In distribution networks, there are slow controlling devices and fast controlling devices for Volt-VAR regulation. These slow controlling devices, such as capacitors or voltage regulators, cannot be operated frequently and should be scheduled tens of minutes ahead (Hereafter named as slow control). Since of the uncertainties in predicting the load and distributed generation, the voltage violations cannot be eliminated by fast controlling devices with improper schedule of the slow controlling devices. In this paper we propose dual time-scale coordination for the Volt-VAR control scheme, corresponding to slow and fast control. In the case of slow control, a robust voltage and reactive power optimization model is developed. This guarantees that subsequent fast controls can maintain the system's voltage security if the uncertain parameters vary within predefined limits. This nonconvex optimization problem is relaxed to a mix integer second order conic problem, and the dual form of its sub-problem is also derived. Then a column-and-constraint generation algorithm was used to solve the robust convexified model. A conventional deterministic optimization model can be used to determine the fast control mechanism. Numerical tests were conducted on a real distribution feeder in China, a balanced IEEE 69-bus and unbalanced 123-bus benchmark distribution networks. The simulation results show that solving the deterministic model is not always feasible and voltage violation may occur. The robust model was shown to be effective with respect to all possible scenarios in the uncertainty set, with little compromise in terms of network losses.
OptiQU: Coordinated Multi-Level Voltage and Reactive Power Control for Enhanced Voltage Quality and Secure Grid Operation
Fraunhofer Institute for Energy Economics and Energy System Technology IEE（弗劳恩霍夫能源经济学和能源系统技术研究所）；University of Kassel（卡塞尔大学）；Mitteldeutsche Netzgesellschaft Strom mbH（中德电网公司）；Thüga AG（蒂古股份公司）；Thüga Energienetze GmbH（蒂古能源网络有限公司）；TU Dortmund University（多特蒙德工业大学）；Maschinenfabrik Reinhausen GmbH（莱因豪森机械厂有限公司）；EnSolVision GmbH（恩索尔视觉有限公司）；Dipl.-Ing. H. Horstmann GmbH（H. 霍斯曼工程技术有限公司）
The increasing proliferation of distributed energy resources has posed new challenges to Volt/VAr control problems in distribution networks. To this end, this paper proposes an automatic self-adaptive local voltage control (ASALVC) by locally controlling VAr outputs of distributed energy resources. In this ASALVC strategy, each bus agent can locally and dynamically adjust its voltage droop function in accordance with time-varying system changes. The voltage droop function is associated with the bus-specific time-varying slope and intercept, which can be locally updated, merely based on local v…
Power distribution grids with high PV generation are exposed to voltage disturbances due to the unpredictable nature of renewable resources. Smart PV inverters, if controlled in coordination with each other and continuously adapted to the real-time conditions of the generation and load, can effectively regulate nodal voltages across the feeder. This is a fairly new concept and requires communication and a distributed control logic to realize a fair utilization of reactive power across all PV systems. In this paper, a collaborative reactive power optimization is proposed to minimize voltage dev…
The unique problems and phenomena in the distributed voltage control of large-scale power distribution systems with extremely-high DER-penetration are targeted in this paper. First, a DER-explicit distribution network model and voltage sensitivity are derived. Based on that, a voltage inference method is implemented to fill the gap of measurement insufficiency in the grid-edge areas. Then, autonomous Q control being implemented in each local area, a $\overline{Q}$-coordinated P control is designed to coordinate the reactive and real power controls. All the algorithms have been tested in standa…
The connection of single-phase microgrids (MG) and loads to three-phase MGs creates power quality problems such as unbalanced voltage and voltage rise at the point of common coupling (PCC) of the MGs. In this paper, a modified reverse droop control (MRDC) scheme in the Energy Storage System (ESS) is proposed to improve the three-phase PCC voltage quality in multi-microgrids (MMG). The MRDC consists of a reactive power compensator (RPC) and a voltage compensator. The controller regulates the reactive power and voltage unbalance of the MMG by using the reactive power produced by the ESS. The eff…
Photovoltaic (PV) smart inverters can improve the voltage profile of distribution networks. A multi-objective optimization framework for coordination of reactive power injection of smart inverters and tap operations of on-load tap changers (OLTCs) for multi-phase unbalanced distribution systems is proposed. The optimization objective is to minimize voltage deviations and the number of tap operations simultaneously. A novel linearization method is proposed to linearize power flow equations and to convexify the problem, which guarantees convergence of the optimization and less computation costs.…
This paper proposes a new distributed consensus-based control method for voltage and frequency control of fully inverter-based islanded microgrids (MGs). The proposed method includes the active power sharing in voltage control to improve the reactive power sharing accuracy and thus generalizes some existing secondary frequency and voltage control methods. Firstly, frequency is regulated by distributed secondary frequency control. Secondly, voltage is regulated by distributed average voltage control and decentralized individual voltage control. It offers a tunable trade-off between voltage regu…
This study proposes a real-time distributed energy resource (DER) coordination model that can exploit flexibility from the DERs to solve voltage and overloading issues using both active and reactive power. The model considers time-coupling devices including electric vehicles and heat pumps by deviating as little as possible from their original schedules while prioritizing DERs with the most urgent demand using dynamic cost terms. The model does not require a multi-period setting or a multi-period-ahead forecast, which enables the model to alleviate the computational difficulty and enhance its …
In a purely inverter-based microgrid, both grid-forming (GFM) and grid-following (GFL) inverters will have a crucial role to play in frequency/voltage regulation and maintaining power sharing through their grid support capabilities. Consequently, the coordination between these two technologies becomes increasingly important for optimal system performance. However, the existing work does not consider GFL's potential to participate in a secondary control in coordination with GFM, thus not able to utilize the full capability of inverter resources. In this paper, we show that it is possible to ful…
This paper presents a cold-start linear branch flow model named modified DistFlow. In modified DistFlow, the active and reactive power are replaced by their ratios to voltage magnitude as state variables, so that errors introduced by conventional branch flow linearization approaches due to their complete ignoring of the quadratic term are reduced. Based on the path-branch incidence matrix, branch power flows and nodal voltage magnitudes can be obtained in a non-iterative and explicit manner. Subsequently, the proposed modified DistFlow model is applied to the problem of reactive power optimiza…
Pricing the reactive power is more necessary than ever before because of the increasing challenge of renewable energy integration on reactive power balance and voltage control. However, reactive power price is hard to be efficiently calculated because of the non-linear nature of optimal AC power flow equation. This paper proposes a linear model to calculate active and reactive power LMP simultaneously considering power loss. Firstly, a linearized AC power flow equation is proposed based on an augmented Generation Shift Distribution Factors (GSDF) matrix. Secondly, a linearized LMP model is der…
TSO-DSO Coordination for Flexibility Management Across Voltage Levels
ETH Zurich（苏黎世联邦理工学院）；Flemish Institute for Technological Research (VITO)（佛兰芒技术研究所）；EnergyVille（能源村）；Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology（卢森堡科学与技术研究所）；Technical University Dortmund（多特蒙德工业大学）；Ricerca sul Sistema Energetico (RSE)（能源系统研究）；Shandong University（山东大学）；Université Laval（拉瓦尔大学）
Due to generation retirements and growth of renewable energy sources integration, there will be widespread changes in the real and reactive power flow in nowadays power systems. These changes also bring about challenges on system operation and stability. High voltage direct current (HVDC) technology seems to be a promising solution to these new challenges. A study on the impact of the replacement of 500KV AC transmission lines by VSC-HVDC transmission line on system voltage security is conducted. The analysis is based on reactive load margin method and implemented on one of the Dominion Energy…
This paper presents a zonal Volt/VAR control scheme that coordinates Photovoltaic (PV) inverters for providing voltage regulation on 3-phase unbalanced distribution feeders. Voltage sensitivity studies are conducted to uncover the dependency between nodal voltage changes and the reactive power injections at nodes with smart PV inverters. A fast incremental clustering method is developed to divide the distribution feeder into weakly coupled zones based on correlations of nodal voltage sensitivities. Because each zone is weakly coupled, voltage of each zone can be controlled independently. Thus,…
An Electricity Market with Reactive Power Trading: Incorporating Dynamic Operating Envelopes
Australian National University（澳大利亚国立大学）；Monash University（莫纳什大学）；University of Melbourne（墨尔本大学）；The University of Sydney（悉尼大学）；University of California, Berkeley（加利福尼亚大学伯克利分校）
High-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission applications and the growth of the dynamic load in large-scale receiving-end grids lead to a higher risk of short-term voltage instability. An effective way to address this problem is to improve the system's dynamic voltage support capability by changing the operation status of dynamic var devices, and the dynamic var reserve (DVR) is commonly used. Due to the time delay in synchronous machine excitation systems, the dynamic var reserved at steady state cannot be exploited immediately under large disturbances. In addition, some reactive power is …
University of California San Diego（加州大学圣地亚哥分校）；NEC Laboratories America（NEC美国实验室）
Increasing adoption of solar photovoltaic (PV) presents new challenges to modern power grid due to its variable and intermittent nature. Fluctuating outputs from PV generation can cause the grid violating voltage operation limits. PV smart inverters (SIs) provide a fast-response method to regulate voltage by modulating real and/or reactive power at the connection point. Yet existing local autonomous control scheme of SIs is based on local information without coordination, which can lead to suboptimal performance. In this paper, a deep reinforcement learning (DRL) based algorithm is developed a…
The occurrence of voltage violations are a major deterrent for absorbing more roof-top solar power to smart Low Voltage Distribution Grids (LVDG). Recent studies have focused on decentralized control methods to solve this problem due to the high computational time in performing load flows in centralized control techniques. To address this issue a novel sensitivity matrix is developed to estimate voltages of the network by replacing load flow simulations. In this paper, a Centralized Active, Reactive Power Management System (CARPMS) is proposed to optimally utilize the reactive power capability…
Virtual oscillator control is the latest control technique for grid-forming inverters. Virtual Oscillator based Controllers (VOCs) provide all the steady-state droop functionalities of conventional droop controllers and, in addition, the time-domain synchronization with a connected electrical network. However, existing literature does not consider the aspect of dynamic control over the voltage stiffness of a VOC. Voltage stiffness is a vital parameter for a grid-forming inverter. If the voltage stiffness is too high, the inverter picks up all the reactive power demand of the PCC. In contrast, …
The integration of single-phase distributed generations (DG) and unbalanced loads to three-phase DGs brings challenges to the operating system of the microgrids (MGs). These challenges include unbalanced voltage and unequal power flow at the point of common coupling (PCC) of the MGs. The aim of this paper is to develop an Energy Storage System (ESS) with multi-function control for islanded multi-microgrids (MMG) consisting of single and three PV-DGs to enhance its power quality and power-sharing of the MMGs. The proposed multi-function control consists of a reactive power compensation (RPC), a…
Fast-acting smart inverters that utilize preset operating conditions to determine real and reactive power injection/consumption can create voltage instabilities (over-voltage, voltage oscillations and more) in an electrical distribution network if set-points are not properly configured. In this work, linear distribution power flow equations and droop-based Volt-Var and Volt-Watt control curves are used to analytically derive a stability criterion using \lyapnouv analysis that includes the network operating condition. The methodology is generally applicable for control curves that can be repres…
In this paper, we introduce a new framework to address the problem of voltage regulation in unbalanced distribution grids with deep photovoltaic penetration. In this framework, both real and reactive power setpoints are explicitly controlled at each solar panel smart inverter, and the objective is to simultaneously minimize system-wide voltage deviation and maximize solar power output. We formulate the problem as a Markov decision process with continuous action spaces and use proximal policy optimization, a reinforcement learning-based approach, to solve it, without the need for any forecast o…
Voltage phase angle measurements are often unavailable from sensors in distribution networks and transmission network boundaries. Therefore, this paper addresses the conditions for estimating sensitivities of voltage magnitudes with respect to complex (active and reactive) electric power injections based on sensor measurements. These sensitivities represent submatrices of the inverse power flow Jacobian. We extend previous results to show that the sensitivities of a bus voltage magnitude with respect to active power injections are unique and different from those with respect to reactive power.…
This paper shows that a relation can be found between the voltage at the terminals of an inverter-interfaced Renewable Energy Source RES and its optimal reactive power support. This relationship, known as Volt-Var Curve VVC, enables the decentral operation of RES for Active Voltage Management (AVM). In this paper, the decentralized AVM technique is modified to consider the effects of the realistic operational constraints of RES. The AVM technique capitalizes on the reactive power support capabilities of inverters to achieve the desired objective in unbalanced active Low-Voltage Distribution Sy…
Reliability and voltage quality in distribution networks have been achieved via a combination of transformer power rating satisfaction and voltage management asset control. To maintain reliable operation under this paradigm, however, future grids with deep DER penetrations would require costly equipment upgrades. These upgrades can be mitigated via judicious coordination of DER operation. Earlier work has assumed a hierarchical control architecture in which a global controller (GC) uses detailed power injection and DER data and knowledge of DER owners' objectives to determine setpoints that lo…
Distributed Optimal Voltage Control with Asynchronous and Delayed Communication
KTH Royal Institute of Technology（皇家理工学院）；Harvard University（哈佛大学）；California Institute of Technology（加州理工学院）；Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Science（哈佛约翰·A·保尔森工程与应用科学学院）
This paper presents a novel distributed optimal power flow (DOPF) method for fair distributed energy resource (DER) coordination in the context of mandated rooftop PV inverter control modes. In practice, inverter reactive power control is increasingly required by grid connection codes, which often unfairly curtail PV generation of prosumers towards the end of low-voltage feeders. Similarly, optimization-based DER coordination methods that aim solely for technically-efficient DER coordination do not consider the distribution of PV curtailment across customers. To address these concerns, we deve…
In this paper, we consider a power distribution system consisting of a straight feeder line. A nonlinear ordinary differential equation (ODE) model is used to describe the voltage distribution profile over the feeder line. At first, we show the dissipativity of the subsystems corresponding to active and reactive powers. We also show that the dissipation rates of these subsystem coincide with the distribution loss given by a square of current amplitudes. Moreover, the entire distribution system is decomposed into two subsystems corresponding to voltage amplitude and phase. As a main result, we …
Voltage-sensitive distribution factors for contingency analysis and topology optimization
Forschungszentrum Jülich（于利希研究中心）；Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Cologne（科隆大学理论物理研究所）；Tennet TSO BV（Tennet TSO有限公司）；Elia Group（Elia集团）
This paper proposes a data-driven affinely adjustable robust Volt/VAr control (AARVVC) scheme, which modulates the smart inverter reactive power in an affine function of its active power, based on the voltage sensitivities with respect to real/reactive power injections. To achieve a fast and accurate estimation of voltage sensitivities, we propose a data-driven method based on deep neural network (DNN), together with a rule-based bus-selection process using the bidirectional search method. Our method only uses the operating statuses of selected buses as inputs to DNN, thus significantly improv…
The proliferation of distributed energy resources (DERs) im-poses new challenges to distribution system operation, e.g., power quality issues. To overcome these challenges and enhance system operation, it is critical to effectively utilize all available resources and accurately characterize unbalanced distribution networks in operational tools. This paper proposes a convex second-order-cone programming (SOCP)-based AC optimal power flow (ACOPF) model for three-phase unbalanced distribution net-works, including smart inverters and Volt-VAr controller (VVC) devices. Reactive power-voltage (Q-V) …
