Sharif Digital Repository

The continuous spread of distributed energy resources (DERs) such as combined heating and power (CHP), diesel generators, boilers and renewable energy sources provide an effective solution to energy related problems to serve the power and heat demands with minimum cost. Moreover, the DERs may play a significant role for supplying power and heat in rural areas, where grid electricity is not available. Also, some dry areas may face water scarcity and salinity problems. So, one important solution is the use of DERs to drive desalination units in order to solve water scarcity and salinity problems. In this study, the optimal scheduling of DERs and reverse osmosis (RO) desalination unit that feed... 

Hardening and operational measures in electrical distribution systems (EDSs) aim at improving the resilience of EDS in case of natural disasters. This paper proposes a novel two-stage framework for establishing optimal restoration paths for supplying critical loads (CLs) in the aftermath of a natural disaster that will improve the resilience of EDSs. To this end, in the first stage, an algorithm is introduced to find all possible candidate paths between available distributed energy resources (DERs) and CLs, the output of which is applied to the second stage, as the inputs. Subsequently, in the second stage, the problem of finding the optimal restoration paths is modeled as a mixed integer... 

As the number of distributed energy resources (DERs) increases, so would their influences on the power systems. Toward managing the intermittent nature of DERs, and providing market participation capability, the concept of virtual power plant (VPP) has been developed in the smart grid era. This paper proposes a novel offering strategy method for a VPP consisting of wind power generation along with storage capacity and flexible demand. In the proposed method, two different sources of uncertainty are addressed: stochastic method, applied in dealing with market price uncertainty, and information-gap decision theory (IGDT), incorporated in the offering model counting for wind power production... 

This paper investigates the performance of a smart distribution system comprised of multi-microgrids during emergency conditions. It also proposes a hierarchical scheme for outage management in such a system to enhance the security of supply during contingencies. This goal is achieved through sharing the available generation and storage capacities among different microgrids. In this regard, at first, a well-organized framework is devised in order to introduce the roles and tasks of each player in operation stage of a multi-microgrids system. Based on this framework, the general optimization model that needs to be evaluated in the proposed outage management scheme is formulated. Then, various... 

This paper presents a new robust co-planning model for transmission investment and merchant distributed energy resources (DERs). The problem is formulated from the viewpoint of power system regulators and planners such that they will build the new transmission facilities and identify optimal locations to direct merchant DERs. The proposed model is a tri-level min-max-min optimization problem where the upper, middle, and lower levels are investment decision of transmission lines and DERs, worst case realization of uncertain parameters, and the best actions in order to minimize the operation costs. The model considers the uncertainties associated with future peak load and generation capacity,... 

Increasing the integration of distributed energy resources (DERs) inspired by environmental and governmental incentives, beside the introduction of multi-agent structure perspective have led to a paradigm shift of operational conditions in distribution systems. In this context, the traditional concept of fit and forget in the distribution grid management would not be efficient in the modern distribution systems and consequently new mechanisms should be developed in order to enable the distribution system operator (DSO) to efficiently manage the grid congestion caused by peak power output of DERs or load demands requests. In this article, the Stackelberg game concept is employed to develop an... 

This paper presents a particle swarm optimization (PSO) based fuzzy stochastic long term approach for determining optimum location and size of distributed energy resources (DERs). The Monte Carlo simulation method is used to model the uncertainties associated with long-term load forecasting. A proper combination of several objectives is considered in the objective function. Reduction of loss and power purchased from the electricity market, loss reduction in peak load level, and reduction in voltage deviation are simultaneously considered as the objective functions. At first these objectives are fuzzified and designed to be comparable with each other, then they are introduced to a PSO... 

A linear time-invariant (LTI) robust servomechanism controller for islanded (autonomous) operation of a distributed generation (DG) unit and its local load is proposed. The DG unit utilizes a voltage-sourced converter (VSC) as the interface medium. The controller design is obtained by introducing a new optimal controller design procedure, in conjunction with a proposed non-conservative robustness constraint. The proposed controller utilizes 1) an internal oscillator for frequency control and 2) a robust servomechanism controller (RSC) to regulate the island voltage. Despite uncertainty of the load parameters, the proposed controller guarantees robust stability and pre-specified performance... 

One of the most important issues in the smart grid is to quantitatively assess the impacts of distributed energy resources (DER) on the distribution system reliability. Solar cells (SCs) as developing DERs are normally placed close to the load centers. In this paper, a new algorithm is developed to evaluate distribution system reliability, considering SCs in the vicinity of the end-users. The probabilistic nature of the demand and SC power output are investigated to solve challenges of integrating these intermittent resources with the distribution system. In a smart home, to handle the variation of SC generation, solar load controller (SLC) is utilized to match load and generation of SCs... 

This paper investigates the operation of a smart distribution system comprised of multiple microgrids during emergency conditions. It proposes a two-stage hierarchical scheme for outage management in such a system to enhance the security of supply during contingencies. This goal is achieved through sharing the available generation and storage capacities among different microgrids. In doing so, a well-organized framework is devised in order to introduce the roles and tasks of each player in operation stage of a multi-microgrids system. Based on this framework, the general optimization model that needs to be evaluated at each stage of the proposed outage management scheme is formulated. In... 

In modern power systems, technical virtual power plants (TVPPs) play an important role enabling presence of distributed energy resources (DERs) in electricity markets. In this paper, strategy of using the available energy resources for a TVPP is put under investigation. A new optimization framework is presented for problem of TVPP energy scheduling by taking operational constraints of distribution network into account. In the proposed model, photovoltaic (PV) units and micro turbines along with the electric vehicles (EVs) are scheduled in such a way that the profit of TVPP owner would be maximized. The uncertainty in output generation of PV units is modeled by adopting fuzzy c-means (FCM)... 

Technical virtual power plant (TVPP) plays an important role in modern power systems by coordinating distributed energy resources (DERs) to participate in wholesale electricity market. This paper presents a framework for TVPP's energy management in an active distribution system with diverse uncertain DERs. The TVPP participates in wholesale day-ahead (DA) market and schedules DERs in order to maximize its profit, while considers actual locations of DERs in the network and takes network operational constraints into account. Many diverse DERs including DGs, renewable energy sources (RESs), and several load sectors comprising EVs, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems and... 

Growing demand for flexible ramp products (FRPs) to maintain the power balance in active distribution networks (ADNs) has expanded the use of costly fast-start generators in the upstream real-time market. In order to limit the power system's reliance on these units, it is necessary to establish new sources for providing ADNs with FRPs. In this context, the present paper examines the abilities of distributed energy resources (DERs) and active loads for supplying the ramp capacity demands of ADNs. Accordingly, a local real-time market was established in the ADN, empowering several DERs and active loads to provide the network's FRPs demands. The proposed market was formed in the context of a... 

As a matter of course, the unprecedented ascending penetration of distributed energy resources, mainly harvesting renewable energies such as wind and solar, is concomitant with environmentally friendly concerns. This type of energy resources are innately uncertain and bring about more uncertainties in the power system context, consequently, necessitates probabilistic analysis of the system performance. Moreover, the uncertain parameters may have a considerable level of correlation to each other, in addition to their uncertainties. The two point estimation method (2PEM) is recognised as an appropriate probabilistic method. This study proposes a new methodology for probabilistic power flow... 

As energy resource planning associated with environmental consideration are getting more and more challenging all around the world, the penetration of distributed energy resources (DERs) mainly those harvesting renewable energies (REs) ascend with an unprecedented rate. This fact causes new uncertainties to the power system context; ergo, the uncertainty analysis of the system performance seems necessary. In general, uncertainties in any engineering system study can be represented probabilistically or possibilistically. When sufficient historical data of the system variables is not available, a probability density function (PDF) might not be defined, while they must be represented in another... 

Proliferation of private distributed energy resources (DERs) necessitates devising effective energy management frameworks. This paper aims at establishing a decentralized model for the optimal dispatch of DERs in smart grids. The objective function is to minimize expected procurement cost of demand while profit of private DER owners is not sacrificed. Unit management modules (UMMs) embedded in private DERs and a central agent are autonomous agents of the model. The approach is iterative. In each iteration, the central agent announces to UMMs its procurement strategy, which contains purchased powers and their prices. Then, UMMs optimize and send back their output power and selling price... 

The main motivation of this study is to address the challenges due to high penetration of renewable distributed energy resources (DERs) and efficiently benefit from DERs in distribution system planning (DSP). This paper considers a decentralized enhanced platform for DSP which is coordinated with bulk power system planning (PSP) to keep the optimality and security of the whole power system. In the proposed coordinated approach, distribution system operators (DSOs) plan and operate DERs to upgrade their local distribution areas (LDAs), supply forecasting local load growth, and avoid or defer costly generation and transmission expansion planning at the bulk power system. The proposed DSP model... 

This paper proposes a fault detection and protection strategy for islanded inverter-based microgrids (IBMGs). Reliable and accurate protection is one of the main challenges in the proliferation of modern microgrids (MGs). Considering the limited fault current of the voltage-frequency controlled inverter-based distributed energy resources (VF-IBDERs), the protection is more challenging in islanded IBMGs. In this regard, the control scheme of VF-IBDER with a current limiting strategy plays an important role. Due to the limited fault currents close to the converter nominal current, the conventional fault detection methods do not work properly. In addition, bi-directional fault currents worsen... 

This paper proposes a fault detection and protection strategy for islanded inverter-based microgrids (IBMGs). Reliable and accurate protection is one of the main challenges in the proliferation of modern microgrids (MGs). Considering the limited fault current of the voltage-frequency controlled inverter-based distributed energy resources (VF-IBDERs), the protection is more challenging in islanded IBMGs. In this regard, the control scheme of VF-IBDER with a current limiting strategy plays an important role. Due to the limited fault currents close to the converter nominal current, the conventional fault detection methods do not work properly. In addition, bi-directional fault currents worsen... 

This study proposes an optimal day-ahead (DA) electricity market offering model for a virtual power plant (VPP) formed by a mix of renewable distributed energy resources along with energy storage, such as electric vehicles. Two sources of uncertainty are considered, namely, wind power generation, modelled by an uncertainty set, and DA market price, modelled by scenarios. Opposite to classical robust optimisation approaches, the authors model maps minimal (worst-case) profits to a conservativeness parameter, while the classical robust optimisation maps conservativeness parameter to worst-case profits. In this regard, by using their optimisation framework, a VPP operator only deals with...