Francesc Girbau-Llistuella

Demonstration and experience of the smart rural grid project

This paper aims to detail and illustrate the experiences for the grid-connected mode during the operational phase of the Smart Rural Grid (SRG) project. The SRG project is focused on DSOs capabilities to increase the interoperability, resilience, efficiency and robustness of the existing rural distribution network by the utilization of new Smart Grid technologies. This project is founded by the European Union and it is constituted by an eight partners consortium mixing their know-how in a hybrid smart solution; therefore, power electronics, control theory, telecommunications, distribution system operator energy managing, supervisory systems and end-users coexist in a pilot network. This pilot network includes four rural secondary substations up to 200 kVA interconnected by means of medium voltage rural overhead lines in Vallfogona, Catalonia, Spain.

Operation of rural distribution grids with intermittent generation in connected and island mode using the open source EMS solver SCIP

This paper describes the methodology that is used to optimize a rural microgrid operation, through a local energy management system. The proposed microgrid corresponds to a medium voltage microgrid located in Catalonia. The microgrid is composed by four secondary substations, with photovoltaics generation, an emergency diesel generator and two battery energy storage system. In the proposed problem the main idea is to control the distributed energy resources generation, in order to minimize the operation cost. The optimization problem is solved by using an open source solver called SCIP.

Short-term energy storage for power quality improvement in weak MV grids with distributed renewable generation

The intermittent and stochastic nature of renewable energy sources impose several challenges for the operation of electrical networks, and affect power quality levels as well. This paper addresses one of the issues associated to power quality in electrical networks: voltage flicker. The main contribution of the paper fall in the proposal of a methodology for addressing the location in the network and the sizing of an active filter for flicker filtering. The designed active filter is based on controllable and bidirectional power electronics. Also, it includes energy storage capability, so as to maximize flicker filtering effectiveness by performing both active and reactive power regulation.

Assessment of impact of charging infrastructure for electric vehicles on distribution networks

Charging infrastructure for electric vehicles can impact significantly on distribution systems. Normal charging will be the usual way while fast charging has to be considered as a complement to this. Both charging processes represent a new load for distribution networks. The effect of both normal and fast charging are assesses. Management strategies are proposed for reducing the impact and the results are presented.