Transmission system restoration with co-optimization of repairs,load pickups,and generation dispatch

This paper studies the restoration of a transmission system after a significant disruption such as a natural disaster. It considers the co-optimization of repairs, load pickups, and generation dispatch to produce a sequencing of the repairs that minimizes the size of the blackout over time. The core of this process is a Restoration Ordering Problem (ROP), a non-convex mixed-integer nonlinear program that is outside the capabilities of existing solver technologies. To address this computational barrier, the paper examines two approximations of the power flow equations: The DC model and the recently proposed LPAC model. Systematic, large-scale testing indicates that the DC model is not sufficiently accurate for solving the ROP. In contrast, the LPAC power flow model, which captures line losses, reactive power, and voltage magnitudes, is sufficiently accurate to obtain restoration plans that can be converted into AC-feasible power flows. An experimental study also suggests that the LPAC model provides a robust and appealing tradeoff between accuracy and computational performance for solving the ROP.     

Mathematical representation of radiality constraint in distribution system reconfiguration problem

Distribution systems are most commonly operated in a radial configuration for a number of reasons. In order to impose radiality constraint in the optimal network reconfiguration problem, an efficient algorithm is introduced in this paper based on graph theory. The paper shows that the normally followed methods of imposing radiality constraint within a mixed-integer programming formulation of the reconfiguration problem may not be sufficient. The minimum-loss network reconfiguration problem is formulated using different ways to impose radiality constraint. It is shown, through simulations, that the formulated problem using the proposed method for representing radiality constraint can be solved more efficiently, as opposed to the previously proposed formulations. This results in up to 30% reduction in CPU time for the test systems used in this study.     

Improved synergetic excitation control for transient stability enhancement and voltage regulation of power systems

This paper proposes decentralized improved synergetic excitation controllers (ISEC) for synchronous generators to enhance transient stability and obtain satisfactory voltage regulation performance of power systems. Each generator is considered as a subsystem, for which an ISEC is designed. According to the control objectives, a manifold, which is a linear combination of the deviation of generator terminal voltage, rotor speed and active power, is chosen for the design of ISEC. Compared with the conventional synergetic excitation controller (CSEC), a parameter adaptation scheme is proposed for updating the controller parameter online in order to improve the transient stability and voltage regulation performance simultaneously under various operating conditions. Case studies are undertaken on a single-machine infinite-bus power system and a two-area four-machine power system, respectively. Simulation results show the ISEC can provide better damping and voltage regulation performance, compared with the CSEC without parameter adaptation scheme and the conventional power system stabilizer.     

Performance improvement of conventional and inverted polymer solar cells with hydrophobic fluoropolymer as nonvolatile processing additive

The morphology of the photoactive layer critically affects the performance of the bulk heterojunction polymer solar cells (PSCs). To control the morphology, we introduced a hydrophobic fluoropolymer polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) as nonvolatile additive into the P3HT:PCBM active layer. The effect of PVDF on the surface and the bulk morphology were investigated by atomic force microscope and transmission electron microscopy, respectively. Through the repulsive interactions between the hydrophilic PCBM and the hydrophobic PVDF, much more uniform phase separation with good P3HT crystallinity is formed within the active layer, resulting enhanced light harvesting and improved photovoltaic performance in conventional devices. The PCE of the conventional device can improve from 2.40% to 3.07% with PVDF additive. The PVDF distribution within the active layer was investigated by secondary ion mass spectroscopy, confirming a bottom distribution of PVDF. Therefore, inverted device structure was designed, and the PCE can improve from 2.81% to 3.45% with PVDF additive. Our findings suggest that PVDF is a promising nonvolatile processing additive for high performance polymer solar cells.     

PMU based voltage security assessment of power systems exploiting principal component analysis and decision trees

The need for feature selection and dimension reduction is felt as a fundamental step in security assessment of large power systems in which the number of features representing the state of power grids dramatically increases. These large amounts of attributes are not proper to be used for computational intelligence (CI) techniques as inputs, because it may lead to a time consuming procedure with insufficient results and they are not suitable for on-line purposes and updates.This paper proposes a combined method for an online voltage security assessment in which the dimension of the token data from phasor measurement units (PMUs) is reduced by principal component analysis (PCA). Then, the features with different stability indices are put into several categories and feature selection is done by correlation analysis in each category. These selected features are then given to decision trees (DTs) for classification and security assessment of power systems.The method is applied to 39-bus test system and a part of Iran power grid. It is seen from the results that the DTs with reduced data have simpler splitting rules, better performance in saving time, reasonable DT error and they are more suitable for constant updates.     

An interpretative structural modeling based network reconfiguration strategy for power systems

The network reconfiguration is an important stage of restoring a power system after a complete blackout or a local outage. Reasonable planning of the network reconfiguration procedure is essential for rapidly restoring the power system concerned. An approach for evaluating the importance of a line is first proposed based on the line contraction concept. Then, the interpretative structural modeling (ISM) is employed to analyze the relationship among the factors having impacts on the network reconfiguration. The security and speediness of restoring generating units are considered with priority, and a method is next proposed to select the generating unit to be restored by maximizing the restoration benefit with both the generation capacity of the restored generating unit and the importance of the line in the restoration path considered. Both the start-up sequence of generating units and the related restoration paths are optimized together in the proposed method, and in this way the shortcomings of separately solving these two issues in the existing methods are avoided. Finally, the New England 10-unit 39-bus power system and the Guangdong power system in South China are employed to demonstrate the basic features of the proposed method.     

空气预热器实时监控系统堵塞可视化性能研究

针对电站锅炉回转式空气预热器运行时上下表面不可见的问题，本文提出了一种视频监控与故障分析系统，可直接监测转子表面情况。该系统通过视频监控获取图像，结合改进的Retinex算法对其进行处理，实现了以下2个功能:1）能分析积灰程度以判断转子堵塞 情况；2）与温度场融合实时显示转子表面热点分布以预防二次燃烧。该系统已应用于某600 MW机组，实现了在热态环境下对空气预热器转子积灰程度、热点分布、堵塞程度的估算与可视化，大大提高了空气预热器运行的可靠性。     

Entropy generation and thermodynamic optimization of fully developed laminar convection in a helical coil

The present paper analyses the entropy generation of the fully developed laminar convection in a helical coil with constant wall heat flux and presents the optimal design based on the minimum entropy generation principal. The important design parameters, including Reynolds number (Re), coil-to-tube radius ratio (δ) and nondimensional coil pitch (λ) are varied to investigate their influences on the entropy generation. The results presented in this paper cover Re range of 100–10,000, δ and λ range from 0.01 to 0.3. Compared with Re and δ, the coil pitch λ is found to have minor influence on the entropy generation. For a demonstrated case, the minimum entropy generation occurs in the range bounded by Re from 2271 to 4277 and δ from 0.17 to 0.3, within which the irreversibility of the system is lowest and the system performance would be optimum. The details show that there is an optimal Re for a helical coil with a fixed δ; meanwhile for a helical coil flow with a specified Re, the smaller δ should be selected when the Re is larger than 5000, and the larger δ should be selected when the Re is less than 5000. These results provide worthwhile information for heat exchanger designers to find the optimal helical coil design from the viewpoint of the thermodynamic second law.     

Development of a small DMFC bipolar plate stack for portable applications

The direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) is regarded as a promising candidate in portable electronic power applications. Bipolar plate stacks were systematically studied by controlling the operating conditions, and by adjusting the stack structure design parameters, to develop more commercial DMFCs. The findings indicate that the peak power of the stack is influenced more strongly by the flow rate of air than by that of the methanol solution. Notably, the stack performance remains constant even as the channel depth is decreased from 1.0 to 0.6 mm, without loss of the performance in each cell. Furthermore, the specific power density of the stack was increased greatly from ∼60 to ∼100 W l⁻¹ for stacks of 10 and 18 cells, respectively. The current status of the work indicates that the power output of an 18-cell short stack reaches 33 W in air at 70 °C. The outer dimensions of this 18-cell short stack are only 80 mm × 80 mm × 51 mm, which are suitable for practical applications in 10–20 W DMFC portable systems.