Research Terms
Electrical Engineering Power Systems
Industries
Researchers at the University of Central Florida have developed an online self-healing power grid tool that responds to power outages faster and more efficiently than current restoration methods. The new Adaptive Restoration Decision Support System (ARDSS) uses novel computational methods to holistically assess and respond to power outages, even as conditions affecting the grid change.
The invention encompasses a system and methods for enabling self-healing power grids after a power outage. When integrated with a company's energy management system, the unique ARDSS combines the many stages of power restoration into one holistic problem, and then decomposes it into a two-stage mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) problem. Once the first-stage problem is solved, the ARDSS addresses the second-stage problem using an integer L-shaped algorithm, auxiliary variables and optimality cuts to ensure the restoration feasibility.
To run the necessary computations, the system employs two types of functions: optimal planning (OP) and optimal real-time (OR) functions; each is executed at specific time periods. The OP function is executed at the early stages of restoration, and the OR function is run periodically at each restoration time step. Moreover, the OP function solves the two-stage problem as a whole, while the OR function only solves the second-stage problem with the first-stage decisions fixed. Both functions may be implemented via hardware or software.
Two-Stage Adaptive Restoration Decision Support System for a Self-Healing Power Grid, IEEE Transactions On Industrial Informatics, Vol. 13, No. 6, December 2017
The University of Central Florida invention is a Multi-Agent Open Distribution System Simulator (MA-OpenDSS). The invention is built on OpenDSS and incorporates asynchronous local communication, dynamic behaviors of distributed resources, and a host of distributed optimization and control algorithms. This software has applications in electric power systems and utility industries.