Methodologies for the Integration of High-Resolution Measurements on Management of Modern Power Distribution Systems

Abstract

The recent technological advances on electric power systems have led to substantial investments in a supervised structure based on the use of advanced monitoring devices with telecommunication systems. Two technologies that have become mature and are already commercialized are phasor and waveform measurement units (PMUs and WMUs). They offer more detailed information of the system and with much higher time resolution than traditional smart meters (that typically store voltage/current magnitude and active/reactive power with time resolution of minutes or, in some cases, even hours). This increased awareness of distribution system operation opens a new range of still unexploited possibilities to improve the quality and reliability of electric power delivery as well as to decrease its operational costs.The above scenario has attracted the attention of distribution utilities around the world, especially due to the perspective of improving the performance and management of distribution systems. In such context, the main goal of this postdoctoral project is to develop methodologies that use information from high-resolution measurements to solve issues that cannot be addressed only with information from the traditional smart meters so that more value can be added to these new measurement technologies. Four specific applications will be investigated: stability monitoring of inverter-based generators, disturbance source location and equipment condition monitoring, anti-islanding protection of distributed generators, and control of Grid Edge technologies (photovoltaic generators, energy storage devices, energy efficient appliances, electric vehicles etc.). It is important to highlight that part of this research will be developed in collaboration with the power system research group led by Prof. Wilsun Xu (IEEE Fellow and expert on power quality monitoring) at the University of Alberta (UofA). In addition to strategic support, this collaboration will allow the candidate to access a large set of field measurements to be used in this project.