The Smart Grid, regarded as the next generation power grid, uses two-way flows of electricity and information to create a widely distributed automated energy delivery network. In this article, we survey the literature till 2011 on the enabling technologies for the Smart Grid. We explore three major systems, namely the smart infrastructure system, the smart management system, and the smart protection system. We also propose possible future directions in each system. colorred{Specifically, for the smart infrastructure system, we explore the smart energy subsystem, the smart information subsystem, and the smart communication subsystem.} For the smart management system, we explore various management objectives, such as improving energy efficiency, profiling demand, maximizing utility, reducing cost, and controlling emission. We also explore various management methods to achieve these objectives. For the smart protection system, we explore various failure protection mechanisms which improve the reliability of the Smart Grid, and explore the security and privacy issues in the Smart Grid.

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Smart Grid — The New and Improved Power Grid: A Survey

Smart Grid - The New and Improved Power Grid:

Survey Paper: A survey on the communication architectures in smart grid

The advent of more proactive consumers, the so-called “prosumers”, with production and storage capabilities, is empowering the consumers and bringing new opportunities and challenges to the operation of power systems in a market environment. Recently, a novel proposal for the design and operation of electricity markets has emerged: these so-called peer-to-peer (P2P) electricity markets conceptually allow the prosumers to directly share their electrical energy and investment. Such P2P markets rely on a consumer-centric and bottom-up perspective by giving the opportunity to consumers to freely choose the way they buy their electric energy. A community can also be formed by prosumers who want to collaborate, or in terms of operational energy management. This paper contributes with an overview of these new P2P markets that starts with the motivation, challenges, market designs moving to the potential future developments in this field, providing recommendations while considering a test-case.

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Peer-to-peer and community-based markets: A comprehensive review

Power electronics has progressively gained an important status in power generation, distribution, and consumption. With more than 70% of electricity processed through power electronics, recent research endeavors to improve the reliability of power electronic systems to comply with more stringent constraints on cost, safety, and availability in various applications. This paper serves to give an overview of the major aspects of reliability in power electronics and to address the future trends in this multidisciplinary research direction. The ongoing paradigm shift in reliability research is presented first. Then, the three major aspects of power electronics reliability are discussed, respectively, which cover physics-of-failure analysis of critical power electronic components, state-of-the-art design for reliability process and robustness validation, and intelligent control and condition monitoring to achieve improved reliability under operation. Finally, the challenges and opportunities for achieving more reliable power electronic systems in the future are discussed.

http://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/etit/LEA-download/publications/2014/80629_jestpe-2013-04-0032_postprint.pdf

Transitioning to Physics-of-Failure as a Reliability Driver in Power Electronics

Reliability assessment of photovoltaic power systems: Review of current status and future perspectives

For distribution networks with a high penetration of photovoltaic (PV) systems, overvoltage is a common and major issue that needs be addressed to not only assure reliable and secure system operation, but also to fully utilize PV generation capacity. A new real power capping method is proposed in this paper to prevent overvoltages by adaptively setting the power caps for PV inverters in real time. The proposed method can maintain voltage profiles below a preset upper limit while maximizing the PV generation and fairly distributing the real power curtailments among all the PV systems in the network. As a result, each of the PV systems in the network has equal opportunity to generate electricity and shares the responsibility of voltage regulation. The method does not require global information and can be implemented either under a centralized supervisory control scheme or in a distributed way via consensus control. Both steady state and dynamic simulation studies under various scenarios have been carried out on a 33-bus distribution system and the IEEE 13-bus test feeder to verify the effectiveness of the method.

Adaptive Real Power Capping Method for Fair Overvoltage Regulation of Distribution Networks With High Penetration of PV Systems

This study presents a systematic way to evaluate reliability performance of large grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) power systems considering variation of input power and ambient-condition-dependent failure rates of critical components including PV modules, inverters, and capacitors. State enumeration is used to analyze real-life grid-connected PV systems. Ambient-condition-dependent failure rates of major components in PV systems are formulated and incorporated in reliability analysis. A series of reliability indices are defined to quantify PV systems' reliability performance. In addition, sensitivity analyses are extensively conducted to investigate the impact of different factors on the performances of PV power systems. Test results on a practical 20-kW PV project are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

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Reliability Evaluation of Grid-Connected Photovoltaic Power Systems

The integration of distributed generation (DG) sources can cause significant impacts on distribution networks, particularly the changes in magnitudes and directions of short circuit currents that may lead to false tripping or fail to trip over-current protection relays in the system. It is expensive and technically challenging to redesign/reconfigure and/or to replace the original protection system for a distribution network. If not appropriately handled, this issue can be a big hurdle before the wide use of DG. Based on the impact analysis of the number of DGs, their locations and capacities upon short circuit currents, this paper presents an optimal DG placement method to maximize the penetration level of DG in distribution networks without changing the original relay protection schemes. Genetic algorithm is used to find the optimal locations and sizes of DG in distribution networks. Simulation studies have been carried out on a three-feeder test distribution network and a widely used 33-node test system to show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Relay Protection Coordination Integrated Optimal Placement and Sizing of Distributed Generation Sources in Distribution Networks

As a key technology in smart grid, the wide-area measurement system (WAMS) will gradually become an important guarantee for security and stability of future power systems. This paper presents a quantified reliability evaluation method for the backbone communication network in WAMS and the overall WAMS from a hardware reliability viewpoint. The whole WAMS is modeled using a hierarchical structure. Markov modeling and state enumeration techniques are combined to perform the reliability evaluation. The WAMS in the IEEE 14-bus system is used as an example to demonstrate the application of the presented method in reliability assessment of overall WAMS.

Yang Wang

Papers

Reliability assessment of photovoltaic power systems: Review of current status and future perspectives

Adaptive Real Power Capping Method for Fair Overvoltage Regulation of Distribution Networks With High Penetration of PV Systems

Reliability Evaluation of Grid-Connected Photovoltaic Power Systems

Relay Protection Coordination Integrated Optimal Placement and Sizing of Distributed Generation Sources in Distribution Networks

Reliability Analysis of Wide-Area Measurement System