defense Eric Weitenberg: "Control of electrical networks: robustness and power sharing"

Thanks to technological and societal developments, the power network as we know it is changing at a rapid pace. On one hand, as more and more people demand green energy, the supply of power becomes more volatile, as it increasingly depends on sunlight, wind and other factors. On the other hand, the advent of e.g. smart consumer electronics and vehicles with large batteries in theory allows the network to absorb this volatility. This book introduces control algorithms to do so, and ways to quantify to what extent such controllers are indeed effective and safe. The first part focuses on two existing control algorithms for the alternate current power network, the distributed averaging integral controller and the leaky integral controller. It introduces a way to measure how quickly a power network that uses one of these controllers is able to recover from disturbances, and consequently, to what extent a controlled power network can withstand adverse conditions, like measurement errors and attacks on the controllers' communication network. The second part introduces new control algorithms for direct current networks. These networks are in current use, for example on ships, and are also suitable for powering micro-grids: small-scale networks that can operate independently of the rest of the power network. These control algorithms make sure the power network is stable, and additionally, fairly distributes the power demand among the generators.
Promotors: prof dr. C. De Persis, dr. P. Tesi