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DOE OSTI2024

Best Practices for Resilience in Smart Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings

The Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) supports federal agencies' energy decisions with information and guidance on design, funding, and operations to ensure federal buildings are efficient and resilient. The modernization of building infrastructure and the evolution of buildings to support decarbonization involves complex implementation of multiple components across several systems. This includes energy-efficient equipment, on-site energy generation and storage systems, and control systems. These systems have operational modes that can operate more efficiently if they are able to behave responsively to the conditions of the electrical grid. These grid-interactive efficient buildings (GEB) allow facilities to manage power demand according to operational constraints and market signals issued by grid operators. With proper design and planning, these same capabilities have the potential to enable building and facility resilience - coordinating with microgrids, maintaining power on critical circuits to sustain essential operations, and monitoring building health and safety status during an outage. By managing the load of buildings, GEBs can also reduce the cost of backup generation and make better use of renewable power sources on site. This document outlines some of the processes and considerations to guide the design and operation of GEBs in ways that promote facility resilience.

building decarbonization↗

DOE OSTI2020

Experimental Test Bed to Enable Realistic Evaluations for Direct Transfer Trip Relaying via Private Wireless LTE Communications: Preprint

Increasing penetration levels of inverter-based distributed energy resources (DERs) in distribution systems are creating challenges in system operation. Currently, wired or proprietary wireless communications are used by advanced distribution management systems (ADMS) to detect the state of the system and control the DERs for optimal operation. Wireless communications are an alternative solution that can enable connectivity between the dispersed assets used in distribution system applications. This paper demonstrates an experimental test bed to enable the realistic evaluation of communications system characteristics for direct transfer trip (DTT) relaying of a photovoltaic inverter system using a private 900-MHz spectrum wireless LTE network. Private LTE network communications can be deployed to many remote DERs and other grid-edge devices to prevent costly infrastructure upgrades across distribution systems. In addition, this paper provides a framework for evaluating the impact of signal strength and network traffic in communications systems. The results shown develop a better understanding of the best practices for using LTE communications systems across multiple utility applications, such as protective relaying, voltage regulation, and supervisory control and data acquisition system messages.

900 MHz LTE network↗

DOE OSTI2022

Implementing multi-settlement decentralized electricity market design for transactive communities with imperfect communication

Recent advances in information and communication technologies and smart metering, provides strategic opportunities for ``prosumers" to reform their conventional energy practices towards more consumer-centric economies. From an operational perspective, managing power distribution networks is becoming more difficult with such active grid-edge systems providing limited to no visibility or control. Transactive Energy (TE) has been emerging as a key enabler towards effectively and efficiently integrating prosumers into competitive electricity markets. This work presents a transactive implementation of community-centric markets. A co-simulation framework is developed for evaluating the proposed market structure with high-fidelity models. Case studies on the IEEE-123 node test system demonstrate that community-centric transactive markets can enable communities of prosumers to operate collaboratively as grid-edge systems. The potential benefits of implementing community-centric TE systems are also illustrated.

Mukherjee, Monish↗

DOE OSTI2021

Transactive Implementation of Decentralized Electricity Market for Grid-Edge Systems

The electricity landscape is evolving towards more decentralized approaches due to the proliferation of distributed energy resources and the participation of increasingly smart consumers and producers (prosumers). Recent advances in information and communication technologies and smart metering, provides strategic opportunities for “prosumers” to reform their conventional energy practices towards more consumer-centric economies. From an operational perspective, managing power distribution networks is becoming more difficult with such active grid-edge systems providing limited to no visibility or control. Transactive Energy (TE) has been emerging as a key enabler towards effectively and efficiently integrating prosumers into competitive electricity markets. This work presents a transactive implementation of community-centric markets. A co-simulation framework is developed for evaluating the proposed market structure with high-fidelity models. Case studies on the IEEE-123 node test system demonstrate that community-centric transactive markets can enable communities of prosumers to operate collaboratively as grid-edge systems. The potential benefits of implementing community-centric TE systems are also illustrated.

transactive, microgrids, centralized market operat↗

DOE OSTI2021

Cyber–Physical System Security of Distribution Systems

The Information and Communications Technology (ICT) for control and monitoring of power systems is a layer on top of the physical power system infrastructure. The cyber system and physical power system components form a tightly coupled Cyber–Physical System (CPS). Sources of vulnerabilities arise from the computing and communication systems of the cyber–power grid. Cyber intrusions targeting the power grid are serious threats to the reliability of electricity supply that is critical to society and the economy. In a typical Information Technology environment, numerous attack scenarios have shown how unauthorized users can access and manipulate protected information from a network domain. The need for cyber security has led to industry standards that power grids must meet to ensure that the monitoring, operation, and control functions are not disrupted by cyber intrusions. Cyber security technologies such as encryption and authentication have been deployed on the CPS. Intrusion or anomaly detection and mitigation tools developed for power grids are emerging. Furthermore, this survey paper provides the basic concepts of cyber vulnerabilities of distribution systems and CPS security. The important ICT subjects for distribution systems covered in this paper include Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition, Distributed Energy Resources, including renewable energy and smart meters.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

NASA NTRS2015

A High-Resolution Merged Wind Dataset for DYNAMO: Progress and Future Plans

In order to support research on optimal data assimilation methods for the Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS), launching in 2016, work has been ongoing to produce a high‐resolution merged wind dataset for the Dynamics of the Madden Julian Oscillation (DYNAMO) field campaign, which took place during late 2011/early 2012. The winds are produced by assimilating DYNAMO observations into the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) three‐dimensional variational (3DVAR) system. Data sources from the DYNAMO campaign include the upper‐air sounding network, radial velocities from the radar network, vector winds from the Advanced Scatterometer (ASCAT) and Oceansat‐2 Scatterometer (OSCAT) satellite instruments, the NOAA High Resolution Doppler Lidar (HRDL), and several others. In order the prep them for 3DVAR, significant additional quality control work is being done for the currently available TOGA and SMART‐R radar datasets, including automatically dealiasing radial velocities and correcting for intermittent TOGA antenna azimuth angle errors. The assimilated winds are being made available as model output fields from WRF on two separate grids with different horizontal resolutions ‐ a 3‐km grid focusing on the main DYNAMO quadrilateral (i.e., Gan Island, the R/V Revelle, the R/V Mirai, and Diego Garcia), and a 1‐km grid focusing on the Revelle. The wind dataset is focused on three separate approximately 2‐week periods during the Madden Julian Oscillation (MJO) onsets that occurred in October, November, and December 2011. Work is ongoing to convert the 10‐m surface winds from these model fields to simulated CYGNSS observations using the CYGNSS End‐To‐End Simulator (E2ES), and these simulated satellite observations are being compared to radar observations of DYNAMO precipitation systems to document the anticipated ability of CYGNSS to provide information on the relationships between surface winds and oceanic precipitation at the mesoscale level. This research will improve our understanding of the future utility of CYGNSS for documenting key MJO processes.

Lang, Timothy J.↗

DOE OSTI2021

Experimental Test Bed to Enable Realistic Evaluations for Direct Transfer Trip Relaying via Private Wireless LTE Communications

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

DOE OSTI2023

Deep Reinforcement Learning for Distribution System Cyber Attack Defense with DERs

The use of smart inverter capabilities of distributed energy resources (DERs) enhances the grid reliability but in the meanwhile exhibits more vulnerabilities to cyber-attacks. This paper proposes a deep reinforcement learning (DRL)-based defense approach. The defense problem is reformulated as a Markov decision making process to control DERs and minimizing load shedding to address the voltage violations caused by cyber-attacks. The original soft actor-critic (SAC) method for continuous actions has been extended to handle discrete and continuous actions for controlling DERs' setpoints and loadshedding scenarios. Numerical comparison results with other control approaches, such as Volt-VAR and Volt-Watt on the modified IEEE 33-node, show that the proposed method can achieve better voltage regulation and have less power losses in the presence of cyber-attacks.

active distribution systems↗

DOE OSTI2020

Hierarchical, Grid-Aware, and Economically Optimal Coordination of Distributed Energy Resources in Realistic Distribution Systems

Renewable portfolio standards are targeting high levels of variable solar photovoltaics (PV) in electric distribution systems, which makes reliability more challenging to maintain for distribution system operators (DSOs). Distributed energy resources (DERs), including smart, connected appliances and PV inverters, represent responsive grid resources that can provide flexibility to support the DSO in actively managing their networks to facilitate reliability under extreme levels of solar PV. This flexibility can also be used to optimize system operations with respect to economic signals from wholesale energy and ancillary service markets. Here, we present a novel hierarchical scheme that actively controls behind-the-meter DERs to reliably manage each unbalanced distribution feeder and exploits the available flexibility to ensure reliable operation and economically optimizes the entire distribution network. Each layer of the scheme employs advanced optimization methods at different timescales to ensure that the system operates within both grid and device limits. The hierarchy is validated in a large-scale realistic simulation based on data from the industry. Simulation results show that coordination of flexibility improves both system reliability and economics, and enables greater penetration of solar PV. Discussion is also provided on the practical viability of the required communications and controls to implement the presented scheme within a large DSO.

distribution network↗

DOE OSTI2022

Characterization of Voltage Stabilization Functions of Residential PV Inverters in a Power Hardware-in-the-Loop Environment

Not Available

42 ENGINEERING↗

DOE OSTI2023

Autonomous Restoration of Networked Microgrids Using Communication-Free Smart Sensing and Protection Units

Here this paper presents autonomous restoration of networked microgrids using distributed energy resources (DERs), inverter-based resources (IBRs) in general, and controllable assets of intelligence without communication to achieve a extremely resilient power system restoration. The main innovation of this work lies in use of real-time smart sensing and decision making that enable autonomous recombination of islanded microgrids, which are individually black-started by local grid-forming (GFM) inverter units. The smart circuit breakers (SCBs) designed and demonstrated here play critical roles in the restoration process to achieve autonomy; the autonomous restoration scheme is not pre-engineered and may be subject to encounter overloading, live or downed segments as the boundary of the microgrids dynamically expands without prior knowledge and only with local measurement. We demonstrate autonomous microgrid restoration both in simulation of a modified IEEE 13-bus system, and in a hardware testbed comprising 24 GFM-IBRs and 6-SCBs, depicting several scenarios to evaluate their functionalities and interoperability. This work validates high potential of extremely resilient microgrid using novel approaches for inverter-based bottom-up system restoration in a communication-free paradigm.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

DOE OSTI2023

Uncertainty Error Modeling for Non-Linear State Estimation With Unsynchronized SCADA and µPMU Measurements

Distribution systems of the future smart grid require enhancements to the reliability of distribution system state estimation (DSSE) in the face of low measurement redundancy, unsynchronized measurements, and dynamic load profiles. Micro phasor measurement units (µPMUs) facilitate co-synchronized measurements with high granularity, albeit at an often prohibitively expensive installation cost. Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) measurements can supplement µPMU data, although they are received at a slower sampling rate. Further complicating matters is the uncertainty associated with load dynamics and unsynchronized measurements–not only are the SCADA and µPMU measurements not synchronized with each other, but the SCADA measurements themselves are received at different time intervals with respect to one another. This paper proposes a non-linear state estimation framework which models dynamic load uncertainty error by updating the variances of the unsynchronized measurements, leading to a time-varying system of weights in the weighted least squares state estimator. Case studies are performed on the 33-Bus Distribution System in MATPOWER, using Ornstein–Uhlenbeck stochastic processes to simulate dynamic load conditions.

Cooper, Austin↗

DOE OSTI2022

Cross-Layered Distributed Data-Driven Framework for Enhanced Smart Grid Cyber-Physical Security

Smart Grid (SG) research and development has drawn much attention from academia, industry and government due to the great impact it will have on society, economics and the environment. Securing the SG is a considerably significant challenge due the increased dependency on communication networks to assist in physical process control, exposing them to various cyber-threats. In addition to attacks that change measurement values using False Data Injection (FDI) techniques, attacks on the communication network may disrupt the power system's real-time operation by intercepting messages, or by flooding the communication channels with unnecessary data. Addressing these attacks requires a cross-layer approach. In this paper a cross-layered strategy is presented, called Cross-Layer Ensemble CorrDet with Adaptive Statistics(CECD-AS), which integrates the detection of faulty SG measurement data as well as inconsistent network inter-arrival times and transmission delays for more reliable and accurate anomaly detection and attack interpretation. Numerical results show that CECD-AS can detect multiple False Data Injections, Denial of Service (DoS) and Man In The Middle (MITM) attacks with a high F1-score compared to current approaches that only use SG measurement data for detection such as the traditional physics-based State Estimation, Ensemble CorrDet with Adaptive Statistics strategy and other machine learning classification-based detection schemes.

cyber-physical security↗

DOE OSTI2023

Anomaly detection for MPC forecast in Fleet of Water Heaters

Among residential devices, water heaters consume 20% of home energy use in the United States. Water heaters possess the capability to store energy within their reservoirs, enabling the ability to decouple energy use from hot water use. This capability can be used to reduce energy usage and costs while also supporting grid services. This requires accurate forecasting of the parameters of the water heater such as upper and lower temperatures. In this study, we analyzed the performance and behavior of a water heater model used in the real-world to predict a control mechanism that is implemented in a smart residential neighborhood. The model forecasts are accurate in most cases but not all. In such scenarios, error correction of the model is necessary to further improve model predictive control accuracy. Anomaly detection is the first step of error correction. This study complements existing research by grouping time series data into two clusters one with anomalies and another without anomalies. To achieve this task, we explored and compared multiple unsupervised machine learning algorithms to perform clustering. Among these algorithms, Ward clustering has the lowest running time and identified the highest number of anomalies for the upper temperature limit. The proposed approach is tested based on the data collected in a neighborhood with 46 townhomes located in Atlanta, GA.

Lebakula, Viswadeep↗

NASA NTRS2003

Active Control of F/A-18 Vertical Tail Buffeting using Piezoelectric Actuators

Vertical tail buffeting is a serious multidisciplinary problem that limits the performance of twin-tail fighter aircraft. The buffet problem occurs at high angles of attack when the vortical flow breaks down ahead of the vertical tails resulting in unsteady and unbalanced pressure loads on the vertical tails. This paper describes a multidisciplinary computational investigation for buffet load alleviation of full F/A-18 aircraft using distributed piezoelectric actuators. The inboard and outboard surfaces of the vertical tail are equipped with piezoelectric actuators to control the buffet responses in the first bending and torsion modes. The electrodynamics of the smart structure are expressed with a three-dimensional finite element model. A single-input-single-output controller is designed to drive the active piezoelectric actuators. High-fidelity multidisciplinary analysis modules for the fluid dynamics, structure dynamics, electrodynamics of the piezoelectric actuators, fluid-structure interfacing, and grid motion are integrated into a multidisciplinary computing environment that controls the temporal synchronization of the analysis modules. Peak values of the power spectral density of tail tip acceleration are reduced by as much as 22% in the first bending mode and by as much as 82% in the first torsion mode. RMS values of tip acceleration are reduced by as much as 12%.

Sheta, Essam F.↗

DOE OSTI2024

Using Flexible Load Control in Residential Buildings to Support Grid Reliability

An overview of using flexible load control in residential buildings to support grid reliability, presented at the IEEE PES T&D Conference and Exposition in May 2024.

aggregator↗

DOE OSTI2022

Methods, systems, and computer readable media for protecting and controlling a microgrid with a dynamic boundary

Methods, systems, and computer readable mediums for protecting and controlling a microgrid with a dynamic boundary are disclosed. One method includes detecting a fault in a microgrid that includes a dynamic point-of-common-coupling (PCC), in response to determining that the microgrid is operating in a grid-connected mode, isolating the fault by tripping a microgrid side smart switch and a grid side smart switch that are located immediately adjacent to the fault, initiating the reclosing of the grid side smart switch, and initiating the reclosing for the microgrid side smart switch via resynchronization if the grid side smart switch is successfully reclosed, and in response to determining that the microgrid is operating in an islanded mode, isolating the fault by tripping a microgrid side smart switch that is located immediately adjacent to the fault, and initiating the reclosing of the microgrid side smart switch.

Wang, Fei↗

DOE OSTI2021

Heat Based Power Augmentation for Modular Pumped Hydro Storage in Smart Buildings Operation

In the U.S., building sector is responsible for around 40% of total energy consumption and contributes about 40% of carbon emissions since 2012. Within the past several years, various optimization models and control strategies have been studied to improve buildings energy efficiency and reduce operational expenses under the constraints of satisfying occupants’ comfort requirements. However, the majority of these studies consider building electricity demand and thermal load being satisfied by unidirectional electricity flow from the power grid or on-site renewable energy generation to electrical and thermal home appliances. Opportunities for leveraging low grade heat for electricity have largely been overlooked due to impracticality at small scale. In 2016, a modular pumped hydro storage technology was invented in Oak Ridge National Laboratory, named Ground Level Integrated Diverse Energy Storage (GLIDES). In GLIDES, employing high efficiency hydraulic machinery instead of gas compressor/turbine, liquid is pumped to compress gas inside high-pressure vessel creating head on ground-level. This unique design eliminates the geographical limitation associated with existing state of the art energy storage technologies. It is easy to be scaled for building level, community level and grid level applications. Using this novel hydro-pneumatic storage technology, opportunities for leveraging low-grade heat in building can be economical. In this research, the potential of utilizing low-grade thermal energy to augment electricity generation of GLIDES is investigated. Since GLIDES relies on gas expansion in the discharge process and the gas temperature drops during this non-isothermal process, available thermal energy, e.g. from thermal storage, Combined Cooling, Heat and Power system (CCHP), can be utilized by GLIDES to counter the cooling effect of the expansion process and elevate the gas temperature and pressure and boost the roundtrip efficiency. Several groups of comparison experiments have been conducted and the experimental results show that a maximum 12.9% cost saving could be achieved with unlimited heat source for GLIDES, and a moderate 3.8% cost improvement can be expected when operated coordinately with CCHP and thermal energy storage in a smart building.

Chen, Yang↗