Erkki Antila

Comparative analysis of energy security in the Nordic countries: The role of renewable energy resources in diversification

Security of energy supply has been one of the important debates among citizens and governments of the Nordic countries after the first energy crisis. In response, diversification was defined as the heart strategy to reach a certain level of energy supply. This article discusses about the level of energy security in the Nordic countries with comparison to other developed countries and their neighbors. Then, the support schemes and policies to achieve the energy security and diversification are reviewed based on the system thinking approach with especial focus on the renewable energy resources. This approach provides a unique and powerful tool to explain the complexity and the relationships among the elements of the support schemes in the energy security analysis.

Energy diversification in Finland: achievements and potential of renewable energy development

Finland was an early adopter of several alternative energy technologies, particularly in biomass and hydropower energy for many years. The main policy in the Finnish energy and climate sectors is to increase the exploitation of renewable energy sources while reducing CO2 emissions. Meanwhile, a successful energy policy should achieve three conflicting objectives: clean, cheap, and secure energy. The development of renewables in Finland has lagged that of other EU countries, particularly in fields such as wind power in recent years. This article discusses about the history, current status, and potentials of the major renewable and local energy in order of utilisation in Finland. It is seen that the major contributors to replacing carbon-based fuels are likely to be biomass and wind power, with geothermal and solar energy sources to play a lesser role.

Reliability evaluation and comparison for next-generation substation function based on IEC 61850 using Monte Carlo simulation

The traditional way to evaluate the system reliability or a probability of failure in the system is to use one of two basic approaches, direct analytical techniques or stochastic simulation. The emerging concept of Smart Grid requires advanced automation solutions for distributed electricity production and distribution. The automation system must fill the performance, availability and reliability requirements, including a probability of failure level under the specified limits. IEC61850 is a recent standard for electrical substation automation and it is also extended to the communication between substations. It provides interoperability in substation automation systems (SAS) consisting of devices by different vendors. This paper discusses about the evaluation of system reliability and the probability of failure existing in one protection intelligent electronic devices (IED), the evaluation of the general protection function and the breaker failure protection (BFP) function for practical small transmission substation T1-1. Different practical configurations are considered. A sequential Monte Carlo method is used to simulate the reliability and probability of failure. Comparison between analytical and simulation results is made by increasing the number of trails. Our result indicates how much the redundant ring architecture increases the reliability compared to the cascaded architecture. Applied Monte Carlo simulation method is also a flexible solution that has the ability to change, expand input data and include different parameters without a need to change the underlying software.

Communication system in smart grid using spectrum sensing techniques

Communication system in computer network plays an important role and ubiquitous in the modern network that getting increasingly clear with applications of modern substation automation system (SAS), Distributed energy resources (DER), smart grid, among others. It is undergoing and different types of communication media and approaches have been implemented to meet the diverse needs of modern networks. In this paper alternative novel framework for the communication system in smart grid has been proposed. The novelty of the proposed communication model attempts to bring about a reasonable change in smart grid communication infrastructure with the introduction of Cognitive Radio (CR) technology. Moreover, the alternative novel framework has many advantages such as providing a cost effective solution, increase reliability, availability of the smart grid and reducing scarcity of the available resources by implementing of the most powerful sensing method (cyclostationary) within CR in which that has been described based on different simulation scenarios.

Analysis and methodology for measuring the IEC61850 GOOSE messages latency: Gaining interoperability testing

IEC61850 standard provides new kind of solution and offers efficient performance within a substation automation system (SAS). This efficiency has been introduced by means of exchanging real-time information, reducing life-cycle costs and interoperability. Measuring the transferring messaging latency and interoperability testing within the Substation Automation System (SAS) are crucial tasks that require special efforts based on several modern hardware and software tools have to be used. Since, these tasks are an important issue that must be realized by Power Utilities within the design and implementation of the SAS process. Therefore, this paper provides the analysis and the methodology for measuring the transferring messaging latency of the Generic Object Oriented Substation Event (GOOSE) within the SAS. Successful measurements for the transferring GOOSE messages latency within different case study scenarios have been achieved in which that illustrate the Device under test (DUT)s are compliant with the IEC 61850 criteria. Moreover it proves the interoperability concept that the DUTs subscribe to the GOOSE messages from the third party Intelligent Electronic Devices (IED). Tasks have been implemented using a round trip time measuring method.

Using OPNET to Model and Evaluate the MU Performance based on IEC 61850-9-2LE

The growth of IEC61850 -9-2 process bus as a high data rate communication network have a great improved the capability of substation automation system (SAS). This paper discuss a modelling concept of intelligent electronic devices (IED) using OPNET modeller simulation tool. Simulation tool provides a comprehensive d evelopment environment for the specification modelling, system simulation and also facilitate performance evaluation of the system under study with different topologies that guide the SAS network engineers based on planning and design. Several testing has been made based on the modelled merging unit (MU) IED within two scenarios. The behaviour of the Ethernet switches with the sampled value (SV) traffic strea m has been discussed within the first scenario. It shows that the first Ethernet switch experienced more latency than the subsequent switches based on it serialized the bunched SV frames whereas the subsequent switches experienced less latency in which that may facilitate the design of the large SAS that consist more than one Ethernet switch to reduce the cabling between switchyard and control station. SV traffic stream latencies have been evaluated to assess the limits and capacity of the process bus network critical components and shows that the overall of the 19 MU s latency is within the acceptable latency range (250 μs). However based on adding MUs 20-23 the latency has been increased significantly within scenario two.

Simple algorithms RaFSA estimation method based on IEC61850

Reliability estimation of electricity generation, transmission and distribution plays an important role based on assessment of past performance and future predictions. There are two traditional basic approaches to estimate the reliability and probability of failure, one based on analytical calculation and the other based on stochastic simulation. This paper discusses about the estimation of system reliability and the probability of failure using a novel estimation method, Reliability and probability of failure simple algorithms (RaFSA). These tasks are exceeding by estimating the reliability and probability of failure existing in one protection intelligent electronic device (IED), general protection function and the breaker failure protection (BFP) function. The RaFSA estimations are implemented over a practical small transmission substation T1-1. Different practical configurations are considered. Stochastic simulation approach is the way that RaFSA estimations are implemented with. RaFSA provides specific benefits such as: easy to implement, handle huge amount of data, different tools and parameters can be used, ability to analyze different input data without major modifications in the underlying process.

Evolution phases for low voltage distribution network management

It is necessary for the low voltage distribution networks to develop to meet the operation targets of Smart Grids. Therefore, the evolution phases of low voltage distribution networks are introduced. The operational scenarios are described mainly by the use case studies for each evolution phase, which illustrate the evolving operations between the actors in different domains. Alternatively a use case gives a picture of the system from a certain point of view. This approach gives a base for further studies to improve the low voltage distribution network management. A use case studied thoroughly could indicate the redundancies as well as deficiencies in the system design and the sum of the all use cases is the overall picture of the system. These could be exploited for the development of the communication means and system as well as the management functions and applications.

Prioritization of Renewable Energy Resources to Participation of Private Sector Investment (Case Study: Iran)

This article focuses on private sector desires and concerns and tries to answer to one of the main questions of investors related to identifying the most important and investable renewable resource in Iran. The results are expressed by implementation of the Analytic Hierarchy Process model (AHP). Selection of best renewable source with simultaneous consideration of investors criteria is the main result of the research.