An official website of the United States government
With the advent of remarkable development of solar power panel and inverter technology and focus on reducing greenhouse emissions, there is increased migration from fossil fuels to carbon-free energy sources (e.g., solar, wind, and geothermal). A new paradigm called Transactive Energy (TE) [3] has emerged that utilizes economic and control techniques to effectively manage Distributed Energy Resources (DERs). Another goal of TE is to improve grid reliability and efficiency. However, to evaluate various TE approaches, a comprehensive simulation tool is needed that is easy to use and capable of simulating the power-grid along with various grid operational scenarios that occur in the transactive energy paradigm. In this research, we present a web-based design and simulation platform (called a design studio) targeted toward evaluation of power-grid distribution system and transactive energy approaches [1]. The design studio allows to edit and visualize existing power-grid models graphically, create new power-grid network models, simulate those networks, and inject various scenario-specific perturbations to evaluate specific configurations of transactive energy simulations. The design studio provides (i) a novel Domain-Specific Modeling Language (DSML) using the Web-based Generic Modeling Environment (WebGME [4]) for the graphical modeling of power-grid, cyber-physical attacks, and TE scenarios, and (ii) a reusable cloud-hosted simulation backend using the Gridlab-D power-grid distribution system simulation tool [2].
more »
« less
TE-SAT: Transactive Energy Simulation and Analysis Toolsuite
Transactive Energy (TE) is an emerging discipline that utilizes economic and control techniques for operating and managing the power grid effectively. Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) represent a fundamental shift away from traditionally centrally managed energy generation and storage to one that is rather distributed. However, integrating and managing DERs into the power grid is highly challenging owing to the TE implementation issues such as privacy, equity, efficiency, reliability, and security. The TE market structures allow utilities to transact (i.e., buy and sell) power services (production, distribution, and storage) from/to DER providers integrated as part of the grid. Flexible power pricing in TE enables power services transactions to dynamically adjust power generation and storage in a way that continuously balances power supply and demand as well as minimize cost of grid operations. Therefore, it has become important to analyze various market models utilized in different TE applications for their impact on above implementation issues.In this demo, we show-case the Transactive Energy Simulation and Analysis Toolsuite (TE-SAT) with its three publicly available design studios for experimenting with TE markets. All three design studios are built using metamodeling tool called the Web-based Graphical Modeling Environment (WebGME). Using a Git-like storage and tracking backend server, WebGME enables multi-user editing on models and experiments using simply a web-browser. This directly facilitates collaboration among different TE stakeholders for developing and analyzing grid operations and market models. Additionally, these design studios provide an integrated and scalable cloud backend for running corresponding simulation experiments.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 1743772
- PAR ID:
- 10194917
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- 2020 IEEE Workshop on Design Automation for CPS and IoT (DESTION)
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 19 to 20
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Today’s smart-grids have seen a clear rise in new ways of energy generation, transmission, and storage. This has not only introduced a huge degree of variability, but also a continual shift away from traditionally centralized generation and storage to distributed energy resources (DERs). In addition, the distributed sensors, energy generators and storage devices, and networking have led to a huge increase in attack vectors that make the grid vulnerable to a variety of attacks. The interconnection between computational and physical components through a largely open, IP-based communication network enables an attacker to cause physical damage through remote cyber-attacks or attack on software-controlled grid operations via physical- or cyber-attacks. Transactive Energy (TE) is an emerging approach for managing increasing DERs in the smart-grids through economic and control techniques. Transactive Smart-Grids use the TE approach to improve grid reliability and efficiency. However, skepticism remains in their full-scale viability for ensuring grid reliability. In addition, different TE approaches, in specific situations, can lead to very different outcomes in grid operations. In this paper, we present a comprehensive web-based platform for evaluating resilience of smart-grids against a variety of cyber- and physical-attacks and evaluating impact of various TE approaches on grid performance. We also provide several case-studies demonstrating evaluation of TE approaches as well as grid resilience against cyber and physical attacks.more » « less
-
The resource distribution strategies of trees and plants in the forest are applied here as inspiration for the development of a blueprint for transactive, hybrid solar and storage microgrids. We used the Biomimicry Institute’s Biomimicry Spiral and their toolbox as a design methodology to inform the structural and functional characteristics of this peer-to-peer microgrid energy market and propose its utility in addressing some of the challenges associated with grid integration of distributed energy resources (DERs). We reviewed literature from the ecological domain on mycorrhizal networks and biological market theory to extract key insights into the possible structure and function of a transactive energy market modeled after the mutualism between trees and mycorrhizae. Our process revealed insights into how overlapping, virtual energy markets might grow, contract, adapt, and evolve through a dynamic network-based protocol to compete and survive in rapidly changing environments. We conclude with a discussion of the promise and limitations involved in translating the derived conceptual blueprints into a cyber-physical system and its potential for deployment in the real world as a novel energy market infrastructure.more » « less
-
Dispatching a large fleet of distributed energy resources (DERs) in response to wholesale energy market or regional grid signals requires solving a challenging disaggregation problem when the DERs are located within a distribution network. This manuscript presents a computationally tractable convex inner approximation for the optimal power flow (OPF) problem that characterizes a feeders aggregate DERs hosting capacity and enables a realtime, grid-aware dispatch of DERs for radial distribution networks. The inner approximation is derived by considering convex envelopes on the nonlinear terms in the AC power flow equations. The resulting convex formulation is then used to derive provable nodal injection limits, such that any combination of DER dispatches within their respective nodal limits is guaranteed to be AC admissible. These nodal injection limits are then used to construct a realtime, open-loop control policy for dispatching DERs at each location in the network to collectively deliver grid services. The IEEE-37 distribution network is used to validate the technical results and highlight various use-cases.more » « less
-
The NIST Transactive Energy (TE) Modeling and Simulation Challenge for the Smart Grid (Challenge) spanned from 2015 to 2018. The TE Challenge was initiated to identify simulation tools and expertise that might be developed or combined in co-simulation platforms to enable the evaluation of transactive energy approaches. Phase I of the Challenge spanned 2015 to 2016, with team efforts that improved understanding of TE concepts, identified relevant simulation tools and co-simulation platforms, and inspired the development of a TE co-simulation abstract component model that paved the way for Phase II. The Phase II effort spanned Spring 2017 through Spring 2018, where the teams collaboratively developed a specific TE problem scenario, a common grid topology, and common reporting metrics to enable direct comparison of results from simulation of each team's TE approach for the defined scenario.This report presents an overview of the TE Challenge, the TE abstract component model, and the common scenario.It also compiles the individual Challenge participants' research reports from Phase II. The common scenario involves a weather event impacting a distribution grid with very high penetration of photovoltaics, leading to voltage regulation challenges that are to be mitigated by TE methods. Four teams worked with this common scenario and different TE models to incentivize distributed resource response to voltage deviations, performing these simulations on different simulation platforms. A fifth team focused on a co-simulation platform that can be used for online TE simulations with existing co-simulation components. The TE Challenge Phase II has advanced co-simulation modeling tools and platforms for TE system performance analysis, developed a referenceable TE scenario that can support ongoing comparative simulations, and demonstrated various TE approaches for managing voltage on a distribution grid with high penetration of photovoltaics.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.1109/DESTION50928.2020.00009
