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PhD ceremony Ms. G.K.H. Larsen: Distributed control of a network with multiple electricity producers and consumers

When:Fr 14-02-2014 at 11:00
Where:Academiegebouw, Broerstraat 5, Groningen

PhD ceremony: Ms. G.K.H. Larsen

Dissertation: Distributed control of a network with multiple electricity producers and consumers

Promotor(s): prof. J.M.A. Scherpen

Faculty: Mathematics and Natural Sciences

This dissertation investigates distributed decision making in an electricity network (Smart Grid) with multiple prosumers. Prosumers are both consumers and producers. The aim is to reach a global goal in the network based solely on local information. An example of such a goal is to steer the difference between electricity demand and production to a target value. We call the electricity prosumers agents, and these agents decide when to use their electrical demand and production devices. The optimal timing, for when and how much electric power to use or produce, depends on the overall power balance in the network and on the operational constraints from the devices themselves.

Algorithms are required to control the agents' decisions. One major challenge in a large-scale optimization-based control problem is to find a scalable algorithm. Therefore, this dissertation takes a distributed Model Predictive Control (MPC) algorithm and adapts it to the Smart Grid. We see in our simulations that this method scale well because computations are distributed between agents. In addition, the method anticipates future situations in the network and ensures that the operational constraints are not violated.

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