Autonomous Sensor Fish to Support Advanced Hydropower Development
An improved sensor fish with robust design and enhanced measurement capabilities. This sensor fish contains sensors for acceleration, rotation, magnetic field intensity, pressure, and temperature. A low-power microcontroller collects data from the sensors and stores up to 5 minutes of data on a non-volatile flash memory. A rechargeable battery supplies power to the sensor fish. A recovery system helps locating sensor fish. The package, when ready for use is nearly neutrally buoyant and thus mimics the behavior of an actual fish.
Autonomous Sensor Fish to Support Advanced Hydropower Development
An improved sensor fish with robust design and enhanced measurement capabilities. This sensor fish contains sensors for acceleration, rotation, magnetic field intensity, pressure, and temperature. A low-power microcontroller collects data from the sensors and stores up to 5 minutes of data on a non-volatile flash memory. A rechargeable battery supplies power to the sensor fish. A recovery system helps locating sensor fish. The package, when ready for use is nearly neutrally buoyant and thus mimics the behavior of an actual fish.
Autonomous Sensor Fish to Support Advanced Hydropower Development
An improved sensor fish with robust design and enhanced measurement capabilities. This sensor fish contains sensors for acceleration, rotation, magnetic field intensity, pressure, and temperature. A low-power microcontroller collects data from the sensors and stores up to 5 minutes of data on a non-volatile flash memory. A rechargeable battery supplies power to the sensor fish. A recovery system helps locating sensor fish. The package, when ready for use is nearly neutrally buoyant and thus mimics the behavior of an actual fish.
COORDINATED VOLTAGE CONTROL AND REACTIVE POWER REGULATION BETWEEN TREANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION SYSTEMS (iEdison No. 0685901-18-0021, reporting done by North Carolina State University, 0578204-19-0014)
The invention is a new approach for coordinating volt-var control (VVC) between sub-transmission and distribution systems through optimal reactive power dispatch of distributed energy resources (DERs) that are aggregated as virtual power plants (VPPs). At the sub-transmission level, shunt devices and the reactive power provided by the VPPs are coordinated and optimised using VVC algorithm with weighted sum of multiple objects that include minimising voltage deviations from desirable levels at load buses, minimising loses, minimising solar curtailment, minimising demand response (DR) usage and minimising mechanical switching of shunt elements. The algorithm runs every five minutes and is solved using the AC optimal power flow technique. At the distribution level, each VPP runs a distribution VVC algorithm to dispatch reactive power from DERs. The goal of the VPP reactive power control is to meet sub-transmission service requirements while satisfying all the constraints at distribution side. Each VPP updates its reactive power capability every five minutes to allow the sub-transmission controller to formulate the optimisation problem for the next dispatch interval. The proposed tool is simulated on a Duke Energy Carolina system to demonstrate the capability of providing voltage support by dispatching reactive power of DERs as a VPP.
CONTROL APPROACH FOR POWER MODULATION OF END-USE LOADS
Proposed a novel control methodology to modulate the aggregated power of a population of heterogeneous end-use loads to follow desired power modulation signals Applied proposed control methodology for end-use loads to provide two different grid services Frequency regulation Damping of inter-area oscillations Technical novelties: Novel signal decomposition method to facilitate load controller design so that heterogeneous end-use loads can provide the service of frequency regulation for the first time (in the literature, only homogeneous end-use loads were considered for frequency regulation) With proposed control approach, it is also for the first time that end-use loads can damp inter-area oscillations for improving grid reliability (in the literature, only transmission-level control was considered)
Method and apparatus for improving water balance in fuel cell power unit
A method and apparatus for improving the water balance in a power unit by providing the exhaust gas from the cathode side of the fuel cell as a feed gas to the combustion system condensing at least a portion of water present in the effluent from the combustion system in a condenser, and then transferring water vapor from the uncondensed portion of the effluent from the condenser to the gas fed to the cathode side of the fuel cell. Water from the exhaust gas from the cathode side of the fuel cell is either captured in the condenser, or is reused in the feed gas of the cathode side of the fuel cell. By humidifying the air fed into system with the water vapor present in the exhaust gas, water is not lost from the system. Instead, the air is being fed into the system is humidified with this water, which in turn allows the humidifier to operated at higher temperatures and/or use smaller radiators and fans and/or draw less parasitic power, thereby increasing overall system efficiency.
Intelligent sensor and controller framework for the power grid
Disclosed below are representative embodiments of methods, apparatus, and systems for monitoring and using data in an electric power grid. For example, one disclosed embodiment comprises a sensor for measuring an electrical characteristic of a power line, electrical generator, or electrical device; a network interface; a processor; and one or more computer-readable storage media storing computer-executable instructions. In this embodiment, the computer-executable instructions include instructions for implementing an authorization and authentication module for validating a software agent received at the network interface; instructions for implementing one or more agent execution environments for executing agent code that is included with the software agent and that causes data from the sensor to be collected; and instructions for implementing an agent packaging and instantiation module for storing the collected data in a data container of the software agent and for transmitting the software agent, along with the stored data, to a next destination.
Intelligent sensor and controller framework for the power grid
Disclosed below are representative embodiments of methods, apparatus, and systems for monitoring and using data in an electric power grid. For example, one disclosed embodiment comprises a sensor for measuring an electrical characteristic of a power line, electrical generator, or electrical device; a network interface; a processor; and one or more computer-readable storage media storing computer-executable instructions. In this embodiment, the computer-executable instructions include instructions for implementing an authorization and authentication module for validating a software agent received at the network interface; instructions for implementing one or more agent execution environments for executing agent code that is included with the software agent and that causes data from the sensor to be collected; and instructions for implementing an agent packaging and instantiation module for storing the collected data in a data container of the software agent and for transmitting the software agent, along with the stored data, to a next destination.
METHODS AND APPARATUS OF ANALYZING ELECTRICAL POWER GRID DATA
This software is a framework for performing scalable data analysis over large-scale power grid data sets. The framework consists of a statistical analysis package, such as R, running in a robust parallel environment, such as over a Hadoop cluster. This analysis package is used to define rules that identify subsets of data of interest, for example bad data or data indicating events of interest. These rules can be combined in arbitrary ways, for example multiple rules may be required to remove all erroneous data from the original data set. These rules can also be translated to a more efficient encoding, such as a Java program. When events of interest are identified, they are classified within known event types, and the collection of event metadata and underlying data references are stored in a relational database. These higher level metadata descriptions of the events can then be used to quickly respond to queries from either users or other applications, or this information can be displayed in a visual format. This framework provides a unique ability to perform analysis over complete large-scale power grid data sets, such as the PMU or FFT data being generated by smartgrid deployments, as opposed to most traditional analysis techniques that operate over a subset of the data. This enables a more complete data analysis. We have used this framework to identify novel rules that identify erroneous data in PMU data sets. We have also developed rules for identifying events of interest such as generator trips and islanding events.