Date of Award
2023
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science in Electrical Engineering (MSEE)
Department
Electrical, Computer, and Biomedical Engineering
First Advisor
Haibo He
Abstract
Microgrid development has increased over the past years to account for the growing need for renewable energy sources. Conventional power generation methods such as large centralized power plants produce CO2 emissions and have a negative impact on the environment. Extreme weather events as a result of climate change increase energy demand and risks to infrastructure and are capable of threatening generation capability. Further, electricity demand is increasing with more electric applications emerging such as electric vehicles and heating and cooling systems. Microgrids are a solution to integrate renewable energy sources to combat the negative effects the conventional methods have on the environment and the continuously increasing electricity demands. They may operate in grid connected or islanded mode depending on the application. In islanded operation, the microgrid must adopt control methods to regulate voltage and frequency and to balance power. Past research has indicated that distributed control methods improve system reliability over centralized control methods which require complex communication networks and are vulnerable to single point failure. Distributed control structures require a communication network between neighboring distributed generators (DGs) resulting in cyber vulnerabilities. To reduce susceptibility to disturbances and threats in the system, secondary control strategies are required to maintain voltage and frequency stability and active power sharing for balanced generation and load.
The resilience of a microgrid is supported by different secondary control strategies. In this thesis, I will review secondary control methods from literature and further analyze the performance of one model. Threats on the cyber layer, or communication network, of a microgrid may include denial of service or false data injection attacks. These threats will be modelled and implemented in a microgrid to examine the control algorithm’s performance in the presence of such a threat. Performance of the microgrid will also be analyzed under communication topology changes to further investigate secondary control for microgrid resilience.
Recommended Citation
Charpentier, Alexis R., "APPLICATION OF SECONDARY CONTROL FOR MICROGRID RESILIENCE" (2023). Open Access Master's Theses. Paper 2303.
https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/theses/2303
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