Contact: Wajeb Saab
Background:
The increasing penetration of intermittent renewable energy sources has led to development of protocols for sub-second real-time control of electrical grids, e.g., Commelec [1].
Such protocols rely heavily on reliable software agents for control and a reliable network for communication between the agents. Hence, validation and testing of these protocols in the presence of real-world effects such as delays, losses, failures and attacks is critical to the safety of the grid.
To this effect, we are developing uGS, an open-source discrete event simulation framework for real-time control of electrical grids. Besides simulation, uGS allows for integration of existing software as uGS modules so as to emulate and test the functionality of control agents. This makes it possible to study how a particular control protocol copes with software faults and unexpected behaviour of the inter-connecting network.
We currently have an existing prototype of a grid simulator in Matlab.
Project Goals:
- Understand Commelec, a protocol for real-time control of electrical grids.
- Porting the existing framework in Matlab to Python, thus allowing further development and integration.
- Design of a uGS engine to handle events in the simulator
Required skills:
- Matlab
- Python
- TCP/IP
- Power Systems
References:
[1] Bernstein, Andrey, et al. “A composable method for real-time control of active distribution networks with explicit power setpoints. Part I: Framework.”Electric Power Systems Research 125 (2015): 254-264.
Supervisors: Maaz Mashood Mohiuddin, Wajeb Saab