Citation
Alper Sinan Akyurek, Tajana Simunic Rosing. "Smart Grid as the Swarm". Talk or presentation, 29, September, 2013; Presented at First International Workshop on the Swarm at the Edge of the Cloud (SEC'13 @ ESWeek), Montreal.

Abstract
The electrical power grid can be represented as a swarm of interoperable nodes. Currently, the utility acts as a central control point to provide a predetermined voltage and frequency range. The nodes in turn have to abide by current constraints or be cut off by circuit breakers. As the nodes get smarter and the grid converges to a smarter grid, distributed sensing and control are necessary to ensure stable and efficient operation of the grid. University of California -San Diego campus is a great example for the smart grid. The campus can provide nearly all of its electricity, and as such can act as an independent midrogrid. Examples include stable resources such as a methane powered plant and variable resources like Photo Voltaic (PV) cells. A water chiller storage is also present working as both energy and heat storage. The campus has different types of loads, ranging from a large fleet of electric vehicles, to one student housing, large office buildings and at the other extreme, San Diego Supercomputing Center. More than 85,000 parameters are monitored continually throughout the grid, at fine time granularity to enable experimentation and, eventually, the development and implementation of of distributed control. Currently the UCSD system is centrally controlled on campus. The next level of negotiation occurs between UCSD and the local utility, at which point the campus connects to the grid. However, both the grid power provider, and the campus operators have identified the ability to design and implement efficient and stable distributed control algorithms as one of the key needs going forward due to a large proliferation of renewables, energy storage and electric vehicles. To evaluate this idea, the UCSD microgrid is being represented in OpenDSS, an open source, three phase simulator for SmartGrid designs. The output of OpenDSS can be verified against the measurements stored in the campus database. The simulation will model all key components of the microgrid, and will enable implementation of control strategies are various distributed locations. The system will have the ability to either draw on the measured data or to use external simulators and/or databases for input, such as HomeSim which provides information on residential electricity usage, and UCB’s building energy consumption database. The goal of this study is to understand and show how a swarm of sensors and controls that are a part of the UCSD microgrid, can achieve stable and efficient operation using distributed sensing and control strategies, and to develop a system that enables larger scale studies.

Electronic downloads

• SmartGridAsTheSwarm_Aksanli_SEC13_Montreal.pdf · application/pdf · 2734 kbytes
• http://www.src.org/library/publication/p067985/. (SRC Website)
• akyurek_smartgridswarm_edge.pdf · application/pdf · 193 kbytes. (Abstract)

• HTML

  Alper Sinan Akyurek, Tajana Simunic Rosing. <a
  href="http://www.terraswarm.org/pubs/112.html"><i>Smart
  Grid as the Swarm</i></a>, Talk or presentation,
   29, September, 2013; Presented at <a
  href="http://www.terraswarm.org/conferences/13/swarm/index.htm"
  >First International Workshop on the Swarm at the Edge of
  the Cloud (SEC'13 @ ESWeek)</a>, Montreal.

• Plain text

  Alper Sinan Akyurek, Tajana Simunic Rosing. "Smart Grid
  as the Swarm". Talk or presentation,  29, September,
  2013; Presented at <a
  href="http://www.terraswarm.org/conferences/13/swarm/index.htm"
  >First International Workshop on the Swarm at the Edge of
  the Cloud (SEC'13 @ ESWeek)</a>, Montreal.

• BibTeX

  @presentation{AkyurekRosing13_SmartGridAsSwarm,
      author = {Alper Sinan Akyurek and Tajana Simunic Rosing},
      title = {Smart Grid as the Swarm},
      day = {29},
      month = {September},
      year = {2013},
      note = {Presented at <a
                href="http://www.terraswarm.org/conferences/13/swarm/index.htm"
                >First International Workshop on the Swarm at the
                Edge of the Cloud (SEC'13 @ ESWeek)</a>, Montreal.},
      abstract = {The electrical power grid can be represented as a
                swarm of interoperable nodes. Currently, the
                utility acts as a central control point to provide
                a predetermined voltage and frequency range. The
                nodes in turn have to abide by current constraints
                or be cut off by circuit breakers. As the nodes
                get smarter and the grid converges to a smarter
                grid, distributed sensing and control are
                necessary to ensure stable and efficient operation
                of the grid. University of California -San Diego
                campus is a great example for the smart grid. The
                campus can provide nearly all of its electricity,
                and as such can act as an independent midrogrid.
                Examples include stable resources such as a
                methane powered plant and variable resources like
                Photo Voltaic (PV) cells. A water chiller storage
                is also present working as both energy and heat
                storage. The campus has different types of loads,
                ranging from a large fleet of electric vehicles,
                to one student housing, large office buildings and
                at the other extreme, San Diego Supercomputing
                Center. More than 85,000 parameters are monitored
                continually throughout the grid, at fine time
                granularity to enable experimentation and,
                eventually, the development and implementation of
                of distributed control. Currently the UCSD system
                is centrally controlled on campus. The next level
                of negotiation occurs between UCSD and the local
                utility, at which point the campus connects to the
                grid. However, both the grid power provider, and
                the campus operators have identified the ability
                to design and implement efficient and stable
                distributed control algorithms as one of the key
                needs going forward due to a large proliferation
                of renewables, energy storage and electric
                vehicles. To evaluate this idea, the UCSD
                microgrid is being represented in OpenDSS, an open
                source, three phase simulator for SmartGrid
                designs. The output of OpenDSS can be veri�ed
                against the measurements stored in the campus
                database. The simulation will model all key
                components of the microgrid, and will enable
                implementation of control strategies are various
                distributed locations. The system will have the
                ability to either draw on the measured data or to
                use external simulators and/or databases for
                input, such as HomeSim which provides information
                on residential electricity usage, and UCB�s
                building energy consumption database. The goal of
                this study is to understand and show how a swarm
                of sensors and controls that are a part of the
                UCSD microgrid, can achieve stable and efficient
                operation using distributed sensing and control
                strategies, and to develop a system that enables
                larger scale studies.},
      URL = {http://terraswarm.org/pubs/112.html}
  }
  

Posted by Christopher Brooks on 29 Sep 2013.