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Voltage Control in Low Voltage Grids with Distributed Energy Resources: A Droop-Based Approach

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Book cover Smart Cities, Green Technologies, and Intelligent Transport Systems (SMARTGREENS 2015, VEHITS 2015)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 579))

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Abstract

The challenges associated with the integration of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) in the electrical grid are among the main motivations for the implementation of Smart Grid functionalities. Bi-directionality of power flows leads to a potential imbalance between load and generation, requiring more dynamic voltage control mechanisms. Although the Smart Grid communication capabilities make it possible to implement more optimal centralized voltage control mechanisms, it may be still useful to have backup distributed mechanisms that are able to keep an acceptable operational level even upon communication failure due to equipment malfunction or intentional damage. Based on this need, this paper presents two droop-based voltage control algorithms, which can operate in the absence of a communication infrastructure. A time-division mechanism is used to avoid conflicts between decisions at the local level. The results show that the distributed algorithms are able to acceptably approach the performance of a centralized algorithm.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Based on offline experiments, it was concluded that the performance of the incremental algorithm was not improved by an additional timeslot, while the linear algorithm would degrade its performance if configured to use a single timeslot.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-SMARTCITIES-2013) under Grant 609132 (http://www.e-balance-project.eu/), in part by national funding from QREN through the “Monitorização e controlo inteligente da rede de Baixa Tensão” (Monitor BT) project and in part by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, with reference UID/CEC/50021/2013.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. INESC-ID, Lisbon, Portugal

    António Grilo & Mário Nunes

  2. Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

    António Grilo

  3. INOV, Lisbon, Portugal

    Mário Nunes

Authors
  1. António Grilo
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  2. Mário Nunes
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to António Grilo .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computing, Dublin City University School of Computing, Dublin, Ireland

    Markus Helfert

  2. RWTH Aachen University , Aachen, Germany

    Karl-Heinz Krempels

  3. Siemens Corporate Technology , München, Germany

    Cornel Klein

  4. Maynooth University , Maynooth, Kildare, Ireland

    Brian Donellan

  5. Ford Research and Engineering , Detroit, MI, USA

    Oleg Guiskhin

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© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Grilo, A., Nunes, M. (2015). Voltage Control in Low Voltage Grids with Distributed Energy Resources: A Droop-Based Approach. In: Helfert, M., Krempels, KH., Klein, C., Donellan, B., Guiskhin, O. (eds) Smart Cities, Green Technologies, and Intelligent Transport Systems. SMARTGREENS VEHITS 2015 2015. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 579. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27753-0_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27753-0_10

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-27752-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-27753-0

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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