on safety. IEC 62093 discusses inverter qualification but it includes all the balance of sys-tem components and therefore not specific to PV inverters. There are other general stan-dards for distributed generators including the IEEE1547 series of standards which cover major concerns like utility integration but they are not dedicated to PV inverters and are not written from a design qualification point of view. In this thesis, some of the potential requirements for a design qualification standard for PV inverters are addressed. The IEC 62093 is considered as a guideline and the possible inclusions in the framework for a dedicated design qualification standard of PV inverter are discussed. The missing links in existing PV inverter related standards are identified by performing gap analysis. Dif-ferent requirements of small residential inverters compared to large utility-scale systems, and the emerging requirements on grid support features are also considered. Electric stress test is found to be the key missing link and one of the electric stress tests, the surge withstand test is studied in detail. The use of the existing standards for surge withstand test of residential scale PV inverters is investigated and a method to suitably adopt these standards is proposed. The proposed method is studied analytically and verified using simulation. A design criterion for choosing the switch ratings of the inverter that can per-form reliably under the surge environment is derived.
ContributorsAlampoondi Venkataramanan, Sai Balasubramanian (Author) / Ayyanar, Raja (Thesis advisor) / Vittal, Vijay (Committee member) / Heydt, Gerald (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
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Description
ABSTRACT

This dissertation introduces a real-time topology monitoring scheme for power systems intended to provide enhanced situational awareness during major system disturbances. The topology monitoring scheme requires accurate real-time topology information to be effective. This scheme is supported by advances in transmission line outage detection based on data-mining phasor measurement unit

ABSTRACT

This dissertation introduces a real-time topology monitoring scheme for power systems intended to provide enhanced situational awareness during major system disturbances. The topology monitoring scheme requires accurate real-time topology information to be effective. This scheme is supported by advances in transmission line outage detection based on data-mining phasor measurement unit (PMU) measurements.

A network flow analysis scheme is proposed to track changes in user defined minimal cut sets within the system. This work introduces a new algorithm used to update a previous network flow solution after the loss of a single system branch. The proposed new algorithm provides a significantly decreased solution time that is desired in a real- time environment. This method of topology monitoring can provide system operators with visual indications of potential problems in the system caused by changes in topology.

This work also presents a method of determining all singleton cut sets within a given network topology called the one line remaining (OLR) algorithm. During operation, if a singleton cut set exists, then the system cannot withstand the loss of any one line and still remain connected. The OLR algorithm activates after the loss of a transmission line and determines if any singleton cut sets were created. These cut sets are found using properties of power transfer distribution factors and minimal cut sets.

The topology analysis algorithms proposed in this work are supported by line outage detection using PMU measurements aimed at providing accurate real-time topology information. This process uses a decision tree (DT) based data-mining approach to characterize a lost tie line in simulation. The trained DT is then used to analyze PMU measurements to detect line outages. The trained decision tree was applied to real PMU measurements to detect the loss of a 500 kV line and had no misclassifications.

The work presented has the objective of enhancing situational awareness during significant system disturbances in real time. This dissertation presents all parts of the proposed topology monitoring scheme and justifies and validates the methodology using a real system event.
ContributorsWerho, Trevor Nelson (Author) / Vittal, Vijay (Thesis advisor) / Heydt, Gerald (Committee member) / Hedman, Kory (Committee member) / Karady, George G. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
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Description
Large-scale integration of wind generation introduces planning and operational difficulties due to the intermittent and highly variable nature of wind. In particular, the generation from non-hydro renewable resources is inherently variable and often times difficult to predict. Integrating significant amounts of renewable generation, thus, presents a challenge to the power

Large-scale integration of wind generation introduces planning and operational difficulties due to the intermittent and highly variable nature of wind. In particular, the generation from non-hydro renewable resources is inherently variable and often times difficult to predict. Integrating significant amounts of renewable generation, thus, presents a challenge to the power systems operators, requiring additional flexibility, which may incur a decrease of conventional generation capacity.

This research investigates the algorithms employing emerging computational advances in system operation policies that can improve the flexibility of the electricity industry. The focus of this study is on flexible operation policies for renewable generation, particularly wind generation. Specifically, distributional forecasts of windfarm generation are used to dispatch a “discounted” amount of the wind generation, leaving a reserve margin that can be used for reserve if needed. This study presents systematic mathematic formulations that allow the operator incorporate this flexibility into the operation optimization model to increase the benefits in the energy and reserve scheduling procedure. Incorporating this formulation into the dispatch optimization problem provides the operator with the ability of using forecasted probability distributions as well as the off-line generated policies to choose proper approaches for operating the system in real-time. Methods to generate such policies are discussed and a forecast-based approach for developing wind margin policies is presented. The impacts of incorporating such policies in the electricity market models are also investigated.
ContributorsHedayati Mehdiabadi, Mojgan (Author) / Zhang, Junshan (Thesis advisor) / Hedman, Kory (Thesis advisor) / Heydt, Gerald (Committee member) / Tepedelenlioğlu, Cihan (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
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Description
This dissertation presents a novel current source converter topology that is primarily intended for single-phase photovoltaic (PV) applications. In comparison with the existing PV inverter technology, the salient features of the proposed topology are: a) the low frequency (double of line frequency) ripple that is common to single-phase inverters is

This dissertation presents a novel current source converter topology that is primarily intended for single-phase photovoltaic (PV) applications. In comparison with the existing PV inverter technology, the salient features of the proposed topology are: a) the low frequency (double of line frequency) ripple that is common to single-phase inverters is greatly reduced; b) the absence of low frequency ripple enables significantly reduced size pass components to achieve necessary DC-link stiffness and c) improved maximum power point tracking (MPPT) performance is readily achieved due to the tightened current ripple even with reduced-size passive components. The proposed topology does not utilize any electrolytic capacitors. Instead an inductor is used as the DC-link filter and reliable AC film capacitors are utilized for the filter and auxiliary capacitor. The proposed topology has a life expectancy on par with PV panels. The proposed modulation technique can be used for any current source inverter where an unbalanced three-phase operation is desires such as active filters and power controllers. The proposed topology is ready for the next phase of microgrid and power system controllers in that it accepts reactive power commands. This work presents the proposed topology and its working principle supported by with numerical verifications and hardware results. Conclusions and future work are also presented.
ContributorsBush, Craig R (Author) / Ayyanar, Raja (Thesis advisor) / Karam, Lina (Committee member) / Heydt, Gerald (Committee member) / Karady, George G. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013