This paper aims to improve the forecasting of electricity market prices by incorporating the characteristics of electricity market prices that are discretely affected by the fuel cost per unit, the unit generation cost of the large-scale generators, and the demand. In this paper, two new techniques are introduced. The first technique applies feature generation to the label and forecasts the transformed new variables, which are then post-processed by inverse transformation, considering the characteristic of the fuel types of marginal generators or prices through two variables: fuel cost per unit by the representative fuel type and argument of the maximum of Probability Density Function (PDF) calculated by Kernel Density Estimation (KDE) from the previous price. The second technique applies decomposition to the demand, followed by a feature selection process to apply the major decomposed feature. It is verified using gain or SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) value in the feature selec... [more]

Solar radiation has important impacts on buildings such as for cooling/heating load forecasting, energy consumption forecasting, and multi-energy complementary optimization. Two types of solar radiation data are commonly used in buildings: radiation data in typical meteorological years and measured radiation data from meteorological stations, both of which are types of historical data. However, it is difficult to predict the hourly global solar radiation, which affects the application of relevant prediction models in practical engineering. Most existing methods for predicting hourly global solar radiation have issues such as difficulty in obtaining input parameters or complex data processing, which limits their practical engineering applications. This study proposed a simplified method to accurately predict the hourly horizontal solar radiation using extraterrestrial solar radiation, weather types, cloud cover, air temperature, relative humidity, and time as the input parameters. The b... [more]

This paper presents an in-depth comparison of the benefits and limitations of using a low-voltage DC (LVDC) microgrid versus an AC microgrid with regard to the integration of low-carbon technologies. To this end, a novel approach for charging electric vehicles (EVs) on low-voltage distribution networks by utilizing an LVDC backbone is discussed. The global aim of the conducted study is to investigate the overall energy losses as well as voltage stability problems on DC and AC microgrids. Both architectures are assessed and compared to each other by performing a power flow analysis. Along this line, an actual low-voltage distribution network with various penetration levels of EVs, combined with photovoltaic (PV) systems and battery energy storage systems is considered. Obtained results indicate significant power quality improvements in voltage imbalances and conversion losses thanks to the proposed backbone. Moreover, the study concludes with a discussion of the impact level of EVs and... [more]

This paper explores ways to save energy in households with energy prosumers who generate energy using photovoltaic panels and heat pumps. On the basis of a literature analysis, we formulated a research gap in the case of the energy behaviors of prosumers. This research is important due to the growing demand for energy and the transitions of countries toward renewable energy sources. The role of prosumers in the economy is growing as they ensure energy independence and cost savings. The main purpose of this research is to understand the energy behaviors of prosumers and to examine the differences in energy behaviors between users of photovoltaic systems and heat pumps. A sample of 326 Polish prosumer households was selected using the CAWI method in order to obtain empirical data. The results suggest that prosumers show advanced ecological behaviors, and more than half of the respondents implement pro-ecological behaviors in their homes. Being a prosumer is associated with energy indepen... [more]

The energy price influences the interest in investment, which leads to economic development. An estimate of the future energy price can support the planning of industrial expansions and provide information to avoid times of recession. This paper evaluates adaptive boosting (AdaBoost), bootstrap aggregation (bagging), gradient boosting, histogram-based gradient boosting, and random forest ensemble learning models for forecasting energy prices in Latin America, especially in a case study about Mexico. Seasonal decomposition of the time series is used to reduce unrepresentative variations. The Optuna using tree-structured Parzen estimator, optimizes the structure of the ensembles through a voter by combining several ensemble frameworks; thus an optimized hybrid ensemble learning method is proposed. The results show that the proposed method has a higher performance than the state-of-the-art ensemble learning methods, with a mean squared error of 3.37 × 10−9 in the testing phase.

The employment of microgrids and distributed power generation have exponentially increased over recent decades, due in part to the increased inclusion of renewable energies as these technologies become cheaper to install. However, microgrids are highly sensitive to power variation, leading to distortion of the grid voltage (amplitude and frequency changes) which could destabilize the entire microgrid under variation of loads and/or other power sources. In this context, a new control strategy is proposed for a photovoltaic grid connected system, operating under voltage variations typical of a low inertial electric power network. The main problem related to voltage fluctuation is that the variables may take the power converter out of the operating region, and therefore, all controllers, including the maximum power point tracking, will not work as designed. The analysis, based on the mathematical operating region, demonstrates that the control strategy can include overmodulation compensat... [more]

The application of voltage reduction in medium and low voltage grids to reduce peak power demand or energy consumption has been implemented since the 1980s using several approaches. Conservation Voltage Reduction (CVR), as one such approach, uses a voltage control device to reduce or increase the voltage setpoint on a busbar, thereby reducing or increasing the amount of active and reactive power supply in the network. Voltage regulation for CVR is always implemented according to established network planning standards in each country. Research in this field has proven that a CVR factor (CVRf) of 0.7−1.5 for peak demand reduction can be achieved. This is an evaluation metric of CVR. The aim of this research is to determine and validate CVRf for peak demand reduction by comparing actual results obtained during regular tap changes with other randomly distributed periods outside tap change operations, using a set of measurement data. It is important to understand CVR deployment capability b... [more]

The development of AC distribution systems provides for the seamless integration of low-voltage microgrids with distributed energy resources (DERs). This poses new challenges for the control of normal, emergency, and post-emergency states of microgrids, calling for the creation and development of information and communications technology infrastructure. Power converters/inverters that are used to integrate renewable DERs lack inertia. Along with them, fossil fuel-fired generation units are also being integrated into microgrids. These include gas generator sets, diesel generator sets, and microturbines, having small (up to 1−2 s) values of mechanical inertia constants—Tj. This leads to an increase in the rate of transients by a factor of 5−10. Under these conditions, the technical requirements for the speed of automatic power flow control systems, as well as the methods they rely on, have to be reconsidered. Microgrids include DC microgrids, AC microgrids, and hybrid (AC-DC) microgrids.... [more]

Aiming at the problems of power flow fluctuation and voltage exceeding standard caused by high permeability distributed power supply access, this paper proposes a load state perception early warning method for distribution networks. Firstly, the random behavior characteristics and voltage early warning mechanisms of power supply and load in distribution networks are analyzed, the dynamic model of distribution networks based on complex network theory is established, and the risk index of voltage exceeding limits under the conditions of high permeability distributed power supply access is put forward. Secondly, the random power flow of distribution networks based on the Monte Carlo method is studied by sampling and analyzing the dynamic model of distribution networks. Then, the risk calculation and safety assessment of voltage exceeding limits are carried out on the currently extracted model, and the risk control strategy of distribution network operation is put forward. Finally, an impr... [more]

Worldwide, the demand for power load forecasting is increasing. A multi-step power-load forecasting model is established based on Informer, which takes the historical load data as the input to realize the prediction of the power load in the future. The constructed model abandons the common recurrent neural network to deal with time-series problems, and uses the seq2seq structure with sparse self-attention mechanism as the main body, supplemented by specific input and output modules to deal with the long-range relationship in the time series, and makes effective use of the parallel advantages of the self-attention mechanism, so as to improve the prediction accuracy and prediction efficiency. The model is trained, verified and tested by using the power-load dataset of the Taoyuan substation in Nanchang. Compared with RNN, LSTM and LSTM with the attention mechanism and other common models based on a cyclic neural network, the results show that the prediction accuracy and efficiency of the... [more]

Renewable energy sources are nowadays a viable choice to satisfy the rising energy consumption and promote the advancement of sustainable development. These systems are integrated into microgrids using a variety of technological solutions to ensure customer communication and distributed generation facilities in an optimal way. Energy management in microgrids refers to the information and control system that provides the necessary functionality to guarantee that the generating and distribution systems produce energy at the lowest expenses. This study analyzes the various optimization objectives, constraints, problem-solving techniques, and simulation tools used for connected and freestanding microgrids. It reviews the literature on energy control in microgrids powered by sustainable energy. Energy storage technology is also viewed as an intriguing alternative to managing the intermittent nature of renewable energy because of its advanced techniques, increased energy efficiency, and capa... [more]

Nowadays, there are many technological-intensive applications that claim to be “smart”. From smartphones to the smart grid, people relate the word smart with technical novelty, automation, enabled communication, and service integration. There is indeed a gap between those smart technologies and their intended “intelligence”; this has arisen an indirect debate between works focusing on automation and mechatronics design and others pursuing a conceptual approach based on fulfilling determinate objectives. One last approach relates the said smartness to deep learning methodologies. In this work, it is attempted to explore both perspectives by providing an overview of recent works around energy usage toward smart cities and the smart grid, pointing out the main conceptual pillars upon which both approaches stand. Certainly, there are enabling technologies supporting the smart concept overall; thus, this work addresses them to characterize “smart” not from technological or conceptual one-si... [more]

Accurate medium- and long-term power load forecasting is of great significance for the scientific planning and safe operation of power systems. Monthly power load has multiscale time series correlation and seasonality. The existing models face the problems of insufficient feature extraction and a large volume of prediction models constructed according to seasons. Therefore, a hybrid feature pyramid CNN-LSTM model with seasonal inflection month correction for medium- and long-term power load forecasting is proposed. The model is constructed based on linear and nonlinear combination forecasting. With the aim to address the insufficient extraction of multiscale temporal correlation in load, a time series feature pyramid structure based on causal dilated convolution is proposed, and the accuracy of the model is improved by feature extraction and fusion of different scales. For the problem that the model volume of seasonal prediction is too large, a seasonal inflection monthly load correcti... [more]

Virtual power plants (VPPs) are an effective platform for attracting private investment and customer engagement to speed up the integration of green renewable resources. In this paper, a robust bidding strategy to participate in both energy and ancillary service markets in the wholesale electricity market is proposed for a realistic VPP in Western Australia. The strategy is accurate and fast, so the VPP can bid in a very short time period. To engage customers in the demand management schemes of the VPP, the gamified approach is utilized to make the exercise enjoyable while not compromising their comfort levels. The modelling of revenue, expenses, and profit for the load-following ancillary service (LFAS) is provided, and the effective bidding strategy is developed. The simulation results show a significant improvement in the financial indicators of the VPP when participating in both the LFAS and energy markets. The payback period can be improved by 3 years to the payback period of 6 ye... [more]

The roads we travel daily are exposed to several energy sources (mechanical load, solar radiation, heat, air movement, etc.), which can be exploited to make common systems and apparatus for roadways (i.e., lighting, video surveillance, and traffic monitoring systems) energetically autonomous. For decades, research groups have developed many technologies able to scavenge energy from the said sources related to roadways: electromagnetism, piezoelectric and triboelectric harvesters for the cars’ stress and vibrations, photovoltaic modules for sunlight, thermoelectric solutions and pyroelectric materials for heat and wind turbines optimized for low-speed winds, such as the ones produced by moving vehicles. Thus, this paper explores the existing technologies for scavenging energy from sources available on roadways, both natural and related to vehicular transit. At first, to contextualize them within the application scenario, the available energy sources and transduction mechanisms were iden... [more]

For the cooperative operation of networked microgrids, a distributed energy management considering network operational objectives and constraints is proposed in this work. Considering various ownership and privacy requirements of microgrids, utility directly interfaced distributed energy resources (DERs) and demand response, a distributed optimization is proposed for obtaining optimal network operational objectives with constraints satisfied through iteratively updated price signals. The alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) algorithm is utilized to solve the formulated distributed optimization. The proposed distributed energy management provides microgrids, utility-directly interfaced DERs and responsive demands the opportunity of contributing to better network operational objectives while preserving their privacy and autonomy. Results of numerical simulation using a networked microgrids system consisting of several microgrids, utility directly interfaced DERs and respons... [more]

The relevance of the work is connected to the energy efficiency of specialized vessels of the technical fleet. The purpose of the study was to determine and evaluate the power quality indicators associated with the non-sinusoidal shape of the voltage and current curves in the electrical power system of the marine platform support vessel, which contains powerful semiconductor propulsion electric drives, taking into account the inherent and parasitic parameters of the power three-phase cable lines. A simplified one-line diagram of an electric power system with a DC main bus was the object of the study, which was compiled as a result of the analysis of analog systems typical for the indicated type of vessels. The phenomenon of voltage and current distortion caused by the presence of higher harmonics generated by power semiconductor converters in a three-phase ship network was the subject of the research. For the experimental study of the quality of electric power according to the simplifi... [more]

Alternating current (AC) microgrids are the next step in the evolution of the electricity distribution systems. They can operate in a grid-tied or island mode. Depending on the services they are designed to offer, their grid-tied or island modes could have several sub-operational states and or topological configurations. Short-circuit current levels and protection requirements between different microgrid modes and configurations can vary significantly. Designing a microgrid’s protection system, therefore, requires a thorough understanding of all microgrid operational modes, configurations, transitional states, and how transitions between those modes are managed. As part of the microgrid protection design, speed and reliability of information flow between the microprocessor-based relays and the microgrid controller, including during microgrid failure modes, must be considered. Furthermore, utility protection practices and customer requirements are not always inclusive of the protection... [more]

This paper presents the use of a three-phase four-wire shunt active power filter to improve the power quality in the Department of Industrial Electronics of a large enterprise from Romania. The specificity is given by the predominant existence of single-phase consumers (such as personal computers, printers, lighting and AC equipment). In order to identify the power quality indicators and ways to improve them, an A-class analyzer was used to record the electrical quantities and energy parameters in the point of common coupling (PCC) with the nonlinear loads for 27 h. The analysis shows that, in order to improve the power quality in PCC, three goals must be achieved: the compensation of the distortion power, the compensation of the reactive power and the compensation of the load unbalance. By using the conceived three-leg shunt active power filter, controlled through the indirect current control method in an original variant, the power quality at the supply side is very much improved. In... [more]

Considering the intrinsic benefits of power line communications, the long-lasting lifetime of industrial systems and the growth of IoT, PLC technologies will be part of the worldwide industrial landscape for many decades. This paper discusses the history of the G3-PLC technology and current challenges and opportunities identified in real systems. Finally, it introduces recent evolutions within the G3-PLC standard, which bring additional performance and versatility, enhancing the relevance of G3-PLC as a complementary technology to other telecommunication systems in a 5G-driven telecommunication technology landscape.

There is an increasing interest in low voltage direct current (LVDC) distribution grids due to advancements in power electronics enabling efficient and economical electrical networks in the DC paradigm. Power flow equations in LVDC grids are non-linear and non-convex due to the presence of constant power nodes. Depending on the implementation, power flow equations may lead to more than one solution and unrealistic solutions; therefore, the uniqueness of the solution should not be taken for granted. This paper proposes a new power flow solver based on a graph theory for LVDC grids having radial or meshed configurations. The solver provides a unique solution. Two test feeders composed of 33 nodes and 69 nodes are considered to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The proposed method is compared with a fixed-point methodology called direct load flow (DLF) having a mathematical formulation equivalent to a backward forward sweep (BFS) class of solvers in the case of radial dis... [more]

The electric power systems together with the entire energy sector are rapidly evolving towards a low-carbon, secure, and competitive economy facing revolutionary transformations from technical structure to economic value chain. Pathways to achieve sustainability led to the development of new technologies, accommodation of larger shares of unpredictable and stochastic electricity transfer from sources to end-users without loss of reliability, new business models and services, data management, and so on. The new technologies and incentives for local energy communities along with large development of microgrids are main forces driving the evolution of the low voltage energy sector changing the context and paradigm of rigid contractual binding between utilities and end-user customers (now progressing to flexible prosumers with generation and storage capabilities). The flexibility and operation of a prosumer can be enhanced by a non-intrusive time-frequency analysis of distorted power quali... [more]

Virtual Oscillator Control (VOC) is a promising technique that allows several inverters connected to a microgrid to naturally synchronize, without communication. However, the selection of the VOC parameters often require iterative or optimization procedures that render its practical use not straightforward. In this paper, this problem is overcome with the proposition of a novel methodology for determining the dead-zone type VOC parameters based on the describing function method. The methodology consists of a set of analytical equations that use as input data few basic electrical system parameters from the converter and from the microgrid, namely, the operating voltage and frequency ranges, besides rated power. The proposed set of equations is used to calculate the parameters required to control an inverter in voltage mode. The validity of the proposed approach is demonstrated in experiments that encompass different situations such as pre-synchronization, connection, and disconnection o... [more]

Wind diesel isolated microgrids (WDIMs) combine wind turbine generators (WTGs) with diesel generators (DGs) to supply electricity to remote consumers. WDIMs are low-inertia isolated power systems where large system frequency and voltage variations occur. WDIM dynamic modeling allows short-term simulations to be performed and detailed electrical variable transients to be obtained so that the WDIM power quality and stability can be tested. This paper presents a literature review about WDIM dynamic simulation. The review classifies articles according to factors such as the different WDIM operation modes (diesel only, wind−diesel and wind only) simulated, the types of WTGs used in the WDIM (constant- and variable-speed types), or the use of different short-term energy storage technologies (batteries, ultracapacitors, flywheels) to improve the WDIM power quality, stability and reliability. Papers about the dynamic simulation of related isolated microgrids are also reviewed. Finally, as an e... [more]

With the integration of large-scale renewable energy and the implementation of demand response, the complexity and volatility of distribution network operations are increasing. This has led to the inconsistency between the actual net power consumption of power users and their optimal dispatching orders. As a result, the distribution networks cannot operate according to their optimization strategy. The study proposed a penalty electricity price mechanism and the optimal control method based on this electricity price mechanism for distribution networks. First, we established the structure of the distribution network optimal control system. Second, aiming at the actual net power consumption (including power generation and consumption) of power users tracking their dispatching orders, we established a penalty electricity price mechanism. Third, we designed an optimal control strategy and process of distribution networks based on the penalty electricity price. Finally, we verified the propo... [more]