Decentralized electricity market with transactive energy – A path forward

Discussions about the future decentralized electricity market include concepts such as transactive energy, energy hub, transmission & distribution coordination, and distributional market pricing. As the advent of the smart grid approaches, the design of a realizable market paradigm that can integrate the wholesale market with the retail market and individualized customers calls for solution. This article provides a summary of the insights achieved to date into the transmission/distribution/customer hierarchy, with a focus on the relation between transactive energy and distribution marginal pricing; it also addresses the ongoing challenges and provides suggestions for future work.     

Including electricity imports in California’s cap-and-trade program: A case study of a border carbon adjustment in practice

This article examines the inclusion of electricity imports in California’s cap-and-trade program. Having struggled to prevent the circumvention of the compliance obligation for imported electricity, policymakers weakened the policy’s environmental effectiveness during implementation. Drawing on empirical data, this case study finds that political opposition from utilities led to this policy outcome. The reason behind this opposition lay in concerns about regulatory uncertainty and the policy’s effectiveness in achieving emissions reductions.     

An Ultra-High-Speed Starter–Generator with a Magnetic Core of Amorphous Iron for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Results of research on an ultra-high-speed starter–generator with permanent magnets and tooth windings for unmanned aerial vehicles are presented. Technologies for manufacturing of a stator magnetic core of amorphous iron, as well as methods of selection of the number of pole pairs of an ultra-high-speed starter—generator, are studied, the advantages of amorphous iron are substantiated. A particular stage of the work is devoted to the problems of optimization of the slotted area of a starter–generator on the basis of the criterion of the presence of minimum losses in permanent magnets for eddy currents. To minimize these losses, a multicriterion optimization of the slotted area is performed using the genetic algorithms, as a result of which the losses were a quarter those of the initial variant. A cooling diagram of the synchronous machine in the structure of the turbojet engine is proposed. Thermal calculations are presented. A full-scale mockup with a capacity of 5 kW, rotation frequency of 60000 rpm, power density of 0.2 kg/kW, and coefficient of efficiency 96.4% was created to check the proposed design sequence, as well as to determine the efficiency of using amorphous iron. Initial tests of the experimental mockup backed up the theoretical conclusions and showed that the use of amorphous iron allows reducing the losses in the magnetic core of the stator by five to seven times.     

“An Island of Technicality in a Sea of Discretion”: A Critique of Existing Electric Power Systems Reliability Analysis and Policy

Although the existing analytical framework has performed admirably in the past, the changing industry structure requires improvements, including the use of modeling techniques of the sort successfully used in the nuclear power industry.     

Perfect Fortifying Standard for a More Anti-Disaster Power Grid——An Interview with Wang Jianping,President of CPECC

In early January 2008,a series of large-scale long-drawn low-temperature freezing rain and snow weather attacked most parts of southern China.The series weather disasters imposed considerable harm to power grids in Southwest China,Central China,South China and East China,including large-scale tower collapse,transmission line breaking and fiashover.The most serious disaster occurred in Guizhou and Hunan,causing tremendous impact on the national economy and people's life there.As a technical mainstay in Chinese power industry,China Power Engineering Consulting Group Corporation (CPECC) suggested some measures to improve the defense capability of power grids to natural calamities while supporting power grid enterprises in fighting up against the ice disaster.     

Does dynamic pricing work in a winter-peaking climate? A case study of Hydro Quebec

Ever since California experienced its energy crisis two decades ago, dynamic pricing of electricity has been the topic of discussion in numerous conferences and papers. Scores of pilots involving some 400 treatments of time-varying rates have been done to assess customer response to dynamic pricing around the globe, beginning with California’s Statewide Pricing Pilot that ran from 2003 to 04. In the past few years, we are witnessing large scale deployment of static time-varying rates in states such as California and Michigan. Colorado is about to embark on that journey. However, other than OG&E’s deployment of dynamic pricing, we have not seen much deployment of dynamic pricing in North America. California’s power outages in August 2002 have rekindled interest in the topic. But almost all of the discussion about dynamic pricing has focused on summer peaking utilities. In this paper, we discuss the experience of Hydro Quebec, a winter peaking utility in Canada. Hydro Quebec has tested both critical-peak pricing and peak-time rebates. The results are very encouraging and quite consistent with results from summer peaking utilities.The article is based on a question and answer format with Frederic Pelletier, who advises Hydro Quebec on tariff strategy. He had posted some results from their dynamic pricing deployment on LinkedIn in response to some results I had posted from three-pilots with TOU rates that had been carried out in Maryland. I put a few questions to Frederic and this article evolved out of that conversation. In the article that follows, the questions are mine and the answers are exclusively his.     

A Modest Proposal: Revoke the Nobel Prize? Recognize the Limitations of Theory? Or Grant a License to Steal?

Using a California-style second-price auction structure in a highly volatile market with a limited number of bidders is close to a license to steal when the market approaches a peak and concerted action is highly rewarded. Iconoclasm should have a place in devising remedies.     

A Robust H∞ Controller Based Gain-scheduled Approach for the Power Smoothing of Wind Turbine Generator with a Battery Energy Storage System

Output power fluctuation of the wind turbine generator is a serious issue for power systems. The battery energy storage system is installed to the power system to solve this problem. However, the large battery energy storage system can increase the capital cost of the wind turbine generator system. Hence, the capacity of the battery should be reduced as much as possible. This article presents an H_∞ based control method for the output power smoothing method of the wind turbine generator by using a battery energy storage system. The output power fluctuation of the wind turbine generator is considered in the frequency domain. Low-frequency fluctuations are smoothed by pitch angle control of the wind turbine generator, while high-frequency variations are smoothed by charge or discharge of the battery energy storage system, respectively. The battery energy storage system’s capacity and mechanical stress of wind turbine blades can be reduced by the proposed method. In addition, the gain-scheduled control theory is applied to the pitch angle control system of the wind turbine generator. Therefore, the robust control performance for high non-linearities of the wind turbine generator model can be achieved. The effectiveness of the proposed method is validated by numerical simulations.     

A simulation study of short channel effects with a QET model based on Fermi–Dirac statistics and nonparabolicity for high-mobility MOSFETs

In this paper, the quantum confinement and short channel effects of Si, Ge, and \(\hbox {In}_{0.53}\hbox {Ga}_{0.47}\)As n-MOSFETs are evaluated. Both bulk and double-gate structures are simulated using a quantum energy transport model based on Fermi–Dirac statistics. Nonparabolic band effects are further considered. The QET model allows us to simulate carrier transport including quantum confinement and hot carrier effects. The charge control by the gate is reduced in the Ge and \(\hbox {In}_{0.53}\hbox {Ga}_{0.47}\)As bulk n-MOSFETs due to the low effective mass and high permittivity. This charge control reduction induces the degradation of short channel effects. In double-gate structures, different improvements of drain induced barrier lowering (DIBL) and subthreshold slope (SS) are seen. The double-gate structure is effective in the suppression of DIBL for all channel materials. The SS degradation depends on channel materials even in double-gate structure.     

A change in the air? The role of offshore wind in Australia’s transition to a 100 % renewable grid

Rapid decarbonisation of electricity production is required if Australia is to meet its obligations under the Paris Agreement. Critical to achieving this at low cost while maintaining system reliability is the selection of an appropriate mix of generation technologies to service electrical demand. Australia has seen extensive deployment of renewable energy technologies such as onshore wind and solar but has not yet seen the adoption of offshore wind technology. However, there is currently significant interest in developing this resource, with ongoing debate occurring about future technology costs and the potential of onshore renewables to meet electrical demand.This article presents the results of an investigation into the techno-economic impact of exogenously fixing offshore wind capacity on a future least-cost Australian National Electricity Market with 100 % renewable generation. An existing open-source cost optimisation model, National Electricity Market Optimiser, was used for the study.It was found that increasing the capacity of offshore wind in the generation mix leads to displacement of both onshore wind and solar generators. This is due to the greater magnitude and consistency of the offshore wind resource relative to onshore. Increasing offshore wind capacity therefore tends to reduce the total system generation capacity, as well as the amount of unused surplus generation. Using lowest published projections for future capital costs, inclusion of offshore wind was found to reduce total system costs. Using an average of future cost projections, total system costs were found to increase. However, adding up to 15 GW of offshore wind capacity to a 100 % renewable system would only impact total system costs by 5 %. Given the other potential advantages of offshore wind, namely closer siting to load centres, reduced need for onshore land resources, and the potential to transition existing fossil fuel workers, our results suggest that offshore wind may be a suitable candidate for inclusion in Australia’s transition to a low carbon electricity system, under a range of future cost scenarios.     

A Method for Selecting a Minimum Break Point Set（MBPS） from Multi-MBPS with the Same Cardinal Number Based on Evaluation of Relay Protection Importance

在复杂环网的继电保护整定计算中,最小断点集（MBPS）的求取往往会出现多组同基解。综合考虑节点和线路对断点脆弱性的影响,并基于节点和线路电气介数,提出了保护重要度概念,以此作为衡量保护脆弱性的指标,给出了一种多组同基最小断点集选取方法。最后通过算例验证了算法的可行性和有效性。