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Recent trends in the electric power industry have led to more attention to optimal operation of power transformers. In a deregulated environment, optimal operation means minimizing the maintenance and extending the life of this critical and costly equipment for the purpose of maximizing profits. Optimal utilization of a transformer can

Recent trends in the electric power industry have led to more attention to optimal operation of power transformers. In a deregulated environment, optimal operation means minimizing the maintenance and extending the life of this critical and costly equipment for the purpose of maximizing profits. Optimal utilization of a transformer can be achieved through the use of dynamic loading. A benefit of dynamic loading is that it allows better utilization of the transformer capacity, thus increasing the flexibility and reliability of the power system. This document presents the progress on a software application which can estimate the maximum time-varying loading capability of transformers. This information can be used to load devices closer to their limits without exceeding the manufacturer specified operating limits. The maximally efficient dynamic loading of transformers requires a model that can accurately predict both top-oil temperatures (TOTs) and hottest-spot temperatures (HSTs). In the previous work, two kinds of thermal TOT and HST models have been studied and used in the application: the IEEE TOT/HST models and the ASU TOT/HST models. And, several metrics have been applied to evaluate the model acceptability and determine the most appropriate models for using in the dynamic loading calculations. In this work, an investigation to improve the existing transformer thermal models performance is presented. Some factors that may affect the model performance such as improper fan status and the error caused by the poor performance of IEEE models are discussed. Additional methods to determine the reliability of transformer thermal models using metrics such as time constant and the model parameters are also provided. A new production grade application for real-time dynamic loading operating purpose is introduced. This application is developed by using an existing planning application, TTeMP, as a start point, which is designed for the dispatchers and load specialists. To overcome the limitations of TTeMP, the new application can perform dynamic loading under emergency conditions, such as loss-of transformer loading. It also has the capability to determine the emergency rating of the transformers for a real-time estimation.
ContributorsZhang, Ming (Author) / Tylavsky, Daniel J (Thesis advisor) / Ayyanar, Raja (Committee member) / Holbert, Keith E. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Description
Due to great challenges from aggressive environmental regulations, increased demand due to new technologies and the integration of renewable energy sources, the energy industry may radically change the way the power system is operated and designed. With the motivation of studying and planning the future power system under these new

Due to great challenges from aggressive environmental regulations, increased demand due to new technologies and the integration of renewable energy sources, the energy industry may radically change the way the power system is operated and designed. With the motivation of studying and planning the future power system under these new challenges, the development of the new tools is required. A network equivalent that can be used in such planning tools needs to be generated based on an accurate power flow model and an equivalencing procedure that preserves the key characteristics of the original system. Considering the pervasive use of the dc power flow models, their accuracy is of great concern. The industry seems to be sanguine about the performance of dc power flow models, but recent research has shown that the performance of different formulations is highly variable. In this thesis, several dc power-flow models are analyzed theoretically and evaluated numerically in IEEE 118-bus system and Eastern Interconnection 62,000-bus system. As shown in the numerical example, the alpha-matching dc power flow model performs best in matching the original ac power flow solution. Also, the possibility of applying these dc models in the various applications has been explored and demonstrated. Furthermore, a novel hot-start optimal dc power-flow model based on ac power transfer distribution factors (PTDFs) is proposed, implemented and tested. This optimal-reactance-only dc model not only matches the original ac PF solution well, but also preserves the congestion pattern obtain from the OPF results of the original ac model. Three improved strategies were proposed for applying the bus-aggregation technique to the large-scale systems, like EI and ERCOT, to improve the execution time, and memory requirements when building a reduced equivalent model. Speed improvements of up to a factor of 200 were observed.
ContributorsQi, Yingying (Author) / Tylavsky, Daniel J (Thesis advisor) / Hedman, Kory W (Committee member) / Sankar, Lalitha (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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Description
Today, the electric power system faces new challenges from rapid developing technology and the growing concern about environmental problems. The future of the power system under these new challenges needs to be planned and studied. However, due to the high degree of computational complexity of the optimization problem, conducting a

Today, the electric power system faces new challenges from rapid developing technology and the growing concern about environmental problems. The future of the power system under these new challenges needs to be planned and studied. However, due to the high degree of computational complexity of the optimization problem, conducting a system planning study which takes into account the market structure and environmental constraints on a large-scale power system is computationally taxing. To improve the execution time of large system simulations, such as the system planning study, two possible strategies are proposed in this thesis. The first one is to implement a relative new factorization method, known as the multifrontal method, to speed up the solution of the sparse linear matrix equations within the large system simulations. The performance of the multifrontal method implemented by UMFAPACK is compared with traditional LU factorization on a wide range of power-system matrices. The results show that the multifrontal method is superior to traditional LU factorization on relatively denser matrices found in other specialty areas, but has poor performance on the more sparse matrices that occur in power-system applications. This result suggests that multifrontal methods may not be an effective way to improve execution time for large system simulation and power system engineers should evaluate the performance of the multifrontal method before applying it to their applications. The second strategy is to develop a small dc equivalent of the large-scale network with satisfactory accuracy for the large-scale system simulations. In this thesis, a modified Ward equivalent is generated for a large-scale power system, such as the full Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) system. In this equivalent, all the generators in the full model are retained integrally. The accuracy of the modified Ward equivalent is validated and the equivalent is used to conduct the optimal generation investment planning study. By using the dc equivalent, the execution time for optimal generation investment planning is greatly reduced. Different scenarios are modeled to study the impact of fuel prices, environmental constraints and incentives for renewable energy on future investment and retirement in generation.
ContributorsLi, Nan (Author) / Tylavsky, Daniel J (Thesis advisor) / Vittal, Vijay (Committee member) / Hedman, Kory W (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
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Description
t temperature (HST) and top-oil temperature (TOT) are reliable indicators of the insulation temperature. The objective of this project is to use thermal models to estimate the transformer's maximum dynamic loading capacity without violating the HST and TOT thermal limits set by the operator. In order to ensure the optimal

t temperature (HST) and top-oil temperature (TOT) are reliable indicators of the insulation temperature. The objective of this project is to use thermal models to estimate the transformer's maximum dynamic loading capacity without violating the HST and TOT thermal limits set by the operator. In order to ensure the optimal loading, the temperature predictions of the thermal models need to be accurate. A number of transformer thermal models are available in the literature. In present practice, the IEEE Clause 7 model is used by the industry to make these predictions. However, a linear regression based thermal model has been observed to be more accurate than the IEEE model. These two models have been studied in this work.

This document presents the research conducted to discriminate between reliable and unreliable models with the help of certain metrics. This was done by first eyeballing the prediction performance and then evaluating a number of mathematical metrics. Efforts were made to recognize the cause behind an unreliable model. Also research was conducted to improve the accuracy of the performance of the existing models.

A new application, described in this document, has been developed to automate the process of building thermal models for multiple transformers. These thermal models can then be used for transformer dynamic loading.
ContributorsRao, Shruti Dwarkanath (Author) / Tylavsky, Daniel J (Thesis advisor) / Holbert, Keith E. (Committee member) / Karady, George G. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
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Description
With the power system being increasingly operated near its limits, there is an increasing need for a power-flow (PF) solution devoid of convergence issues. Traditional iterative methods are extremely initial-estimate dependent and not guaranteed to converge to the required solution. Holomorphic Embedding (HE) is a novel non-iterative procedure for solving

With the power system being increasingly operated near its limits, there is an increasing need for a power-flow (PF) solution devoid of convergence issues. Traditional iterative methods are extremely initial-estimate dependent and not guaranteed to converge to the required solution. Holomorphic Embedding (HE) is a novel non-iterative procedure for solving the PF problem. While the theory behind a restricted version of the method is well rooted in complex analysis, holomorphic functions and algebraic curves, the practical implementation of the method requires going beyond the published details and involves numerical issues related to Taylor's series expansion, Padé approximants, convolution and solving linear matrix equations.

The HE power flow was developed by a non-electrical engineer with language that is foreign to most engineers. One purpose of this document to describe the approach using electric-power engineering parlance and provide an understanding rooted in electric power concepts. This understanding of the methodology is gained by applying the approach to a two-bus dc PF problem and then gradually from moving from this simple two-bus dc PF problem to the general ac PF case.

Software to implement the HE method was developed using MATLAB and numerical tests were carried out on small and medium sized systems to validate the approach. Implementation of different analytic continuation techniques is included and their relevance in applications such as evaluating the voltage solution and estimating the bifurcation point (BP) is discussed. The ability of the HE method to trace the PV curve of the system is identified.
ContributorsSubramanian, Muthu Kumar (Author) / Tylavsky, Daniel J (Thesis advisor) / Undrill, John M (Committee member) / Heydt, Gerald T (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
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Description
This thesis focuses on developing an integrated transmission and distribution framework that couples the two sub-systems together with due consideration to conventional demand flexibility. The proposed framework ensures accurate representation of the system resources and the network conditions when modeling the distribution system in the transmission OPF and vice-versa. It

This thesis focuses on developing an integrated transmission and distribution framework that couples the two sub-systems together with due consideration to conventional demand flexibility. The proposed framework ensures accurate representation of the system resources and the network conditions when modeling the distribution system in the transmission OPF and vice-versa. It is further used to develop an accurate pricing mechanism (Distribution-based Location Marginal Pricing), which is reflective of the moment-to-moment costs of generating and delivering electrical energy, for the distribution system. By accurately modeling the two sub-systems, we can improve the economic efficiency and the system reliability, as the price sensitive resources can be controlled to behave in a way that benefits the power system as a whole.
ContributorsSinghal, Nikita G (Author) / Hedman, Kory W (Thesis advisor) / Tylavsky, Daniel J (Committee member) / Sankar, Lalitha (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
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Description
Power generation in remote isolated places is a tough problem. Presently, a common source for remote generation is diesel. However, diesel generation is costly and environmental unfriendly. It is promising to replace the diesel generation with some clean and economical generation sources. The concept of renewable generation offers a solution

Power generation in remote isolated places is a tough problem. Presently, a common source for remote generation is diesel. However, diesel generation is costly and environmental unfriendly. It is promising to replace the diesel generation with some clean and economical generation sources. The concept of renewable generation offers a solution to remote generation. This thesis focuses on evaluation of renewable generation penetration in the remote isolated grid. A small town named Coober Pedy in South Australia is set as an example. The first task is to build the stochastic models of solar irradiation and wind speed based on the local historical data. With the stochastic models, generation fluctuations and generation planning are further discussed. Fluctuation analysis gives an evaluation of storage unit size and costs. Generation planning aims at finding the relationships between penetration level and costs under constraint of energy sufficiency. The results of this study provide the best penetration level that makes the minimum energy costs. In the case of Coober Pedy, cases of wind and photovoltaic penetrations are studied. The additional renewable sources and suspended diesel generation change the electricity costs. Results show that in remote isolated grid, compared to diesel generation, renewable generation can lower the energy costs.
ContributorsZhu, Yujia (Author) / Holbert, Keith E. (Thesis advisor) / Karady, George G. (Committee member) / Tylavsky, Daniel J (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
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Description
Electric power systems are facing great challenges from environmental regulations, changes in demand due to new technologies like electric vehicle, as well as the integration of various renewable energy sources. These factors taken together require the development of new tools to help make policy and investment decisions for the future

Electric power systems are facing great challenges from environmental regulations, changes in demand due to new technologies like electric vehicle, as well as the integration of various renewable energy sources. These factors taken together require the development of new tools to help make policy and investment decisions for the future power grid. The requirements of a network equivalent to be used in such planning tools are very different from those assumed in the development of traditional equivalencing procedures. This dissertation is focused on the development, implementation and verification of two network equivalencing approaches on large power systems, such as the Eastern Interconnection. Traditional Ward-type equivalences are a class of equivalencing approaches but this class has some significant drawbacks. It is well known that Ward-type equivalents "smear" the injections of external generators over a large number of boundary buses. For newer long-term investment applications that take into account such things as greenhouse gas (GHG) regulations and generator availability, it is computationally impractical to model fractions of generators located at many buses. A modified-Ward equivalent is proposed to address this limitation such that the external generators are moved wholesale to some internal buses based on electrical distance. This proposed equivalencing procedure is designed so that the retained-line power flows in the equivalent match those in the unreduced (full) model exactly. During the reduction process, accommodations for special system elements are addressed, including static VAr compensators (SVCs), high voltage dc (HVDC) transmission lines, and phase angle regulators. Another network equivalencing approach based on the dc power flow assumptions and the power transfer distribution factors (PTDFs) is proposed. This method, rather than eliminate buses via Gauss-reduction, aggregates buses on a zonal basis. The bus aggregation approach proposed here is superior to the existing bus aggregation methods in that a) under the base case, the equivalent-system inter-zonal power flows exactly match those calculated using the full-network-model b) as the operating conditions change, errors in line flows are reduced using the proposed bus clustering algorithm c) this method is computationally more efficient than other bus aggregation methods proposed heretofore. A critical step in achieving accuracy with a bus aggregation approach is selecting which buses to cluster together and how many clusters are needed. Clustering in this context refers to the process of partitioning a network into subsets of buses. An efficient network clustering method is proposed based on the PTDFs and the data mining techniques. This method is applied to the EI topology using the "Saguaro" supercomputer at ASU, a resource with sufficient memory and computational capability for handling this 60,000-bus and 80,000-branch system. The network equivalents generated by the proposed approaches are verified and tested for different operating conditions and promising results have been observed.
ContributorsShi, Di (Author) / Tylavsky, Daniel J (Thesis advisor) / Vittal, Vijay (Committee member) / Hedman, Kory (Committee member) / Ayyanar, Raja (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Power flow calculation plays a significant role in power system studies and operation. To ensure the reliable prediction of system states during planning studies and in the operating environment, a reliable power flow algorithm is desired. However, the traditional power flow methods (such as the Gauss Seidel method and the

Power flow calculation plays a significant role in power system studies and operation. To ensure the reliable prediction of system states during planning studies and in the operating environment, a reliable power flow algorithm is desired. However, the traditional power flow methods (such as the Gauss Seidel method and the Newton-Raphson method) are not guaranteed to obtain a converged solution when the system is heavily loaded.

This thesis describes a novel non-iterative holomorphic embedding (HE) method to solve the power flow problem that eliminates the convergence issues and the uncertainty of the existence of the solution. It is guaranteed to find a converged solution if the solution exists, and will signal by an oscillation of the result if there is no solution exists. Furthermore, it does not require a guess of the initial voltage solution.

By embedding the complex-valued parameter α into the voltage function, the power balance equations become holomorphic functions. Then the embedded voltage functions are expanded as a Maclaurin power series, V(α). The diagonal Padé approximant calculated from V(α) gives the maximal analytic continuation of V(α), and produces a reliable solution of voltages. The connection between mathematical theory and its application to power flow calculation is described in detail.

With the existing bus-type-switching routine, the models of phase shifters and three-winding transformers are proposed to enable the HE algorithm to solve practical large-scale systems. Additionally, sparsity techniques are used to store the sparse bus admittance matrix. The modified HE algorithm is programmed in MATLAB. A study parameter β is introduced in the embedding formula βα + (1- β)α^2. By varying the value of β, numerical tests of different embedding formulae are conducted on the three-bus, IEEE 14-bus, 118-bus, 300-bus, and the ERCOT systems, and the numerical performance as a function of β is analyzed to determine the “best” embedding formula. The obtained power-flow solutions are validated using MATPOWER.
ContributorsLi, Yuting (Author) / Tylavsky, Daniel J (Thesis advisor) / Undrill, John (Committee member) / Vittal, Vijay (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
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Description
In this work a comparison has been made between the predictions from the models using both the present theory for the underground cable temperature prediction and the CYMCAP application and the field measurements to determine which, if any, models are capable of predicting the temperature and hotspot locations in an

In this work a comparison has been made between the predictions from the models using both the present theory for the underground cable temperature prediction and the CYMCAP application and the field measurements to determine which, if any, models are capable of predicting the temperature and hotspot locations in an installation where the power cable is not embedded with the optical fibers and, therefore, where the cable temperatures must be inferred from the temperature measurements made in nearby spare ducts. The temperature measurements were collected from the underground 69 kV cable at the Brandow-Pickrell installation, which is a part of Salt River Project’s power sub-transmission system. The model development and the results are explained in detail. Results from the model developed have been compared and the factors affecting the cable temperature are highlighted.

Once the models were developed, it was observed that the earth surface temperature above the installation, solar radiation and other external factors such as underlying water lines, drain pipes, etc. play a key role in heating up or cooling down the power cables. It was also determined that the hotspot location in the power cable in the main duct was the same as the hotspot location in the spare duct inside the same installation.

It was also observed that the CYMCAP model had its limitations when the earth surface temperature variations were modeled in the software as the software only allows the earth’s ambient temperature to be modeled as a constant; further, results from the MATLAB model were more in line with the present theory of underground power cable temperature prediction. However, simulation results from both the MATLAB and CYMCAP model showed deviation from the measured data. It was also observed that the spare duct temperatures in this particular underground installation seemed to be affected by external factors such as solar radiation, underlying water lines, gas lines etc. which cannot be modeled in CYMCAP.
ContributorsSharma, Aman (Author) / Tylavsky, Daniel J (Thesis advisor) / Holbert, Keith E. (Committee member) / Qin, Jiangchao (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017