ECS-9870041 Feliachi The objective of this proposal is to investigate and develop analysis and control strategies for the operation of electric power systems in a deregulated environment. Currently, the electric power industry is in transition from large, vertically integrated utilities providing power at regulated rates to an industry that will incorporate competitive companies selling unbundled power at possibly lower rates. Ultimately, consumers might benefit from lower rates expected as a result of serious competitive bulk power markets. With this new structure, that might include separate generation, distribution, and transmission companies with an open access policy, comes the need for novel control and operation strategies to maintain the level of reliability that consumers not only have taken for granted but expect. Control actions can be taken at any of the following locations: generation, distribution, transmission companies and/or demanded by an independent system operator. Their design and coordination is a formidable national and local grid problem for which analysis, synthesis and control algorithms and tools (e.g. software) must be developed before the rapid dynamics of the competitive market require their implementation to ensure an acceptable level of reliability and quality of electric power. The controllers will have different objectives and effects and, therefore their dynamical behavior, interactions and coordination become crucial in overall system operation. This proposal will focus only on analysis and design of reliable and robust controllers for low frequency oscillations in power systems under an open access environment. Control of transmission systems through FACTS (Flexible AC Transmission Systems) devices and control of generators will play an important role in the operation of the system of the future. First, the control issues that result from deregulation need to be understood. It is proposed to investigate and present different scenarios with diffe rent responsibilities and alternative strategies. Second, the research will seek methods for (1) analysis and classification of oscillation modes as either local or inter-area, (2) identification of effective decentralized or almost decentralized controllers and their appropriate feedback signals, and (3) design of feasible, robust, reliable and distributed controllers using the proposed design algorithms and comparing them with well known intelligent control design schemes that will be pursued. Several test systems and FACTS controllers will be investigated to demonstrate the proposed methodologies. Issues such as model uncertainties and structural changes, nonlinearities, distributed controller and information structures, and computational efficiency will be the focus of the proposed research. The success of this research will have an impact on understanding and designing controllers to reduce low frequency oscillations in electric power systems in a deregulated environment. The analytical contributions will be useful to many other interconnected, large scale, dynamic systems.
