Sharif Digital Repository

Different reasons such as power system restructuring, electricity price variation in some hours of a day and growth in the fuel price, have led to more attention to demand response (DR) programmes for consumers. Two important issues in DR programmes are emergency demand response programming (EDRP) and Interruptible/Curtail able (I/C) programme that is utilised as interruptible load contracts (ILC). The EDDR is utilised to decrease the consumption in peak load or critical hours of the day. This occurs by means of customer's behaviour in response to the incentives. However, the curtailment of voluntarily loads in the critical hours considering the consumer requirements is an action that can be... 

Management of reactive power resources is vital for stable and secure operation of power systems in the view point of voltage stability. This paper deals with the management of on-load tap changers (OLTCs) and dynamic VAR sources (including synchronous generators, synchronous condensers, and shunt reactive power compensators) to improve voltage stability margin (VSM) of power systems. This problem is usually called optimal reactive power dispatch (ORD) in the literature. The main contribution of the paper is to introduce a new objective function for the ORD problem. The proposed objective function is derived based on a local voltage stability index, called DSY, and has a strong correlation... 

With the increasing penetration of renewable energies as distributed generation (DG) in power systems, technical problems arise in both distribution and transmission system level. Voltage rise is the main barrier for connection of DGs in rural areas, while excessive reactive power demand from transmission system is the major concern for Transmission System Operators (TSO). Here, a centralized control scheme based on the Smart Grid is proposed to reduce the impact on the transmission system voltages and improve its stability, while mitigating the voltage rise issue in the distribution network. Reactive power output of DGs, substation capacitors and tap setting of transmission transformer are... 

The objective of the dynamic economic dispatch (DED) problem is to schedule power generation for the online units for a given time horizon economically, satisfying various operational constraints. Due to the effect of valve-point effects and prohibited operating zones (POZs) in the generating units cost functions, DED problem is a highly non-linear and non-convex optimization problem. The DED problem even may be more complicated if transmission losses and ramp-rate constraints are taken into account. This paper presents a novel and heuristic algorithm to solve DED problem of generating units, by employing time varying acceleration coefficients iteration particle swarm optimization... 

Observability of bulk power transmission network by means of minimum number of phasor measurement units (PMUs), with the aid of the network topology, is a great challenge. This paper presents a novel equivalent integer linear programming method (EILPM) for the exhaustive search-based PMU placement. The state estimation implemented based on such a placement is completely linear, thereby eliminating drawbacks of the conventional SCADA-based state estimation. Additional constraints for observability preservation following single PMU or line outages can easily be implemented in the proposed EILPM. Furthermore, the limitation of communication channels is dealt with by translation of nonlinear... 

This paper addresses the midterm preventive maintenance outage scheduling problem of thermal generating units which is becoming increasingly important due to the aging of power generation fleet. In this context, a novel midterm preventive maintenance outage scheduler is proposed based on decision tree and mixed integer linear formation which explicitly considers the thermal units aging momentum in terms of failure rate. This allows the system operators to determine the thermal units' maintenance outage window based on the cost/benefit analysis of preventive maintenance tasks while optimizing the time interval between consecutive maintenance tasks. Additionally, the division of the year-long... 

Automation is acknowledged by distribution utilities as a successful investment strategy to enhance reliability and operation efficiency. However, practical approaches that can handle the complex decision-making process faced by decision makers to justify the long-term financial effects of distribution automation have remained scarce. An automated and remote-controlled sectionalizing switch play a fundamental role in an automated distribution network. This paper introduces a new optimization approach for distribution automation in terms of automated and remotely controlled sectionalizing switch placement. Mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) is utilized to model the problem. The proposed... 

Determination of the surface structure using the light reflection is an important issue. The aim is to study such surface reflections using an opto-mechanical system. The effects of the fiber arrangements in the operation of an opto-pair probe system for surface profiling are described. The opto-mechanical testing system consists of a double-fiber optical probe design and an electro-mechanical scanning system. Reflection signals for the plane and cylindrical surfaces made with different curvatures and materials are investigated with both probes and the results are compared. The reflection signal for the plane surface is independent of the double-fiber orientation in probe but for the curves... 

In deregulated power systems, the distribution network operator (DNO) is not responsible for investment in distributed generation (DG) units, and they are just concerned about the best architecture ensuring a good service quality to their customers. The investment and operating decisions related to DG units are then taken by entities other than DNO which are exposed to uncertainty. The DNO should be able to evaluate the technical effects of these uncertain decisions. This paper proposes a fuzzy evaluation tool for analyzing the effect of investment and operation of DG units on active losses and the ability of distribution network in load supply at presence of uncertainties. The considered... 

This paper investigates the effects of service quality regulation on investing in distribution automation. Among different regulatory instruments for quality regulation, the Reward-Penalty Scheme (RPS) has been selected to evaluate the effect of monetary incentive on behavior of Electric Distribution Utility (EDU) for service reliability. By implementing different automation strategies, the value of enhancing reliability indices and consequently the value of rewards and penalties are calculated for each strategy. For achieving to more realistic outcome, ten years horizon is considered. Furthermore, in the calculation of reliability indices, the time varying failure rate of components is... 

Wind power is a promising source of electric power generation since it has tremendous environmental and social benefits. The generation scheduling (GS) problem encounters several uncertainties in terms of the system's parameters such as load, reserve and available wind power generation. The modeling of those uncertainties is an important issue in power system scheduling. A fuzzy based modeling approach can be used to develop the generation schedule under an uncertain environment. In this paper, the type-2 fuzzy membership function (MF) is implemented to model the linguistic uncertainty of type-1 MF of available wind power generation which stems from opinions of different experts. The... 

Mass-transfer rates to and from drops in liquid-liquid extraction processes are often reduced by the presence of contaminants. To design an industrial extractor, it is essential to consider this contamination effect in a quantitative manner. To achieve this goal, an experimental investigation was conducted on the mass transfer into single drops for n-butanol-succinic acid-water, as the recommended test system by the European Federation of Chemical Engineering (EFCE). The effects of anionic (sodium dodecyl sulfate, SDS), cationic (dodecyl trimethyl ammonium chloride, DTMAC), and nonionic (octylphenol decaethylene glycol ether, Triton X-100) surfactants on the hydrodynamic and mass-transfer... 

Distribution systems management is becoming an increasingly complicated issue due to the introduction of new technologies, new energy trading strategies and new deregulated environment. In the new deregulated energy market and considering the incentives coming from the technical and economical fields, it is reasonable to consider distributed generation (DG) as a viable option to solve the lacking electric power supply problem. This paper presents a mathematical distribution system planning model considering three planning options to system expansion and to meet the load growth requirements with a reasonable price as well as the system power quality problems. DG is introduced as an attractive... 

This paper presents a novel approach to optimal placement of Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) for state estimation. At first, an optimal measurement set is determined to achieve full network observability during normal conditions, i.e. no PMU failure or transmission line outage. Then, in order to consider contingency conditions, the derived scheme in normal conditions is modified to maintain network observability after any PMU loss or a single transmission line outage. Observability analysis is carried out using topological observability rules. A new rule is added that can decrease the number of required PMUs for complete system observability. A modified Binary Particle Swarm Optimization... 

There are different choices for auction and settlement mechanisms in electricity markets; however, selecting the appropriate mechanisms is too hard. Traditionally, the offer cost minimization (OCM) mechanism that minimizes the total offer cost is used as the clearing mechanism, and payments are calculated based on locational marginal prices (LMPs). Under this setup, the clearing and settlement mechanisms are inconsistent, since the minimized cost is different from the total payment cost. Some recent studies have proposed the payment cost minimization (PCM) mechanism. However, the discussion is still open, and different aspects of these mechanisms are yet needed to be analyzed. This paper... 

Uncertainties associated with bus loading and components' availability lead to uncertainties in different system variables based on the system physical and economical relationships. Line flows, bus voltages, different prices, and other variables and indices, such as available transfer capacity (ATC), are stochastic and cannot be expressed as a determined quantity. Traditionally, in order to model the stochastic nature of power systems, a stochastic power flow algorithm is used. In this paper, stochastic-algebraic method is applied to find the probability density function (pdf) of ATC. The algorithm linearizes the optimal power flow formulation and uses Gram-Charlier expansion to find the pdf... 

One of the most important issues in modal estimation of power systems using PMUs data is the negative effect of outliers. Hence, in addition to the techniques of analyzing PMUs data, the necessity of implementing some kinds of approach to overcome these outliers is tangible. This paper aims to present different approaches to overcome outliers and also estimate the electromechanical modes of the system accurately when there is suspicion that the PMUs data may be contaminated by discordant measurements. Proposed approaches are generally categorized into two main classifications: the first category detects and modifies outliers in the pre-processing stage adaptively and then prepares the... 

In this paper, the problem of placing a minimum number of phasor measurement units (PMUs) in a transmission system is considered so that faults on all lines of the network can be diagnosed and located irrespective of their locations. For this purpose, a PMU placement algorithm is applied to calculate the required data for impedance-based fault location of any fault line in the network, achieving the full potential of the circuit laws throughout the system. Another algorithm is then proposed to compute the voltage and current values of the fault line for fault-location purposes. Moreover, as many networks are already equipped with PMUs, the proposed algorithm makes it possible to locate... 

For a power transfer path, total transfer capability (TTC) represents maximum power that can be transferred over the transmission system. Unified power flow controller (UPFC) is a device that can be used to increase in TTC. This study presents a new method for optimal UPFC application to minimise power loss while enhancing TTC. Based on UPFC injection model, the solution region of UPFC parameters is first found using the proposed method to maximise TTC. It then searches the solution region to find optimal UPFC control mode and setting to minimise system power loss. The proposed method is applied to the IEEE-Reliability Test System and the UPFC application impact are evaluated. Comparative... 

Competition in the electric power industry urges utilities to not only reduce the investment costs, but also to reasonably cut the operation and maintenance expenses as much as possible, while keeping both power quality and reliability requirements met. Reliability-centred maintenance (RCM) has been proven to be in response to this dilemma in power systems and has been yet successfully applied in various engineering contexts. This study introduces a novel approach, as of the first steps of RCM implementation in composite power generation and transmission systems, to identify the critical components for the main sake of a more focused maintenance management. Criticality evaluation is, here,...